Set a Cab a Month - January 2020

Eye'll Protect You © Joy Funnell

A new year and a new Challenge!!

Last year I did the Make a Ring a Month challenge and I loved it.

This year I'm doing a Set a Cab a Month challenge. 

I decided to do this as I have loads of cabochons I've accumulated over the years and I seldom make any pieces using them.  😮😉

I posted onto Facebook about it and apparently I was not alone!!! 😂

So I started a Facebook group for the challenge and said did anyone want to join me and amazingly the group is already nearly 350 strong!!!

Yes, there are a lot of hoarders out there just like me!!! Here's just a few of my pretties!!! 

I have to admit this month has been busy and I've very much left making this to the last minute. Today is 31st January and I'm  typing the start of this blog post while the piece is in the kiln firing to save a bit of time later!!! 😁

I did at least have an idea in mind so this today I got cracking. 

I have this beautiful little Ocean Jasper cabochon with a really lovely single orb on it which has been just screaming eyeball at me ever since I got it....which is apparently nearly 5 years ago now I've checked back!! 😆

I made a bezel using wire to go around the stone and then embedded that into some textured clay and cut out an eye shape.

Once it was dry I added a thin snake of wet clay around the bezel ...

...and while it was still wet I textured the clay.

I rolled out two more snakes of clay to go on each side of the eye. 

Here's a little tip for you metal clayers. If you want two snakes to be exactly the same thickness roll them both at the same time 😉

Then I laid the snakes on each side and used a ball headed burnisher to impress some indents. 

I made a little bail to complement the pendant. 

Then I refined everything up and joined the bail, so now it was ready for firing!! :D 

 After firing I polished the piece up. Then I enamelled it, patinated it, re-polished and set the stone!!

PHEW!!

I love the Evil Eye, Lucky Eye, Protective Eye symbolism so I called this piece

Eye'll Protect You 

😉😅

This is the back, with my Joy logo of course!! 😊

All in all I'm happy with it. One of the things I really want to do this year is to combine enamelling with stone setting...

...so that's one down!!!

I'll try not to be so last minute next month!!! 😅

Until then...

Have fun!

Joy x