Santa was very good to me

Well I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I know I did. I received the awesome news that I passed my Engineering in Training test! So I am now officially an EIT. I am so glad that test is over. It was eight hours of hell. The good news is I passed, the bad news is that I am now qualified to take another test. I hopefully will qualify for my Professional Engineering Exam this Fall, another eight hour test. This one thankfully will not contain calculus, thermodynamics or advanced Chemistry. And hopefully if I pass it, I will be an licensed professional engineer.

It was great to see all of my family this Christmas. Its so hard being so far away from them. We had a lot of fun and hopefully I will see them again this Spring. Santa brought me my tumbler and my torch, so I have now all the tools I need to make my latest ideas. I can't believe December is coming to a close. October, November and December flew by this year. The year 2008 was a good year for me. I finally got my EIT certification, I found a new passion in jewelry, my husband and myself have our health and happiness. Let hope 2009 is just as good as 2008. Have a happy and safe New Year!

Etsy Front Page !!

Etsy front Page 12/17/08 kaleprimitifs, originally uploaded by Etsy Front Pagers.

Its been a good week. An extremely busy week but a good week. I made the Front page of Etsy today! Karena of kaleprimitifs put my Tumble Rough Good Luck Charm in in her treasury! I am also featured in the Etsy Metal Clay blog this week. Catherine was nice enough to post my interview on the team blog. Check out my interview here. I sold a few items this week and I am currently make a few custom orders. Hopefully by the end of this week my pirate ship pendant will be back in my Etsy shop again.

Welcome New Members to the Etsy MetalClay Team

We have two new member to our Etsy Metal Clay Team! Monica of Handmade by Hapa and Victoria of Vixenware are the new additions to our team. Monica makes the most delicate and cute origami silver jewelry and I have been admiring Victoria's shop for a long time. Please take a look at their shops.

Japanese Origami Wedding Crane Necklace

Seeing Red - Fine Silver with Garnet Necklace

In Etsy Treasury

My cute little tree frog was featured in a treasury today! A big thank you to Liz Hall of Lizards Jewelry for adding me to her treasury. And good news I sold my little tree frog this morning. Sorry I have not written but between Thanksgiving and remodeling my shop, I have been very busy. That right, my Etsy shop Clever Endeavor has a new look. I have dropped my blue backgrounds for more neutral tones. Hopefully this will help me get into more treasuries! Anyway I hope everyone had a good holiday. I love Liz work. Below are some of Liz's new work that I absolutely Love.

Polkapin

August Eve

Featured on "Such and Such" Blog

Lora Hart, our fearless Etsy MetalClay Team leader, was sweet enough to include me on her blog Such and Such this past Friday titled "Weekend Eye Candy." My BronzClay Leaf Earrings are in the third row to the far right. I love Lora's Blog it is a treasure trove of info and has numerous links to other talented artists. Below are some of my favorites from her Etsy Shop.

Pillow Bead Pendant

Renaissance Dewdrop Earrings

Featured on Angeldamico Blog

My Silver Leaf Pendant was featured on angeldamico blog yesterday. She was kind enough to send me a convo to tell me about it. She has great taste in fashion and I really love her t-shirts. Check out her Etsy Store http://www.angeldamico.etsy.com, below are some of my favorites from her store:

Purple Tunic

City Screenprint Tee

Welcome New Members to the Etsy MetalClay Team

We have six new members on our Etsy MetalClay team. So everyone please take a peak at their shops. We have Cherylyn of clystudio, Heather of CherryCreek, Kelly of kfehrdesign, Martha of amordeplata, Molli of modernmetaljewelry and Wendy of cnkdesigns. I have been busy trying to learn how to fuse glass. My fusing class is fun, hopefully I can show you some pieces soon. Below are some of the work from my new team members.

Modernmetaljewelry

CNKDesigns

CherryCreek

Featured in Etsy Treasury

My Fine Silver Tree Frog was featured on a treasury today. A big thank you to heartofthefire for placing me in her treasury!

New Work Finally!

I've been busy between work, my recent EIT Test and the Etsy MetalClay Trunk Show, so I have not really finished any of my work. I finally finished my Victorian Floral Charm and Starfish Pendant. I have a couple of Bronzclay pieces coming and I will be starting my fused glass class soon. Hopefully I will be able to figure out how to apply silver overlay paste to my fused glass pendants. Below is some of my finished work.

Starfish Pendant

Victorian Floral Charm

Featured in Storque Article!!

My Pirate Ship Pendant was featured in an article on Etsy Today!!! Daniellexo name me one of her top ten favorite metal clay favorites. She also named Jen of Wearableart, Dina of dinaalexander, Karena of Kaleprimitifs, Alina of SilverGarden, Ruth of Birdlandcreations, Christine of ChocolateandSteel, Natasha of NBDDesigns and our fearless leader LoraHart. So nine out of the ten were EMC Team Members. Yeah exposure!! Below is my pirate ship pendant I was listed as number 8 on the list. To view the whole article please click the following link: Storque Article.

Trunk Show Success and Front Page!!

Wow after much work we finally had our Trunk Show in the Etsy Virtual Labs last night. And I think it was a huge hit! On top of this the admin over at Etsy were kind enough to help us with promoting our Trunk Show by placing us on the Front Page and featuring us in a Storque Article. Big thank you goes out to Daniellexo for her help! I can't believe my Silver Leaf Pendant was Featured on the Front Page! It got 200 hits from making the front page! Anyway a big Thanks to my EMC Team mates, we pulled off a great Trunk Show and I think everyone had fun.

Etsy Metalclay Team Virtual Trunk Show

The Etsy MetalClay team will be participating in a Virtual Trunk Show this Thursday October 30 at 7:00EST /4:00 PST in the Virtual labs on Etsy. Please follow this link, http://www.etsy.com/virtual_labs.php , and click on the tree house room in order to reach our Trunk Show. This will be a live Trunk Show, ten members of the Etsy Metal Clay group will be presenting three of their items during the trunk show.We will have three door prizes available for attendees that are paying attention. Free handcrafted jewelry is always a good thing!! So check out Etsy Virtual Labs this Thursday!!

Featured in another Treasury!

My Silver Leaf Pendant was featured in another Treasury! Jennifer Kahn was kind of enough to add me to her Stunning Silver Treasury. Below are some of my favorites from Jen Kahn Etsy Store.

Eclipse Pendant

Reversible shell slice pendant

Featured in Etsy Treasury

My Checkmate Pendant was featured in a Etsy Treasury today. Yeah I love it when I see my stuff in a treasury. Fellow Etsy Metalclay team member, Heartofthefire listed me in her "Wonder of it all" treasury. Click on the link to see other work from the Etsy Metalclay Team in the Treasury.

Below is some of Heartofthefire work

Faerie Medallion

Celtic Elements Pendant

Can't take New England out of the girl

I'm looking at my bench and realizing I miss my grandmother's beach. I have scallop shells and starfish almost ready for the kiln. The Fall was the best time of the year to collect scallop shells on Hyannis beach. I have one large scallop shell in bronzclay and one silverclay starfish. I will hopefully finish them soon. I miss my ocean and I miss my Fenway. The Fall also means baseball for me. If you haven't notice my profile picture, I am a huge Red Sox fan. Big Papi came through Thursday night but we are back in Tampa tonight , so I wish my team luck, we will need it. Below are some pictures of my current work.

Scallop Shell and Starfish

Rose, and Victorian Button Designs

Christine of ChocolateandSteel

Etsy Spotlight Article:

Quit Your Day Job: Chocolate and Steel

Fellow Etsy MetalClay Team member, Christine of ChocolateandSteel, was featured on the Etsy spotlight series "Quit your day job." Check out Christine Etsy interview. I personally love these articles. It is inspirational to see someone turn a passion into a business. It takes a great deal of courage to take such a plunge. I've learned quite a deal playing with metal clay (I still have a lot to learn) but the eye opener in these last few months has been the amount of work necessary to sell my jewelry. Posting your work on Etsy is not enough. Marketing is an active exercise of blogging, maintaining a website, maintaining a Flickr site, networking through Facebook, being at craft fairs, selling to local vendors and hosting jewelry parties. I am actively pursuing all of these objectives this year, hoping that my little shop might get off the ground.

So its great to see a fellow Etsy MetalClay Team Member succeed in what she loves best. I have always loved Christine's fun and simple designs. Below are some of my favorites:

The Uprising

Delicious Apple Pendant

My Heart belongs To Pendant

Etsy Treasury List

Etsy :: Treasury List

I don't know what's harder waiting until the final seconds of a popular ebay auction item to bid or trying to snag a treasury on Etsy. The Etsy treasury list is fun to create and I think it was a good idea on Etsy's part. The front page of Etsy website always features a list of someones favorites (that should not include their own work). This keeps the Etsy front page fresh and it also showcases handcrafted items that fellow Etsians find interesting and beautiful. And from a sellers point of view it is the best free advertising one can have on Etsy. So I have created a list of my favorite Etsy items with a fall theme hoping it will make the front page. I would love for my jewelry to make the front page of Etsy but alas it is yet to happen.

I have included a number of my fellow Etsy MetalClay team members in my Treasury list. I have been drooling over Karena's Fennel Feather Leaf Pendant and Jennifer's Fern Fossil Pendant. Please check out my Etsy Autumn Radiance Treasury and tell me what you think!

Karena's Fennel Feather Leaf Pendant

Jennifer's Fern Fossil Pendant

Things I have been working on

So I finally fired my Koi Fish and King Arthur Bronzclay Pendants last night, hence my dirty fingers in the picture above. I carved all of the scales in the Koi Fish and I also carved out a lot of detail in the King Arthur Pendant. Both pendants still have a lot of finishing work but I think they came out pretty good.

I think I will be redoing the King Arthur Pendant for the Art Jewelry Magazine contest that was posted on Etsy the other day. Art Jewelry magazine (www.artjewelrymag.com) is challenging Etsy artisans to make a piece of jewelry, using 10 grams of metal clay or less (Arthur is exactly 10 grams). Art Jewelry will select five finished pieces and publishing them in their magazine, along with the winners names and contact information. I think Arthur would be a good submittal. The Koi Fish is 13 grams so I can't use that pendant for the contest unfortunately. I really want to redo both pendant in silver clay and experiment with aura 22 carat gold paint. I think Arthur would look cool with a gold shield and silver armor and the koi fish would look interesting with silver and gold scales. Anyway things to experiment on. Let me know what you think.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Teresa Swanson, a talented member of the Etsy Metalclay Team has created a collection of watches. With the sale of each watch, 50% of of the proceeds will go to the San Diego Affilliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Kara Medsker McCain, a good friend of Teresa, is a twice over survivor of breast cancer. You can purchase Teresa watches and read Kara inspiring story at the following website Time For A Cure.

Etsy MetalClay Team Website

I have been very fortunate to be part of the Etsy MetalClay Team. This new group is currently comprised of 21 members with various skills and perspectives on jewelry fabrication. Liz Hall, of Lizards Jewelry, was generous enough to put together the Etsy MetalClay Website. The MetalClay Website features all of the jewelry created by members of Etsy MetalClay Team, the website will connect you to each of the members individual Etsy Store fronts. A large thank you to Liz for all of her hard work on the website.

Working with Bronzclay

I was so excited back in July when I heard a new precious metal clay was about to come on the market. Precious Metal Silver Clay is a lot of fun to work with but the cost of silver clay will make anyone hesitate before undertaking a large, complicated project.

Bronzclay is composed of 11% tin, 89% copper, water and non-toxic binding materials. Bronzclay pieces can be molded, carved and then placed in a kiln where the binders burn off, leaving a piece that is composed of casted bronze, a process similar to silver clay. The difference in price though is extreme. This summer the average price for 10 grams of silver clay was $20, but currently I can by 100 grams of Bronzclay for $20. At $0.20 a gram, I have been experimenting a lot more with Bronzclay.

There is another large difference between Bronzclay and silver clay. This main difference is the method to fire the material. With Silver Clay a beginner could utilize a torch to fire their jewelry pieces but Bronzclay requires a kiln. The Bronzclay must be fired at such a high temperature and at such a long period of time (think 5 hours) that torch firing would be impossible. A kiln is not the only other piece of equipment that is required, a stainless steel container and activated carbon is also necessary. While sliver has to be fired in environment with oxygen, Bronzclay requires the opposite. No oxygen can be introduced to the Bronzclay during the firing process and this is why it must be buried in a layer of activated carbon.

So about three weeks ago, I am in my basement playing mad scientist. I got the kiln, the Bronzclay, the activated carbon and the Bronzclay directions in my hand. I follow the firing directions that came with the clay to the letter. So after about 5 hours of waiting I rushed to my kiln and after carefully extracting my pieces out I found them to covered in raised bumps. So a word to the wise do not follow the directions that come with the clay. These temperature are too hot and will simply cause the piece to blister. Cooltools has a learning section on their website that has been super helpful when it comes to figuring out firing times for jewelry pieces of different thickness.

I am currently working on a King Arthur Pendant and a Koi Fish Pendant. One of the aspects of Bronzclay I do like is the ability to easily carve into the dried clay. I am carving some cool scales onto my Koi Fish Pendant. But above is a picture of my first successful bronzclay piece, my Pirate Ship Pendant.

Etsy MetalClay Team feaured on Storque

I am a proud member of the Etsy MetalClay Team. This active group has been extremely busy and a lot of fun to work with. Today our team was featured in an article on Etsy. Click on the link below to check it out. This is a very talented group with a wide range of perspective on how to manipulate our favorite material metal clay. I big thank you to our team leader Lora Hart for putting this article together.



Storque Article on Etsy MetalClay Team