November Four a Month - stone set pendants

Bear with me - my Four a Month is done and coming soon - but Blogger won't seem to let me upload any photos :(

 

I have tried several times so I may have to try again tomorrow.

 

Meanwhile... I will be doing a craft fair in Rye tomorrow at the Community Hall from 11am to 5pm.

 

I would love to see you there! :)

 

Joy x

Bird a Month 11/12 - Night Owl

 

Here is my Bird a Month for November. I know I have done owls before but everyone keeps asking so I thought I would make another, and he is a variation on a theme ;-)

 

He has bright yellowy orange eyes and an alert look!

 

This little fine silver pendant measures about 26mm in diameter and the reverse is set with a lovely little orange CZ.

 

I am currently updating my Etsy shop and adding new things all the while, and this little guy is already there!

 

Updating the shop on my website is my next job.

 

Only one more bird now for the end of the challenge. It is time to start thinking about next years challenges. Any ideas?

 

Joy x

Christmas is coming!

So... what is on your wish list for Christmas?

 

If you are into metal clay and are thinking of buying an online workshop now is the time!

 

CraftArtEdu have a 25% discount on one class of your choice if you buy it by 30th November!!

 

There are lots of great classes on there. You will find two workshops by me, my Ritzy Rings and Retro Circles Chain with variations as well as other metal clay workshops by Gordon Uyehara and Lorena Angulo!! 

 

My Ritzy Rings is a great technique for making lovely strong rings, and I have my very own Retro Circles, an easily mastered chain making technique which can be used for chains, bracelets, earring and pendants.

 

Check out the workshop previews now!!

 

Don't miss out on this great offer :)

Joy x

 



Crafts at Cooden Beach

 

Tomorrow and Saturday I am doing a fair at Cooden Beach Hotel. I really like this fair, it is a lovely venue as the hotel is right on the beach and the people are always really nice.

 

Today I have been enamelling some more earrings as I sold out of all my blue and green earrings at my last fair. I also finished another pair of my Sakura earrings with a matching pendant. Normally I patinate like all the rest of my pieces and then the little branches go a nice brown, however I think I might leave these bright silver. These also have some purple on which I don't normally add.

 

I have also been having a good sort out of my half made pieces and scrap silver clay.

 

Below are three pieces that I finished off out of them. The cross is made using little branches from my fuchsia bush. I may yet decide to enamel the bee piece :)

 

Below are the backs of the three pieces. They can all be worn either way round.

 

 

I shall be finishing all of these off tonight to take to the fair, and I shall be listing new work for sale on my website and in my Etsy shop next week :)

 

Joy x

October Four A Month - Colourful Rings

 

I've made it (well almost!). This is the last of my late challenge pieces.

 

Colourful Rings! - my Four A Month for October.

 

These four rings are all fine silver made using Art Clay Silver. The first three have the stone fired in place. The one above is called Pink Diamond.

 

Below is Green Sunshine.

 

 

The next one is called Purple Dots. It has a slightly different construction method to the other two, which are made using my Ritzy Rings technique.

 

And finally this one is called Rustic Red Too. This has the same construction technique as the previous ring but the stone is set after firing. This gorgeous red CZ is a stone I brought home from my Japan trip a couple of years ago. You may remember I made me a ring called Rustic Red earlier this year using one of these stone but then sold it straight away :( I blooged about it back in July.

 

This one I really do plan to keep for me! It is on my finger now as I type...

 

 

... and to show it really is mine I put my name on the outside at the back of the band. That could be really handy if I forget who I am... ;-)

 

 

Here are all four ring together.

 

Now I just have to finish this months challenges and I am totally up to date.

 

I guess I will need a good finale for my December pieces - time to get thinking!!

 

Have fun :)

 

Joy x

A Quick Play with Faux Bone

 

At the end of September I went to the Art Clay Festival in Switzerland. I had a lovely time!! I had great students on my two workshops and met wonderful people from all around the world. The whole event was exceptionally well organised by Erna Piechna-Sowersby and her husband Harry of  Creative Glass in Zurich and Rochester UK. They were the most gracious hosts.

 

One delightful person I had the pleasure to met and spend a little time with was Melissa Cable who had flown over from the USA to teach Faux Bone. Melissa was standing in at the last minute for Robert Dancik, the creator of Faux Bone, who could not come due to a back problem.

 

I have looked at Faux Bone before, and indeed even had a small stash on my shelf. I bought it with great enthusiam a couple of years ago and then didn't really know what I was doing with it so there it just sat. It is basically a type of plastic that Robert uses to make wonderful things that often do have the look of carved bone to them.

 

Melissa was working with this material in different ways and showed me lots of her samples, and she really quite inspired me to revisit it and give it another go.

 

Today I took delivery of a small set of alcohol ink pens for colouring the Faux Bone so I dived right in and just made this little rainbow bangle. There is no great skill involved in making this, as you can see!! I just wanted to try the pens and heating a bit of FB to get a few ideas going in my head.

 

I plan to work more with this material and to combine it with silver. We will see what happens. Melissa and I are also going to work on a project together which is going to be fun!

September Four A Month - Colourful Carnival Masks

 

Here are my Four A Month Challenge pieces for September. Four Colourful Carnival Mask pendants. They are all made in fine silver using Art Clay Silver and have Enamelled Accents. I have already posted two of these masks before, but my intention was always to make four new masks for a FAM entry so here they all are.

 

I am really enjoying making these masks now. They have come a long journey since the first one  I made (that I still use on my website, cards etc) back in 2009.

 

The first of the four is my little alien mask. OK, so maybe not so much of a traditional carnival mask but he is fun! I called him VMA - why? Well - because he is a Venetian Mask Alien!! :)

 

This little fella didn't hang around long and zoomed off to a new home on his first outing to a craft fair! I think I shall make more little aliens!

 

The next one I have called Cosmic Rainbow as she also seems to have something a little space age about her to me, but someone else who saw her could see a sort of 1920s flapper style in her. That is what I so love about this type of jewellery - we all see different things in it!

 

 

The next two masks I have blogged about before so I will just remind you of their names and you can look back on the blog if you want to read more about them.

 

This one is Japanese Mystery...

 

 

... and this one is Arcbaleno all Moda.

 

 

I shall be teaching a workshop on making these masks in June next year up in the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors.

 

I have also just taught this for the first time to two wonderful students and I shall be posting photos of the masks they made really soon!!

 

Have fun!

 

Joy x

Bird a Month 10/12 - Peacock Splendour

 

OK, I am on catch up now :) Long time no blog, (bad blogger - wrist slapped!) and I have challenges to get up to date with!!

 

So first of all my Bird a Month Challenge. Here is my piece for last month, I've called it Peacock Splendour (for obvious reasons!).

 

It is a fine silver pendant made using Art Clay Silver and has Enamelled Accents and an aquamarine cz stone.

 

This is one of two pieces I have recently made using QuikArt Ultralite templates from Metal Clay Supply in the USA. These templates are designed to allow you to save clay but I ended up using them a different way to create texture plates and I am quite pleased with the outcome. I post more about how I used them in the future.

 

Below is another piece made the same way. I have called this one Rainbow Zing as it is so bright and colourful :) 

 

Next I will get my Four a Month Challenge back up to date, and then I can make my pieces for this month!

 

Still, I guess it is better to be too busy than bored!! ;)

 

Have fun!

 

Joy