Back in Stock!

At last I have the Graduated Spacers back into stock on my eBay shop!

These are one of my favourite, could not do without, tools that I use everyday.

Created by Pam East in the USA these are the original and best set of spacers in my opinion. If you are using metal clays you will notice that more and more books now show these in the tools lists.

I had been holding out on ordering waiting for a better exchange rate to try to keep the price down on them and they have come in at just about the same price as my last lot.

If you want to buy a set you can order them here. My eBay shop stock generally is a bit low at the moment but it will be nice and stocked up again early next week so keep checking back.

This weekend I am at another fair. The Rudgwick Steam and Country Show. I have not done this event before but it looks good fun. The weather forecast for the Bank Holiday weekend is not too bad but it has been raining all week and there are flood warnings out in the area around the show.

Time to pack the wellies I think  ....... :-)

Metal Clay Today Challenge

The latest Challenge is up on the Metal Clay Today website and voting closes tonight so VOTE NOW. Pop straight over there and you might even see a familiar piece in the entries!!!

If you do not already subscribe to Metal Clay Today then please do so while you are there. It is a wonderful FREE online magazine with load of great articles. All you do is put your email address in to subscribe and that is it. Simple. Not many places you can get something really worth having for nothing these days so make the most of it! ;-)

Show Time

This weekend I am in the craft marquee at Shoreham Airshow in West Sussex. I love this show. When I say I am in the marquee all things are relative, I shall be rushing outside as often as possible to see the planes!

It get kind of interesting. The craft marquee is packed with people, there is the roar of a very loud jet engine outside and suddenly there is no one left inside but us standholders so we rush out too. All great fun ;-)

Here is a photo of a few pairs of earrings waiting for finding to top up my stock a bit. You can see I have been on a bit of a Keum Boo phase with the 24k gold!!

Have a good weekend....

A great workshop with Gordon!!

Last weekend I went to Corfe Castle to attend a wonderful 2 day workshop organised by Petra at Silverclay with Gordon Uyehara who had flown over from Hawaii especially to teach. I find Gordon's work to be so inspiring and am a big fan.

We were to make his brilliant bail linked bracelet. Above is the photo of Gordon's example bracelet. Good isn't it!!

There were 14 of us and we had a lovely time. Friendly people and enthusiasm make for a fun weekend.

I was on a table with Ann, Jane and Adela and they were really good company. We all had a laugh as well as working hard. The workshop was quite intensive but when fired bracelets started to emerge from the kilns there were smiles all round. We could not believe what we had managed to create.

We made lots of links and bails...

with Gordon giving us plenty of demos on what we should be doing while we all listened intently...

in between which we worked and giggled!! (Jane on the left and me on the right) ....

and then did more listening and watching - this is Adela concentrating! ...

finally we all breathed a big sigh of relief when our bracelets held together and made it into the kiln...

nearly melted my camera on this shot!! that is about 800c ....

Here are the bracelets the four of us made fresh out the kiln and awaiting finishing. Mine is the largest one at the bottom. No, that does not mean I have fat wrists!!!! I wanted it to fit and like bracelets to be loose anyway .....

So here is my finished bracelet....

and this is the reverse of it. You can see the bail link technique.

This technique definitely needs a lot of patience but is worth it in the end. It has really got me thinking about other designs.

And yes, it does fit, and I love it!

Thank you Gordon.

Busy Times

I've been super busy and having great fun.

Look what I made!!

Details coming tomorrow.....

WIP Rainbow Enamel

Here is the Sea Fan texture test piece using the Rolling Mill Resource texture with one layer of enamel on it. I can't make up my mind whether to put a second layer of enamel on to get a much stronger colours or stick with this subtle slightly faded effect. I do like this.

I shall have a think for a day or so and see :-)

What do you think?

More RMR Textures

I am still playing with my Rolling Mill Resource textures and I haven't even received my second order of patterns yet. This may go on a while so I hope you don't get too fed up with them ;-)

The blossom pattern above is really pretty. As the earrings are quite small it does not show it too it's full advantage but it is nice. These have Enamelled Accents, keum boo and patination.

Below is a new piece ready to be enamelled. This is the Sea Fan texture. When I mentioned on a workshop I was teaching at the weekend that I quite fancied enamelling this texture by filling each hole with enamel colour they enquired whether I had a life or not !!! :))) Can't think why!

He he - that is just me. Out with the magnifier! I am up for the challenge. The stone is 3mm to give you an idea of the scale.

And this is the decorated back with 2mm CZs

Finally here are the pieces from an earlier post with the Mokume Gane Wild 1 texture made up into earrings.

Ok I am off back to the enamelling :-0 

Swirling Chaos

This is the third piece from the last blog post that I have made using the Rolling Mill Resource textures. It has red Enamelled Accents swirls and distressed 24k gold keum boo.

I have a couple more started!!

Rolling Mill Resource Textures

This week I received some lovely textures that I bought from Rolling Mill Resource in the USA. They are small card textures and quite shallow which I thought would be perfect with my Enamelled Accents. I have been having a play with them and am delighted with the results.

The small cards look like this ...

They will not last forever but I can live with that :-). As they are not too expensive I can always buy more but actually it is nice to try new designs all the while.

I made up some pieces to try out my Enamelled Accents technique on .....

and then Enamelled and patinated them .....

the texture on this square catches the light beautifully but it is not easy to show in a photo.

These will make a pair of pretty earrings.

If you are creating jewellery and want to try out the textures you can buy them from the RMR etsy shop here.

The third piece is coming soon ;-)

Busy Times

I know I have not posted for over a week now. Sorry about that. As well as teaching and a fair last weekend I have also been making some competition pieces. Trouble is I can't show them to you yet. The first one is now almost completed so here is a little taster of part of it. You will have to wait until the competition is judged later in the year before I show you the whole piece ;-)

I have been doing quite a bit of teaching my one to one tailor made workshops here in Hastings. Unfortunately I am not very good at remembering to take photos of the work though! Somehow it goes right out of my mind towards the end of the day so I must try harder!!

Here are some pieces that Jane Hawley made on a one day Introductory Art Clay Silver workshop she took with me a while ago and she has kindly photographed her pieces and sent them to me so I can show you. These were Jane's first Art Clay silver pieces and they are really good aren't they. Well done Jane.

More photos coming soon of workshop creations ....