Earning 500 Hearts has been an Interesting Journey

I just hit a pretty cool milestone. I woke up this morning to see that 500 people have hearted my Etsy shop. On Etsy if you truly love someones work you can bookmark or "heart" their shop as a favorite. It bring a smile to my face that I have earned the hearts of 500 people. I think any artist constantly questions their work. You may love what you create but that nagging feeling of wondering if anyone else will like it plagues everyone. This morning's surprise was a little boost in confidence. I always enjoyed making my jewelry, I am hoping to branch out this year and learn how to make a variety of new things. Well thank you for all who support me and here's too earning my next 500 hearts.

The Button Nut's Favorite Search Words

I am a button nut. As you can see from the picture above, I have an addiction to Victorian black glass buttons. I probably take a half hour each day to search through the eBay and Etsy. My favorite search words is "black lacy glass buttons" Why black glass? In the late part of the 19th century the most detailed buttons were comprised of black glass. These black glass buttons are also called mourning buttons, this is due to the fact that Queen Victoria wore only black jet buttons after the death of Prince Albert. Another favorite search word of late is "carved celluloid". Bakelite or celluloid was the first plastic of the 20th century. It was not until the I came across this celluloid bird shown below, that I paid more attention to carved celluloid.

(Vintage carved celluloid bird bottom left, bronzclay bird from mold upper right)

I live close to a Hobby Lobby (aka Michael's or AC Moore) that sells my favorite two part silicone mold maker. I use a product called "The Amazing Molding Putty" I love this stuff it is very rare when I can not get a good mold from this product. Another product I use to create molds is polymer clay. I specifically use sculpty when making molds that have very fine detail that is not recessed enough for the silicone mold to pick up.

Below is an example of my Sunflowers Pendant, you can see the finished silver pendant, the unfired greenware, the original black glass button and the two part silicone mold.

Tulips, Hearts, and Bronze Stars oh my

Some new Bronzclay pendants. I have a lot of items floating around my bench right now. I just finished the above three pendants this week. They still have a lot of polishing and finishing work but I am pleased with how they came out. I call the pendant on the upper left my tulips, hearts and stars pendant; the second located on the left is another Victorian flower pendant and the last pendant is a version of my Victorian Flower Charm. I am not sure about the patina on the tulip, hearts and stars pendant. I am never happy with the patina on my bronze pieces. Not to mention they always look silver in the photos. Hopefully this weekend I get get some good light to take some better photos, it so hard to take pictures at night.

New work! Finally!

I have a ton of stuff on my bench that was abandoned when I was studying for my PE Exam. I am trying to finish all of my lost treasurers and make Christmas gifts at the same time. The little bronze beauty above has more of a spring vibe to it. I will probably list it on my Etsy website tonight, I think I will call it the Sparrow and the Shell Pendant. More work to come, hopefully this weekend.

Very Late Sneak Peek

I was very lazy this past weekend and never got around to posting pictures of my new bronze pieces. He's back! King Arthur is back in my line up. I have also added a new piece. I have been calling her my Geisha Pendant. My husband doesn't seem to like the name though. Both still need some polishing work but I am pretty happy with the results. Have a great weekend everyone.

King Arthur

Geisha Pendant

Bronze Age

1. Crescent Earrings 2. Brocatelle Earrings 3. Sunshine Flower Earrings 4. Tribal Dome 5. Braille Heart Pendant 6. Arrowhead Pendant
7. Bronze Shield 8. Sapphire Mussel Necklace 9. Beachcomber Pendant

With the sharp increase in the price of silver, I think I will be doing some more experimentation in bronze. I have been working on several new pieces, that hopefully I will finish soon. It seems like my bronzclay pieces take forever to air dry. Bronzclay is a wonderful material. It is not as forgiving as silver clay and is very temperature sensitive. I think I completely ruined my first few batches until I turned down the temperature in my kiln. There are several good resources for Bronzclay out there though. I have always found the learning section on CoolTools to be very useful. There is a new book on my radar as well, Sherri Haab has published a new book that called Bronze and Copper Clay Basics.

Most of the montage of bronzclay pieces shown above are from Etsy MetalClay members, Jen Kahn, Lora Hart, Kaleprimitifs, Mango Tango Designs,Kfehrdesigns and our honorary member Celie Fago. (Who I would love to take a bronzclay class with, if I only had the time and money to get to Vermont this summer) The eighth pendant is a mussel shaped pendant from Twinklefish. Twinklefish has several lovely bronzclay shells and seahorse pendants in her shop. The ninth pendant is from Beadserroneous Shop. She has a little bit of everything in her shop but I love her bronzclay pieces. Have a good weekend everyone!

Sunday Sneak Peek and Front Page!

It is always exciting when you make the front page. You know something is up when an item goes from 20 views to 115 views in one afternoon! This front page lead to the sale of my mirror flower charm. Sweet. A big thank you to Pianobenchdesigns for placing me in her treasury! Pianobench designs have several cute wire designs. I love her "Love Necklace"

Love Necklace

I am working on a lot of bronzclay pieces right now. I found an incredible snow owl mold the other day. I believe its an old soap mold, I made a bronzclay mold of him. Pictured below is the unfired green piece of my snow owl. The owl is huge though he is 3 inches long. I am hoping by firing him in bronze I can shrink him to a more manageable size. Is 3 inches long and an 1.5 inch wide just too big to be a pendant?

Prepared to be Jealous!

I found out today that a spot opened up in Gordon Uyehara’s Bronzclay Class at the Metal Clay World Conference in Bloomingdale, IL. I was put on the waiting list but didn't expect to get a call! I have always greatly admired Gordon's work. I first saw his work on Flickr and was blown away by his detailed sculpted creatures. I am so excited, hopefully my Bronzclay questions and woes will finally be answered. Below are some of my favorite pieces of Gordon Uyehara's:

Gordon Uyehara's Desire

Gordon Uyehara's Silver Clay Fish

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

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.

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.