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

In Print!

 

I was delighted to hear yesterday that one of my pieces had been juried into The Art & Design of Metal Clay Jewelry and More 2013 calendar! My Piece is my lovely fine silver and enamel seagull brooch called Wot! No Fish? Joyful Jewellery! I was so pleased, this is the third year I have submitted work for the calendar and the third time I have been accepted!!

 

The calendar is created by the wonderful Holly Gage, and you can read all it and see thumbnails of each page here. It looks like it is stuffed full of wonderful pieces and I feel very privileged to be a part of it:) It is available to pre order now and will brighten up any wall, or make a great Christmas present!!

 

I am also delighted to tell you that the book Metal Clay & Color is now out and I have a chapter in it! I was invited to write a project about enamelling and I called my piece Luminosity.

 

Here is a little sneaky preview of my chapter. There are 24 excellent projects in the book covering lots of different techniques for adding colour to metal clay. You can buy it at various places including Amazon.

 

With the run up to Christmas about to start I have quite a few fairs booked over the next three months, but I am also teaching all the while as well, so if you are thinking about coming to Hastings for a workshop with me just get in touch! I still have dates available ;-)

 

Have fun :)

 

Joy

A Colourful Life

This is why I so love colours and textures!......

Tomorrow is my first fair of the year. It is only a small one in Bexhill on Sea but it should be fun. It is organised by a local community association and as well as the craft stands they are doing a big fair trade promotion with all the refreshments side so it should be fun.

I have been making more stock as I was a bit low on the smaller items. Above is a photo of pieces made in the plain silver.  Add a bit of enamel and a liver of sulphur patina and hey presto!

Now doesn't that just brighten up your life? :)

If you are interested in learning how to zing up your jewellery with some colour check out my enamelling workshops. There is a link at the top of my blog and I would love to meet you.

I have more exciting news coming soon about classes as well.

Watch this space.... :)

Four a Month -1- Have a Heart

You may recall at the beginning of the year I said I was going to undertake two particular challenges.

 One was my Bird a Month, and thank you to all those who have posted photos so far. Even if you have not there is no time like the present to start!

The other was the Four A Month Challenge. Here are my first four pieces for that challenge and they are (as I am sure you will notice!) all hearts!

All four pieces are fine silver made using Art Clay Silver. The earrings above have lovely red Enamelled Accents hearts.

I made this one with a fine silver snake shaped into a heart.

These have lab rubies fired in place in the fine silver, and finally..... my favourite of the four. A fine silver heart with an enamelled scroll design below.

I really enjoyed making all of these and in fact they have gone off to a shop in London for sale.

So now it is February and time to start the challenges again :)

Bird a Month 1/12- Peace Bird

My first bird of 2012! I know some people had expected my last Bird a Week entry to be enamelled so to make up here is a reversible lentil bead style pendant with enamel on both sides!

It is made of fine silver using Art Clay Silver and has Enamelled Accents on one side with a rainbow dove of peace.

On the reverse is a bright enamelled rainbow sunburst and it is set with three tiny 1.5mm cz stones and my Joy logo.

I have been trying to decide whether to continue my little Haiku poems for this year or not. Any thoughts?

I would quite understand if you have had enough  of them...!!! ;-)

Zingyness and a Sheep!

Well, these two could not be much more different could they?

Firstly, above is a new Discoidal Ring. I have called this one Zingyness, for obvious reasons!

The second one is another piece of Joyful Jewellery with a cute sheep on it. The piece is called - wait for it - A Bit Sheepish. How original is that! :))

I will be teaching both of these are styles as workshops soon so watch this space for details ......

 

Bird a week 39/52 - Wot... No Fish?

Yay, now I am almost back up to date again. Today I made this fine silver brooch with enamel.

This one is back in the more humorous vein! I think it is also one of my favourites of the year so far. Living in a seaside town we see a LOT of seagulls!

We have a beach fishing fleet where the boats are launched off the beach and hauled back up again each day so there are always loads of gulls around the Old Town of Hastings. 

It is quite small measuring 24mm x 42mm.

Here is the Haiku

Sitting by the sea

Waiting for returning boats

Wot.. no fish today?



Bird a Week 15/52 - Where Bluebirds Fly

My 15th bird a week entry! The year is flying by.

This weekend I am teaching at the Guild of Enamellers conference so I made this a workshop example as well.

Just a simple rainbow and some blue birds enamelled on a silver pendant using my Enamelled Accents technique. It measures approx 34mm in diameter.

The reverse is a paper texture made using my friend Lynne Glazzard's technique. It is set with a 3mm CZ.

And...... wait for it.....  here is my haiku poem.... :)

Where bluebirds fly

Hope is springing eternal

I see a rainbow

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....

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 ;-)

Buzzy Enamelling

These titles get worse don't they :-)

Here is a pair of tiny bee earrings that I have just been enamelling. The honeycomb is patinated with Liver of Sulphur. Cute aren't they. I have to use my magnifier working when this small, the optician says it is my age! (thanks a lot!!)

Below is a rather chunky pendant I made a while a go but have only just enamelled. It is reversible with bubbles on one side ...

and stars on the other...

and then patinated for good measure! I am still trying to think of a good name for this piece.

You will remember a few blog posts ago I showed you a couple of Enamelled Accents workshop examples I had been making. If you missed it here is a quick link to it.

I have now patiniated these so here are some new photos.

I do love patiniating things, it really brings up the textures doesn't it.

Workshop Examples - work in progress!

Oh dear, so sorry - I didn't realise how long it was since I last posted!

I have been busy teaching and time just slips away doesn't it.

Anyway, I promised some more examples for the Art Clay UK Conference in September. I wasn't going to post these until they were finished but as I have not got that far yet and I want to show you I have been doing something (!) here is some work in progress.

These pieces have background textures using my good friend and co teacher at the conference Lynne Glazzard's paper texture technique. Then I have added some Enamelled Accents. This piece will be patinated with Liver of Sulphur to bring up the textures.

The reverse below is decorated as well. (OK hands up - is it just me who thinks Mickey Mouse every time I look at this shape or do you agree?  :) !! )

The second piece is again using a paper texture on the front. As well as the Enamelled Accents this time I have also added some gold fused to the surface using the Keum Boo technique but with a twist.

You will see the gold is slightly patchy at the mo but actually I am really pleased as this was just torch fired on and burnished. I have been experimenting with torch firing the gold and was surprised just how easily it took. I scrubbed the piece really well after to see if the gold was really fused and most of it was. I shall reapply to cover the patchy areas and experiment further.

Below is the reverse of this piece and again it is also awaiting being patinated.

I'll post the finished pieces soon....

Ooooh now I'm Online!

If you missed the article about my Carnevale Venezia Mask pendant in Making Jewellery Magazine you can now read it online! Just click this link to the Making Jewellery website :)

And the winner is.....

CHERYL!!!

Congratulations Cheryl, please email your details and I will get the Purple Heart pendant off in the post to you.

Well that was fun. I'll do another sometime.

Hopefully this week I will start to get back to normal a bit as it has been so hectic for the last few weeks. More pictures of new work coming soon I promise.

My First Blog Giveaway

At the recent Art Clay conference in Jersey I taught my Enamelled Accents workshop. I really enjoyed it and hopefully so did everyone who took it. I had people from all over Europe, South Africa and of course the UK on it. As it was only a 3 hour workshop it was a bit of a rush (to say the least!) but we got there in the end and everyone made really good pieces. I could not have managed without my good friend Lynne grinding enamels and overseeing the enamelling in the kilns. Thanks Lynne.

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Anyway to celebrate the workshop going well and as I am in happy mood after my wins at the conference I thought I would have my first blog giveaway.

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This Purple Heart pendant was a piece I made as an example of the technique of Enamelled Accents. It measures 23mm across is hanging on a dainty 16" sterling silver snake chain. The photo above shows you the front and the back of it and you can wear it either way round.

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All you have to do is leave me a comment on this blog post. On Sunday 1st November I'll put the names in a hat and get hubby to draw one out and this lovely little pendant will be winging its way to the winner.

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Everyone is welcome to enter no matter where you are in the world so tell your friends. Only one entry each though :)

More Enamelled Accents...

Ah got there at last! Now it is letting me upload photos.

So here is a new piece I have finished as an example for the conference. Haven't quite decided on a name for this one yet. Any suggestions? I rather like this flower. The enamels are Catallya Japanese enamels from Zama UK. I love this yellow.

These pieces are examples of the sort of things that we should have time to make on the workshop at conference. I am trying to stick with fairly simple for everyone to just get the idea of the technique with the short time and limited resources that are available. The workshop is only 3 hours long and we are making the piece from start to finishing the enamelling. I think the main issue might be queues at the kilns :-)

Can't wait to get to Jersey now for a great weekend.

Rainbow Flower - Enamelled Accents

Here is another Enamelled Accents piece. The colours have not photographed as well as I would like but you get the idea. A bit bigger (34mm in diameter) and a bit more complicated than the last one. I can't quite make up my mind whether to patinate this so I thought I would photograph it first and then try to see which I like better. I'll post the patinated version tomorrow when I have got it done. It has a very light texture to the whole surface so I am thinking that will emphasise it more. We shall see...