Pretties for Pennies

If you follow me on Facebook you've probably seen pictures posted of "the really big project"' which is my enamel testing project. I have been using pennies (yes, it's legal. I checked everything out first.) to test fire all of the enamel colors to see how they react with the copper and the torch flame. The pennies all have to be from 1981 or earlier (1982 pennies have very little actual copper in them!), and I've needed approximately 170 of them. Let me tell you, it's surprisingly hard to come by those old pennies! So, what i did was offer all my coworkers and friends "pretties for pennies". If they donated pennies to my project I made them a necklace in return; whatever their favorite color enameled on a copper washer and finished with a simple cord. Like this...

Not too bad for $.5 or $.10, right?

I'm still on the lookout for those pennies. I will have my project finished in about $.50. :-)

Here's a quick look at what I'm doing with them. 

What I've been working on lately...

I've been trying out the new copper clay from the makers of Art Clay Silver. It doesn't require a firing vessel or carbon medium to fire. It also fires in a significantly shorter amount of time.

My pal, Krissi Sandvik (creator of Skelekitty) has created some art stamps from her original artwork. For fun, I thought I would try them out with the new copper clay. NOTE: the stamps are copywritted and used with permission. Always get permission before using copywritted stuff in your art/craft-even for personal use!

I have done a step-by-step on metal clay before so I will skip it this time and show you some simple ways to make the design POP. The yarn ball didn't impress as well as I would have liked, so I wanted to do something to bring it out a bit. I swabbed some alcohol ink on the yarn ball portion of the design let it dry thoroughly (about 30 seconds) and then buffed the pendant with a polishing cloth. The ink on the top of the piece buffed off, but the ink in the recesses remained.

From there, I added white acrylic paint over the skelekitten portion of the pendant and let dry to tacky, but not completely dry (hard to get off when totally dry), then buffed again.

The paint highlights the bones on the skelekitten. Tomorrow, when everything is completely dry and set I will spray the pendant with a light coat of acrylic sealant, to protect the colors on the pendant.

Just a quick note...

Just a quick note, Juli's Jewels blog has had a little down time. I moved recently, and, well we all know what that's like! My new DSL service should be up and running before the end of the week and then I will show you what I've been doing.

(hint: I've been playing with the new copper clay made by the Art Clay people and some of Skelekitty's fabulous stamps.)

August Fun for Everyone

August fun for everyone!

Here is a small sampling of what new fun I’ve been up to this past week. Copprclay pieces, all one of a kind, are just waiting to be turned into jewelry. All of the pairs have already been made into earrings (the skull and crossbones pair is so cute, I want to keep them for myself!). The long curved one will be a bracelet using chain to finish it off. All the rest will be necklace pendants (except the Owl and the Hippo, they were special for my family. Dee, forget you saw this.). They are “Embrace Imperfection”, “Live the Life You’ve Imagined”, “Hey Cupcake”, a rustic bird coin, the little love monster, and the sun.

Want to see how they turn out? Well, you can visit me at one of my two upcoming shows this August.

My current show schedule for August –

What: 13th Annual Placerville Craft Faire
When: Sunday, August 9th from 8 am to 3 pm
Where: Main Street, Placerville
Handmade only craft faire in the middle of Historic Placerville’s Downtown area.

What: Third Saturday Design Downtown
When: Saturday, August 15th from 4 pm to 9 pm
Where: K Street between 10th & 11th
Shopping and music and fashion...what could be better

Fun with Metal Clay-How it Turned Out

Well...here's how it all turned out.

This is the copper after 40 minutes in the tumbler with stainless steel shot.

This is the star after I used my rotary tool and the "scotch-brite" polisher. Shiny but still kind of dark.

This is how the star turned out after I used the .00 grit polishing pad and then hit it with the buffer one more time. Much shinier.

All in all, I like the CopprClay and will definitely be playing with it more and seeing what else I can do with it.

Fun with Metal Clay-Finishing up the firing

Wow...so it took two hours to fire the clay in the kiln and another three for the whole thing to cool down enough to take the firing container out and remove the copper pieces.

I could hear the carbon pieces hopping around in the container, they were still so hot.

The kiln was a bit of a mess inside, as some of the carbon escaped from the container, which is probably why the copper pieces are a bit dark. The high heat and air would oxidize the metal...No problem though, a little polishing will do wonders (plus antiqued metal is all the rage these days!)

Some of the larger pieces were still a bit hot when I took them out of the firing container, so I quenched them in a bowl of room temperature water, to finish the cooling process.

It was pretty late by the end of all this, so i just cleaned up my work room and put the copper pieces aside until monday.