Soldering...How fun!

As always, I am trying to find ways to be creative in my jewelry and add more elements that I have made myself.

I have experimented with silver preciuos metal clay and have made my own pendants and charms that way. I have also been playing with found objects like dominoes that I have been collaging or inking and stamping (you'll see those in another blog).

Well, I have had some experience with soldering in the past (a little bit in High School and a little bit more in the Air Force), but not enough to feel comfortable with my usual "just jump in and try it attitude (tools with heat, etc.). I decided to take a class (gasp).

Last Wednesday at The Bead Fetish (my favorite bead shop) I took Treasured Memories, a soldering class. A shout out to Tessa for being a great instructor. In the picture above, the pendat on the far left is what I made in class. The one on the far right will be come a Christmas tree ornament, I made it on Thursday for more practice. The one in the center is the one I made on Friday. It is 2-side and features Japanese papers. I think I am getting better as I go along. I am really enjoying this medium as it give me a creative outlet to add my love of little tiny collages to my art. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Art Clay Silver - Background Info & My First Project

Anyone who has been into or around beading or jewelry making in the last, oh decade, has at least heard of metal clay. It has two (2) trade names. The first, and original, is PMC (short for precious metal clay). The second is Art Clay. Basically, it is tiny particles of silver suspended in an organic binder that has been mixed with water.

I have been intrigued by the idea that there was a material that is as pliable as clay (seriously!) that you can pretty much do anything to that you would do with regular clay, but after you fire it you have a piece of 99.9% silver*. (The binder burns away upon firing.) There are also a bunch of different ways to fire it. You can use a kiln, the top of your stove, a butane micro-torch, or in the instance of PMC a thing called a hot pot (which is kind of scary, but cool none-the-less.). It also comes in several forms; clay, paste, in a syringe, and even a paper type. There is some that requires high heat firing, some that requires as low as 650 degrees celsius to fire.

Well, enough for the background...I finally jumped in and did something I have never done, I took a class! For all of the jewelry "stuff" I have done before, I pretty much taught myself (through books and magazines.). But, I was a little afraid. Okay, alot afraid. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on something and then have it go really badly (silver is getting kind of pricey, but then what isn't.). I took the class at a local bead shop in my area, Piece of Mind. The class was taught by Patsy Silva. The class was on August 23rd and lasted from 10 am to 4 pm. I was completely sold on metal clay by 2:30 pm, when I was completing my last project, a star pendant that I drew freeform with the syringe type clay. We did three (3) projects that day; a flat piece, an overlay piece and the syringe piece.

First, my flat piece. This was my favorite...I made a small rectangular pendant covered in stars. Patsy warned us to have an idea in mind before we opened the clas as it starts to dry out as soon as it hits the air. The is the only major drawback that I could see and can be worked around if you keep some water nearby. (Oh yeah, and you have to use some olive oil or Badger Balm to keep it from sticking to stuff. Not really a big deal though.) So I had a star patterned texture plate, a star motif rubber stamp, and a star shaped cutter. I had a good idea and I was ready to go. I rolled out the clay and cut it into a rectangle with a plastic knife (you know, the picnic kind.), rolled up the excess clay into a ball and wrapped in Saran wrap. I pressed the texture plate onto my rectangle and it made raised stars on the top of the clay. On other parts of the clay, I stamped the star stamp the make some depressions. I put the piece aside and rolled out my remaining clay and punched out three (3) star shapes. After taking care of the excess clay again, i brushed a tiny bit of water on the star cutouts and genlty pressed them onto my rectangle. I took a bamboo skewer and made a cute little dot pattern on the raised stars. We put the flat pieces into a food dehydrator (The clay must be "bone dry" before firing. I don't know why, it just does.) After the pieces where dry, they were fired in the kiln for a little while (30 minutes, I think.). They were a wierd white color when they came out (It was like a coating of ash, kind of.) The coating brushed off with a metal brush and they were already starting to be shiny. After about a half an hour in a rock tumbler with some stainless steel shot, they were fabulously shiny.

Look for my next blog on metal clay, The Overlay Project, coming soon!

*Sterling silver is only 92.5% silver, the rest is other metal, usually copper.

Hi, I'm Juli. Welcome to Juli's Jewels

Hi. I'm Juli, of Juli's Jewels. I am a tiny little jewelry making business.

I love making jewelry. There, I said it. I LOVE MAKING JEWELRY! It makes me very happy.

I made my first pair of earrings when I was fifteen years old (that was back in 1984, not too long ago.) I fiddled around with beads off and on while trying out other hobbies and crafts that I liked (needlework, painting, what have you). I kept coming back to the beads though.

A few years ago, I came across a little bead shop in Ashland, Oregon that I just loved and was really inspired by. It's the Bead Studio on Main Street. They had so many different kinds of beads and they were all so pretty.

At first, I started making a few simple strung necklaces here, a pair of earrings there. I would give them as gifts of keep and wear them for myself. Well, after a awhile I was making more jewelry that I could keep or give as gifts. I just had boxes of the stuff laying around. And, let me tell you, it was beyond simple now. I found I had a knack for wire work. I also found it was fun to make mixed media jewelry; Little collages in bottle caps, polymer clay, friendly plastic melted onto dominoes, etc.

One day (way back in July, 2007 at a barbeque at my house, when I was up in my craft room), my friend Jan said, "you should sell some of this stuff. You could go around to craft fairs and make some good money." I was shocked! Seriously. I couldn't believe it. "You really think people would want to buy my jewelry?" I asked. She said, "I want to buy this bracelet right now." We laughed a little and went back to our husbands, were she promptly announced to the rest of the group that I needed to start selling my jewelry at craft fairs. Everyone at the barbeque agreed. I sold at my first craft fair in October of 2007, I sold one necklace resulting in a net loss of $38 dollars for the day. I was not put off though. I got a lot of really good feed back. My next craft fair showed a decent profit. I have learned a lot in the last year; never go to a first time craft fair, always pack snacks, take a friend if you can because eventually you have to go to the bathroom.

I am going to keep at the craft fair circuit in the Sacramento Valley area. I have loftier goals though. I would like to have a webshop in the near future and in later future I hope to eventually have a little shop.

Well, I think that is enough for now. Oh, by the way, I guess I am a blogger now, too.