Silver Pendant and Garden Landscapes

 Happy New Year!  We've avoided the snow thankfully but it's been windy and cold so I've been staying warm indoors and getting a little bit of crafting done. 

Before Christmas I made a silver pendant as a Christmas present and also another one as a commission from a friend of a friend, so as the kiln needed to be fired up it seemed a good idea to make a couple of pieces for myself too!

I forgot to photograph the first two pieces what with so much going on - I was just relieved to get them finished in time and boxed up! However, I've just finished polishing this one for myself and I'm pleased with how it came out.  I would have preferred a slightly different stone to the white Moonstone on the left but that is all I had in my stash that toned with the Labradorite and Hematite.  It was taken from a mould of a rough concrete surface and is chunky at about 4cm wide.

And for something completely different I've been playing around in my sketchbook with little landscape collages.  I started with watercolour bases and am just adding bits as and when I feel like it!  I have no idea how they will end up but it's all about the process - they are relaxing and enjoyable and are feeding in to my current obsession with garden landscapes! 

I'm linking up with Sarah over at WOYWW. 

Silver Acorns

In my previous post I showed some silver pendants in production stage that I was making for Christmas presents, and here they are finally finished - all given and well received!   The tiniest one was very fiddly, it's only about half an inch long but it was for my sister to wear alongside an oak leaf that I had made for her a while ago.

Sitting on my desk this week are some prints that I did at a photo printing workshop several years ago.  I brought them home and promptly lost them - it's always niggled me that I never knew what happened to them.  Well this week  they fell out from between the pages of one of my old craft books that I apparently don't look at very often!  They aren't as nice as I remembered - the more frustrated I got at losing them the nicer they became in my mind!!

I can't remember how we made them but it involved real leaves, photo paper and plenty of shaving foam and sudacreme!  Now I'm sitting looking at them wondering if I could use them for anything - the mind is a blank at the moment!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW.

Silver Pendants and WOYWW

 It's been such a long time since I blogged and I don't even have the excuse of having moved over to Instagram!  I've just been unmotivated and rather preoccupied with other issues and I've really not been in the right frame of mind for being creative.  However I couldn't give Christmas a miss, so lately a little crafting has been happening.  I made some silver pendants last week, the ones at the front of the block are white because that's how they come out of the kiln - they need to be wire brushed to bring the shine up like the two at the back, and then they all need to be sanded and polished.

The one at the back of the block I made for myself, from a mold I made of a lump of quartz rock. I finished it last night with some green onyx stones (right-hand photo) and it will match perfectly with a favourite winter top of mine. The smaller pendants are Christmas presents - it won't take long to polish them and add a jump ring to the smallest one.  I'm going to have a go at soldering the jump ring closed if I can - it's not something I've ever done before but I've seen the Hubs soldering and it doesn't look that difficult!

    Wishing everyone a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW

Silver Clay and the New Kiln!

    I was incredibly lucky to be given a small jewellery kiln for Christmas by the Hubs.  What a wonderful man - and he let me use it in the couple of weeks before Christmas so I didn't have to wait for it - he knows me so well!!

This little pendant is a Christmas gift I made for my sister, using silver clay and the new kiln - it's based on a beachcombing theme, using a cuttlefish bone impression for the 'waves' and silver frit for the sand, I topped it off with a piece of pale amethyst 'treasure'.  It's quite small, about 2.5cm across, as my sister does delicate - if it was for me it would be at least twice that size!!

Also pre-Christmas I made little boxes for my nephews for money and gift cards (which they seem to prefer!), and that's the sum total of my Christmas crafting...

... however, shoulder and elbow seem to be improving and I've felt enthused enough to start a page in my sketch book - I don't know where it's going but hopefully it will have changed by next week!  I'm thinking winter garden - a recurring and well loved theme!

 

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

 

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.

Silver Clay Pendants and WOYWW 10th Anniversary

I haven't done much arty crafty stuff lately as I've been making the most of the lovely weather we've been having and working in the garden.  But I have taken a break to mess about with some silver clay.  After doing a wonderful workshop  recentlty I just had to have a go at home, so after a small investment in colours and a larger investment in a UV light box this is my first attempt.  

I had some left over bits of silver clay and had to use them quickly, so I made this second pendant and had a go at setting a stone, which I'd also never done before.  The design emerged from ideas about pollen and seeds, possibly because I've been getting hay fever, but I'm thinking it looks a little bit more like coral!

I'm linking up with WOYWW this week for their 10th Anniversary - what an amazing achievement, I've loved being part of it and look forward to many more weekly meet ups in blog land.

A Happy Anniversary to all you lovely deskers out there and a HUGE thank you to Julia who has kept it all running so smoothly and for so long. 

Silver Jewellery Making

 I've recently discovered the joys of working with silver clay!  Basically it's a clay made of silver particles plus a binder, so you work with it like clay and then when it's fired the binder burns off and you are left with pure silver. 

I've been on a couple of fantastic courses lately, the ammonite pendant was made with Hilary Bowen back in November and I was so thrilled with the whole experience that I was given some clay for Christmas and made the two leaf pendants at home - there is some room for improvement in them but I love wearing them and imperfections are all part of the 'hand-made' look!  Last Saturday I went on another fabulous course with the lovely and super-talented Fiona Ingram who helped me turn my own design into a one-off piece of jewellery with gorgeous shades of autumn colours on the berries - it was such a fun day.   

I'm relieved to say I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week as I've had such horrible and seemingly never-ending computer problems lately.  We had a major crash during a Windows 10 update then big problems while changing our Broadband supplier - soooooo frustrating and quite an eye opener discovering how much I rely on my computer and how much I missed it!