37/52 Joyful Angels

I know it still October, and I hate to even mention it, but I've been thinking ahead to Christmas! A while ago I designed an angel pendant and I wanted to revisit it to make some more for a Christmas photo that I needed to do now.

I decided to make three angels in three different colours - then I hit much indecision as to what shape to make each pendant! So I went for three different shapes as well! :)

I actually still can't decide which I like best. Do let me know your thoughts on it.

The first angel has a lovely turquoise blue heart...and I'm not sure what this shape is called!

I used one of my own textures on the back of each pendant and this one also has a nice sparkly blue zircon stone.

 

The next angel is on a heart shape pendant...and of course it had to have a red heart as well :)

 

The back of this one has a nice sparkly red cz.

 

Finally the third angel has a vibrant green heart and is on a shield shape pendant.

 I decided to go with a lovely pale yellow citrine cz on the back of this one.

Each angel has 24k gold on their halos which I fused to the silver using the keum boo technique. There is a very subtle radiating pattern in the silver around each angel.  

I've now taken the special photos that I wanted so I've listed the angels on website ;)

Do let me know what you think by leaving a comment :)

Have fun!

Joy x 

PS I'm on catch up - two more blog posts coming soon! 

PPS I now have more of my textures back in stock on my website!

32/52 On Angel Wings

One of the things on my challenge list for the year is making more complex stone set rings. Not sure if this is really more complex - but I like it anyway, and I have never made a ring like this before :)

The three stones are lab grown YAG stones, sort of like a garnet. I believe these stones are now no longer made which is very sad because all the colours fire wonderfully in silver clay on the open shelf and the blue and green in this ring don't really have any other equivalents that I know of.

I acquired these stones quite a few years ago. I bought some green YAG from PhoenixMagyk

and Delia was very kind to include some extra stones. These are three of them. I've often looked at them but never been inspired to do anything with them. 

This week I wanted to make another ring and had something very different in mind, but in rummaging around in my stone stash I came across these again and they just struck me as perfect to go with some angel wings, so the plans all changed and this is what I came up with! :)

I think I'll be keeping this one as the stones have a really lovely sparkle, and it's just my size!! ;) (Oh, wasn't that lucky!!). My photos don't really do the stones justice. 

The two wings go around the band and come together at the back.

I put my little Joy logo inside the band at the back (always handy should a bout of amnesia hit!). So there it is - a fine silver angel wing ring :D

Have fun! :)

Joy x

21/52 Cornflower Demo-ing

 OK, so these are not the most complicated metal clay pieces in the world!! :)

The challenge here was doing a 30 minute demo from start to finish. I do quite a few talk/demos about silver clay. There is one particular group that I have been back to several times (they seem to like me!!). Recently I was due back for my sixth talk (this is over several years of course). I have done a different demo each time, including making a small cross, an angel, and an enamelled earrings demo. I was struggling to find something new to show them this time in the very short space of time they allot for the talk.

At the time our garden was full of cornflowers (very pretty and shows a lack of weeding on my part!!). I decided on a cornflower pendant.

So in the space of 30 mins I made a mould from a fresh flower, let it set, made a pendant using Art Clay Silver with a 2mm lab sapphire set into it, dried it and torch fired it. It is so much fun to be able to show people just what you can do with silver clay. I nearly came a cropper this time though as I am used to quenching pieces on a demo, and only just remembered not to at the last minute as I had added a stone!!!

Of course my photo at the top of this post is a bit of a cheat as I didn't enamel or patinate the pendants on the demo, that came later :) 

Not too sure which I like best, with or without colour. What do you think?

Why two of them? Well I did a quick test run in the morning before the demo to make sure it was going to work ;)

Now the same group have already asked me back for next year. What I will come up with next time??

Have fun!

Joy

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

Challenging Times!

 

Just in the nick of time here are my challenge pieces for August! My Four A Month pieces are called Enamelling Fun (for obvious reasons!!). Bright and colourful, I have enjoyed making these.

 

The first one is called Japanese Sunset. This is a piece I have had in the back of my mind for a long time and I was pleased with the result when I finally made it! OK, so here is a bit of cheating as this is also my Bird A Month for August. Apologises, I have tried not to be sneaky like this but this month got a bit busy!

 

The next piece is called Rainbow Sprite's Flower. A while ago someone called me a Rainbow Sprite, (thank you Terry Kovalcik!) and, well I do like my colours and I was wearing my rainbow waistcoat! I kind of liked the name so I thought I would use it for this piece.

 

The next one I called Serenity. It is a simple pendant with peaceful green and blue songbirds.

 

Finally I have called this one Summer Blackbird. This is the third piece I have made with a blackbird on, each one different. This time I thought I would add a few bright colourful flowers and a bright shining sun to the pendant.

 

I do realise that with everyone I have had going on my blog has been a bit neglected this past month. Sorry for that.

 

I have lots of things to tell you and pieces to post so blogging is about to become a lot more frequent!!

 

This weekend I shall be at the RAFA Shoreham Airshow in the Craft Marquee. Do come along and say hello. It is always a great show :)

 

Have fun!

 

Joy