Wooden Texture Stamps!!

I've recently been playing with these lovely textures!!! I saw them a while ago and thought they looked fun. They are made by Sandra and René of Metal Clay Shop in Luxembourg. After I asked them about the the textures they very kindly sent me these two designs to have a play with!! Lucky me 😊

They are crisply cut in natural wood and there are five different designs to choose from. Each side of the wood block has the design on so you get the same design in three different sizes. Large on one side and medium and small on the other. 

If you are looking to buy new textures why not try these out, they will post them worldwide! 

AND there's never been a better time than now to support each other in our metal clay community too 😊

Being made of wood you get a nice wood grain texture in the recessed areas of design when impressed onto metal clay. 

Of course, me being me, I wanted to play a bit more than a straight imprint from the textures 😉😂

I started off with the giraffe.  I wanted to add eyes and also shape the pendant. First I needed something to dry it on so it had a more 3D shape. A spoon seemed perfect so I taped a teaspoon onto a card. 

As I wanted to enamel the pendants I worked in Art Clay Silver 999. 

I rolled the clay out and then textured it on both sides. After using a needle tool to cut out around the giraffe shape I shaped the neck over the handle of the spoon and the head over the back of the bowl. Then I left it to dry on the spoon.

(NOTE - if you have a go at this make sure your spoon is not made of aluminium as that will react with the silver clay and then it won't fire properly 😉)

Once the giraffe was nice and dry I refined the edges and added a disc of clay behind each eye to add thickness. This was so I could use a stone setting burr to set a black fireable stone in place for each eye 😊 I also used a baby wipe to wipe very lightly over the texture to just smooth the very top of all the raise parts so they would polish up nicely after firing. 

I also added a bail onto the back of the pendant. 

For the owl I wanted sparkly orange eyes so I added a little disc of clay onto the eye area and carved a little texture onto it. Then I set orange fireable czs in place.

All ready for firing!!! 

Once fired and polished it was time to enamel. 

I went for nice bright colours on each of them...of course!!  😁

One rainbow owl...

...and this is the back of the owl...

...and one rainbow-ish giraffe!! 

...and the back of him

I had a lot of fun with these textures. The detail on them is really nice and lovely for enamelling!! They would also be great used with patinas or resins 😁

I do hope you try them out, and until next time...

have fun!

Joy x

Set A Cab A Month - March 2020

Oops!! Well this is a bit late!!! 😃

Medieval Mystery © Joy Funnell

I did actually finish this pendant for the Set A Cab A Month challenge in March... but only just!!! 

Life got a bit hectic so I only started making my piece at about 4pm on 31st March!! 😉There was no way I was going to fail at making a piece for a challenge that I started! It HAD to be done! 

This meant that the idea I had for my March piece was put on hold (watch this space in April for that one!!) and I went searching for something I could make in one evening!! lol

I found a blank ready made silver pendant that I had left over from the ones I made for teaching my Embellish! workshop at YCMI. I'd made a few extra so everyone could choose which textures they wanted, so that was lucky!! 

I fished out some fine silver bezels cups and the plan was to solder them onto the pendant. I have to say I had no real clue what I was doing with this piece and where it was going. I hadn't even looked to see what cabochons to use!! I was just going for it.

I put some paste solder under each bezel cup and heated the piece to solder them on. I was fairly sure I'd be quite lucky if I managed to solder all the bezel cups on in one go...

...and indeed whilst they all looked like the might of flowed the moment of truth is always after they have been in the pickle!!! 😂

As expected not all the bezel cups were soldered when I tested each one. Interestingly though I was left with a nice pattern as the larger cups were all firmly attached but only two of the smaller ones were. This immediately made me realise I gone a bit mad with bezel cups anyway to start with, so I just re-soldered one more small one on to even up the design.

Then I made some small spirals of fine silver wire and attached them to the pendant. It made a much nicer design that my original one!! 

So...what to add next...GOLD!

Oh yes, everything is better for a bit of gold!! 😀

By now it was running late into the evening as I'd stopped to cook dinner, eat it and watch a bit of TV with hubby!!! Possibly not the best idea but there you go 😂 

I found a small circle punch to cut out some discs of gold foil...

...which I added by heating the silver and burnishing the gold onto the surface using the Keum Boo method. I like adding gold like this onto spirals. Because the surface of the spiral is very uneven as it won't all fuse on so some bits of gold will come away afterwards. I call this distressed keum boo and I've used it quite a bit in the past!! 😉😁

Next was the fun bit - could I find a nice combination of cabochons. Now I will admit to having a slight panic at this point when I couldn't find any nice 8mm round cabs for the centre stone. However eventually I located a bag with a few in including this nice turquoise. To go with that I choose 3 x 6mm vintage red foil backed Swarovski crystals and 3 x 2mm rose cut (with a faceted top) amethyst cabs. With the gold I thought it made a nice rich colour combination 😃

Then I debated holes!! Well why not 😉 I marked them out with a pencil first to check I liked the idea...

...then drilled them.

After that I patinated the whole piece to turn all the silver a nice dark colour and give a good contrast with the gold. 

Finally I polished up the pendant a bit and then set all the cabochons. 

I took a few quick photos and managed to post it into the Set a Cab A Month Facebook group at 23.20!!! 😅 

Phew!

I love the combination of the cabs with gold and darkened silver 😃 

It's the first time I've used rose cut cabs too and they really catch the light and sparkle. I shall look for more of them  😊

Until next time....

Have fun!!!

Joy x

PS watch out for a new blog post on some exciting textures coming VERY soon!!! 😊

Set A Cab A Month - February 2020

Shimmering Cloud © Joy Funnell

Fine silver with enamel and an Ethiopian Opal, made using Art Clay Silver. 

Here is my piece for February for the Set A Cab A Month challenge 😊

This was very much a 'designed on the hoof' piece!!! 😂

It started out with a textured bit of clay that I demo-ed in a workshop. Looking at the piece afterwards I decided maybe I could make something more of it 😉

I searched through my stash of cabs and found a lovely oval Ethiopian Opal Cabochon which I've had for several years, and set about thinking what to add next. 

I found a texture with radiating designs that could go behind where I was going to put the stone. 

I thought the easiest thing to do was to make a back plate for the original piece that could be added to it easily once dry. 

The back plate was roughly cut out, then refined after drying....

...and the two pieces of silver clay were joined using just water. 

I used fine silver wire to make the bezel for the opal. This would be added after firing. 

Then I searched through my stash of pre-made bits and found a pair of loops that looked a good fit!! 😁

I joined the loops to the main pendant and set about decorating the back...

...rolling out some tiny snakes to add, plus a little flower motif plus, of course, my Joy logo!! 😉

The it was off to the kiln with it for firing.

After firing I polished the pendant up and then added the bezel for the cab. 

I had originally thought I would solder this on, but I also wanted to enamel the pendant.... so I decided to add the bezel using Art Clay Overlay Silver Paste. This brilliant paste easily joins fired pieces of silver together and was perfect for adding the bail to the surface. It has the added advantage of filling gaps under the edge of the bezel where the texture is, where solder is not so happy to, and doesn't re-flow like solder would each time the piece goes back in the kiln for enamelling 😀

Now I have to say this is not my normal sort of colour palette!!! I went with matching the colours of the super sparkly opal using yellow, green and orange. I was a slightly dubious having not actually tested the combination in advance but it turned out a really lovely combo and matched the opal beautifully (though I say so myself!! lol ) 😃

After enamelling I patinated the pendant, re-polished it, set the opal into the bezel, and thought about what to hang it on. I went with a black satin cord with red transparent glass beads as I thought they set off the bright colours nicely 😀

The opal has a wonderful play of colours in it which is hard to capture in the photos.  

Overall I'm very happy with the piece and I'm enjoying the challenge of actually using some of my cabs!!

Until next time...

...have fun!!

Joy x

Ring a Month 2019 - December

This is my ring for December for the Ring a Month Challenge 2019.

This is 

Jimbug © Joy Funnell

The theme for the month was Creatures.

This is quite a long winded post - you have been warned!! 😉

When I started on this challenge in January 2019 one of my personal things was to try to use left over elements that I have already laying around. I've managed this with varying success over the months. This month I'm pleased to say that apart from the ring band all the elements were pre-made pieces of clay I had laying around 😀

There's a little story to the main element that sparked my idea for this ring. In November I was teaching a 1-2-1 workshop and we were making Christmas decorations. The main thing to be made was a teddy bear (which was very successful I would add), but during the day I was playing with one or two other ideas my workshop attendee had had while she was working on teddy. One was a snowdrop. I made a little template up and cut out a piece of textured clay to form into a flower shape. In the process of mucking about with it I laid it down and we both said - oh look - a cricket!! 😂

I left it on one side to dry as the shape was quite nice. 

When the theme for the December ring was announced I immediately thought of the little bug shape. 

All year through this challenge I've wanted to do at least one ring with a cabochon (cab) in it. 

I've had this ammolite cab for ages - it has gorgeous colours but the finish is not top quality - there again I was given it as a freebie with some other stones I bought so I can't complain 😉 

I realised it was a perfect size and shape for my little bug so I set about creating!!

In order to fit the cab into the wing shapes so it could be the body of the bug the first thing I did was to remove the bottom 'petal'. Then I found an old piece of textured clay I could make a base from. It was quite big...

...and had been used for practising creating textures on various workshops in the past on the reverse!!! As that side wouldn't be seen that didn't matter. I laid the wings onto it, drew out the rough shape I wanted and then scored the clay. 

After scoring it was easy to gently bend the clay and break away all the excess, much quicker than cutting it back or filing 😊

I fixed the wings to the new base and dried it...

...and then added the original 'petal' base plate back in as that would be the support for the cab to sit on.

From my box of dried bits of clay I found two pieces for eyes and some curly bits!! lol

These were added and my little Jimbug was starting to come to life 😊

The textured surface of the head suggested a natural little smiling mouth so I just went with it and emphasised it more. 

He was very cute sitting on my fingers 😂

Now I needed a ring band. I didn't have one made in my size so I had a good think of something different I could do. I rolled out a snake of clay using the Rollmakers (if you previously missed seeing what Rollmakers are check out this blog post 😉).

After rolling the snake I then flattened it to a thickness of 2mm (8 cards). It gave a nice effect and I'll use this again. I wrapped it onto a ring mandrel and joined the ends. 

I neatened the join and then added little Jimbug onto the band.

Once he was nice and dry he was already for firing. I like to fire rings with large topper elements standing upright supported by a bit of fibre wool.

Once he was fired and cooled I used pliers to adjust his wings so the cab would easily slide into place. 

I polished up the silver and patinated it to give a nice contrast in the textures and make them stand out. 

 

Finally I set the Ammolite cab into place. To be sure it would be really safe I used a little glue under it and then I gently bent the wings in tightly to hold the cab in place. I don't think the cab would of fallen out without the glue but it would of wobbled a bit and I wanted it to be nice and firmly in position. 

And so Jimbug was finally ready!!

Depending on the angle of the light the Ammolite cab shines reds, yellows and greens. 

I've made a little video of him to give you a better idea of the colours in the cab 😀

So that's it - the twelfth ring!!! 

I've really enjoyed this challenge and I've definitely made some pieces I would never of dreamt of back in January.

I was thinking of what to do next year and a couple of weeks ago (after I had already started making this piece) I had an idea to start a challenge to

Set a Cab a Month in 2020.

I've created a Facebook group for that and asked if anyone wanted to join me - and we already have nearly 250 members!! Wonderful 😊

This ring is the perfect crossover from making a Ring a Month to getting ready to start my Setting a Cab a Month challenge. Please do join in next years challenge if you want to :D

So until next time...

Have Fun!!

Joy x