4/52 - Amorness

This week's challenge piece is mainly about technique. I have been playing with trying to set lots of small stones quickly and easily. So far it is working quite well, but I still need to do a bit more testing and refining. The surface of this piece is a mottled texture.

So here is the piece ready to go into the kiln to be fired. It is made using Art Clay Silver and as you can see it is quite small. After firing the heart shape measures about 23mm x 23mm, and overall including the bail piece is about 32mm high.

I polished it up to make it nice and shiny, and then added an enamelled heart the centre using my Enamelled Accents technique. I had debated putting a black heart into the centre, but bright and happy colours won out!!

Finally I added a chain. This chain is made up of sections of commercial sterling silver chain. Another thing on my challenge list* for the year is using up some of the hundreds of beads I have!! Oh yes, in the past I have been an avid collector of beads, but seldom used them!! I do have rather a large stash :) These little transparent beads are made by the wonderful Laura Sparling. I have LOTS of Laura's beads!!! So I worked out how to put them in place onto the chain without using crimp beads to hold them in place. OK...so this is not rocket science, but it is something I haven't been doing before, and I like the result so I plan to do more in the future!! :)

Here is a photo of the back of the piece. I kept it simple with a nice texture, and I didn't really see any place for my JOY logo so I decided not to add it. 

*I don't think I have yet mentioned my challenge list! At the beginning of the year when I decided to undertake this challenge I started writing down techniques and ideas for pieces. The more drawers I looked in the more things I found that I'd bought in the past - always with wonderful intentions for making things!!! - and never used! Don't we all do that??? The list has already grown to over 30 things. Some ideas will be combined and some reused in several pieces over the year - but I really hope to try to get through most of them by December! I'll keep you posted with the progress ;)

Have fun!

Joy x