All Things New and Fun!

Wow! I've been a busy bee lately! I have all new things that are going to be showing at the Grape and Ale in Southport, NC.
I'm pretty excited, the location is between Oak Island and Southport. I hope it brings alot of new clients my way!
Also I finally finished a Metal Clay piece that I'm going to enter into a challenge with The Military Brats Team on Etsy! The challenge piece was to be a dandelion. I originally made a piece for the challenge but decided on another entry.
First off here are two pics of the Grape and Ale, this wine shop has a variety of wines as well as a great selection of beer.
Then, the newest pieces that will be showcased there.
And last but not least.... My Challenge Piece!!!
Let me know what you think!!

New Collection

I've been playing around with this idea in my head for a while how to make jewelry out of bottle caps, well this is what I came up with!

Sorry for the crude picture but It was with my phone and the lighting isn't all that great. It does give you an idea though what I've been doing.

I'm going to Harbor Freight today to look for small metal shears. I'm pretty excited, its one of my favorite stores. Lol!!

Studio Setup

Here is a small 20 piece set up, soon to be bigger... At Lovebird Studio

More New Things

I've been making things the past few days, here are 2 prs of earrings I just made!

Art Clay Copper

For the last few weeks I've been experimenting with a new material. AC Copper. I never thought I would never get it. My first experiment was a rose pendant. Trying to work as fast as I could the clay kept drying out. What I have since realized was I was kneading it as you would dough to form a ball, when flattened out it supplied hairline cracks that even using water to moisten didnt fix. Also this was over fired which caused weakness in those cracks causing it to split in every weakend spot.

Next was the attempt to make the Star Anise ... ( my name ) It was completely unsintered in the middle and powdery when I quenched it I heard a pop. :(

The next attempt I tried to keep it simple. I had some great advice from experienced people and they all said keep trying. I kept it thick placed my scrappy tool underneath so I could transport it to my plate warmer put some textured beads imprinted in the front and left them until completely dry. ( an hour or two) Then I sanded and fired. When I fired I got it to the pretty cherry red and kept it on for 5 or so min. let it naturally cool down then flipped it over and noticed in the center it looked not done. It was clay color in the center, I'm sure it was sintered but to be on the safe side... I fired it again till the whole piece was cherry again. Let it cool then burnished by hand and polished. Yay! Then I went with a complete experiment and made a thinner piece in the shape of a dandelion ( hoping I could use this as a challenge piece!)

It worked again! yay!

It does take patience working with this particular clay. It is very different than working with Silver clay and is messier I worked with it on a piece of glass, this was easy to clean up and didnt stick as much...

I hope this helps someone that is wanting to torchfire AC Copper.

Featured in a Storque on Etsy!

I had no idea! I was in the Storque under "Undiscovered Territories."

Begin Creating Again

What has felt like weeks has actually been months. Where has the time gone? Pushing on from one thing to the next. Wow, life. Somehow it caught up. I never really thought about it before but it was here. I am finally coming to what I feel is a close to the madness that has been going on since the first of the year.
A sigh of relief. A smile looking over my shoulder. The past.

Now to the future!! Fun stuff and creating! Meeting new people and enjoying what I've been given.

Now to the fun stuff... I've been playing with my copper again and trying to create more of a "pop" when it comes to the patina. Ahhh needless to say it didn't quite turn out as I pictured it in my mind. The Patina peeled off of my copper piece. I think I will try some sort of suspension with it in the same mixture to see if it helps in sticking to the piece, or maybe in the liquid form. I wish I would have paid more attention in chemistry class!

I was in a Treasury!

Thanks to a wonderful fellow artisan Heartsabustin, our Metal Clay Forum Challenge was put in a treasury!

Shout out to http://www.heartsabustin.etsy.com/ for being the treasury queen and taking the time to put it all together and jump in and get us recognition!

Some really exciting things are going to be happening in the next few weeks. I'm going to be speaking with a fellow local artist about helping out in her shop! I'm very excited about this! I am going to be a featured artist on the Military Brats blog for April! And, there is a new challenge in the Metal Clay thread, to create a bracelet!

I'm in the process of setting up another shop on Etsy with Vintage items. That is going alot slower than I thought it would but hopefully soon I will have Pictures of items that I can list.

I'm having a HUGE indoor yardsale this Sat. Hopefully I will do well and maybe get more clay to work with!

Metal Clay Artists Challenge

The last couple of weeks have been so much fun, in the jewelry and creating world. I joined a forum on Etsy a few months back and have met some amazing Artisans that are working with Metal Clay. Adornedbyrobin.Etsy.com started a challenge for the group of us to create a floral piece that we would vote on. We would create a challenge piece each month for the winner to pick the next challenge. I finally ordered my Silver Clay and started working with it immediately! Everything I made had a floral theme so I could pick from the lot. I listed one piece and suprisingly it sold in a couple of days! ( it was going to be my challenge piece)
All of the Entries were amazing! These guys are so talented.
The contest was posted and people were welcomed to vote this is how it ended up:
Gold Winners
http://www.wearablebydesign.etsy.com/
http://www.silverblueberry.etsy.com/
http://www.adornedbyrobin.etsy.com/

Silver Winners
http://www.seavbeach.etsy.com/

Bronze Winners
http://www.lifeartdesigns.etsy.com/
http://www.twinmermaidsstudio.etsy.com/
http://www.nineteenthirteen.etsy.com/

This has been so much fun to participate in and has made the last few weeks much easier to go through.
Thanks for the learning experiences and the fun!

Funny Things

I was in the shop today, messing with a new thing and was getting frustrated. I went into the living room and just began laughing... I had forgotten and left the tv on, I was playing a dvd which had stopped. The dogs were starring at the screen that had turned into a screensaver and were watching the bouncing ball. All four of them were sitting patiently looking up at the tv starring at this bouncing ball. I wish I had a camera.