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 I originally made a piece for the challenge but decided on another entry.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."