Playing with Precious Metal Clay

Last Saturday I got the chance to spend the day on a course learning to make things with Precious Metal Clay, in this case silver...this was the final part of my birthday present from my other half (yes he took the hint of all the links I sent him regarding courses like this one lol).

Never played with PMC before... in fact I've never even made my own earring wires before so this was a totally new experience for me altogether. Thankfully I came up with m ideas quickly and made them out of plasticine to practice the techniques for rolling out and texturing before I started work on my expensive little blob of PMC.

Several small blobs rolled out later... roll on some lace for texture... use small cookie cutters to get the shapes... punch holes for the ear wires... slip the flower onto the heart... set a cubic zirconia into the flower... then comes the waiting... let it dry out, or use a food dehydrator like we did...

Then we fired them... sorry, sintered them... with a hand torch... by then we had these horrid white powdery shapes... with a bit of force and a wire brush the powder came off revealing the silver underneath... solder a half ring onto the back of the large heart to make it into a pendant... chuck the pieces into a tumbler to remove any leftover powder and VOILA!

 

So what do you all think? I think I need to have another go at making some of these coz I have so many ideas left that I want to make! 

Lace flower necklace

I seem to be leaving the sewing machine alone a little at the moment, so guess what I have gone back to doing... yup more jewellery.. can never have enough necklaces so I have made yet another...
I pinned the tutorial Ashley (Little Miss Momma) did over at Tatertos & Jello (it's here if you want it too) the other week and decided it had to be made, so with a spare few minutes the other morning I whipped one up with some stash from a recent fabric shop trip.

Look I even tried to copy the bathroom mirror pose too.. this is now my facebook display picture.. yes I'm somewhat of a poser but it never occurred to me to pose in my crafty pics, no idea why... so prepare for more posed pics in the future!

A close up just so you can see the large pearls hidden amongst the lace.

(for the sake of linking up to some parties, needing backlinks: http://makingtheworldcuter.com/)

Featured Over At Aunt Pegs

Wow I never thought 6 months after I posted anything on this blog that people would still be talking about it... but I'm wrong (for a change lol)! This morning I woke up to an email from Amber over at Aunt Peg's Handmade Jewelry and Treasures saying that today they were featuring me and one of my tutorials... can anyone guess which it is?

Yes it's the infamous Anthro Power of 3 knockoff I did back in January, if anybody missed it the tutorial is here.

Never though I'd see my work kicking around people's interest this long, to be honest I'm quite proud of myself for this tutorial it's been featured across quite a few blogs now and is on quite a few people's pinterest boards too.
So thanks to Aunt Peg's for featuring me!

Nautical Ruffle Necklace

I said I'd be posting the matching necklace to my Anthro inspired nautical top and sloan square shoes, so here we go...Just a simple ruffle necklace
Unlike so many of the tutorials I've seen out there I didn't feed the chain through the ruffle, I used a bit of ribbon instead and then attached the chain to loops made at the ends of the ribbon.
Quick, simple and cute :)
Oh, and I've not abandoned the top refashions just yet, thought it might be nice to see something else for a change ;)

Linking up to I heart Naptime