Silver Mandala Pendant

 Still keeping busy during lock down and still keeping to quite a regimented routine.  Giving myself an allotted time slot each day to craft has made me focus my mind on how I'm spending that time and I'm being more productive and doing less 'pottering'!    
Here's a silver clay pendant I've made this week using a lovely mandala style texture plate that I've been itching to use for a while now. 

The wet clay pendant was dried over a light bulb to give it the domed shape before firing.

I'm often asked what silver clay is when I post about it, so I thought I'd give a brief description for anyone interested - it's made of pure silver particles mixed together with clay to act as a binder.  When it's fired the clay binder burns off leaving just the pure silver behind.  It is a little purer than the 935 that you usually see on silver (which indicates 93.5% of pure silver) and can be hallmarked by an assay office as 999 (99.9% pure silver) if anyone has the inclination or money to do so!

Smaller pieces (around 15g of clay or less) don't need to be kiln fired and can be fired at home using a kitchen blow torch.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week. 

I hope you are all staying safe and well.

Playing with Silver

 In between making scrubs bags as mentioned last week, I have been giving myself craft and gardening breaks to ease the monotony of bag making!  This week I decided to have a play around with some silver clay.

I've been wanting to make a silver ivy leaf pendant for a while now, and so using a selection of ivy leaves from the garden and an ivy leaf veiner I found in my cake decorating kit I got stuck in!

This is what my desk looked like during the week.  First a plasticine model of what I wanted to make - this is always a useful thing to do, it gives an idea of whether the design works and also the technicalities of putting it together.  It was then made in clay and left to dry (at this point I had added the bezel as I knew I wanted to add a decorative stone).  Once it's been sanded and then fired it's time to polish, and this is my favourite bit!  It's hard to see in the last photo but the two right hand points of the leaf have started to be polished and are turning from a white matt to a lovely bright silver colour.  It can feel quite magical.

Finally the stone was added and after a lot more polishing it's ready to wear.  I chose a pale moonstone to blend with a lot of my spring/summer clothes.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.
Hope you are all keeping safe and well. 

A Gold and Silver Tag

The theme over at Tag Tuesday is Gold and Silver. 

 Although not easy to see I started with a silver wash over the Kraft card tag but unfortunately the camera has had difficulty picking up the shimmer from it.  

Sew Busy and WOYWW

I completely missed Wednesday last week!  Somehow the days are melding into each other and I'm losing track of doing all the regular things like WOYWW and putting the bins out!

I do have a good excuse as I've been busy sewing laundry bags for front line NHS staff - they will hopefully help reduce the risk of contamination by allowing scrubs to go straight into the washing machine while in the bag, therefore reducing the amount of handling needed.

My dining room table is now my desk and someone kindly donated a huge pile of old cotton fabric that can withstand a 60° wash - here are the first dozen bags I made.

I am linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week -

I hope you are all staying safe and well, and managing to be busy and creative!

Bunnies and Butterflies Tag

The theme over at Tag Tuesday is Bunnies and Butterflies.  So here is my Spring offering - a little more pink than planned but I struggled to work the colours around the stamp, which I was determined to use!

Gardening Card and WOYWW

 I made a birthday card for the Hubs this week and decided on a gardening theme.  He's spent most of the week outside preparing the vegetable tubs, making bases for them to stand on, sowing seeds and generally tidying the patio ready for vegetable growing.  I thought the card was quite apt!

I hope everyone is staying safe and well.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW