Squirrel silver clay pendant

I am so chuffed with this :)

I did most of the work on it at the same time as the charms I mentioned in my last post . The techique for making him was very similar to the owl and the hedgehog.

I used liver of sulphur again to give an aged appearance but then polished the majority of it off but less so for the actually squirrel, so he pops out of the design a little more.

To finish off I added a Tibetan silver acorn charm which dangles just above him.

I hope you like it as much as I do!

wet clay version

Finished pendant 

October project part 1 - charm bracelet experiments

I am skipping a post about my September project, partly because it isn't finished and partly because the playing about I did in this post kind of informs it and has changed my approach.

October's project is a charm bracelet using the beads from the August project and a new pack of silver clay to make silver charms for it.

I was supposed to use the circular cutter from the June project or some little card heart templates.  I of course chose neither. Instead I got some metal clay cutters from Jeweller Maker.

These are the charm bracelets I have to play with

I decided to use a mixture of cutters and textures. I used some texture plates from Kernowcraft, which I really liked and were easy to use with the clay. I also used some textured rubber stamps and some skeleton leaves and a letter stamp.  Really this was all about having a play and seeing what happened.  I only used leftover clay from other projects but i think it was a good use.

Here are the charms drying out with a rogue squirrel who will be discussed later.

Post firing 

After firing and polishing, I decided to experiment with some liver of sulphur, which is a solution that creates a patina on silver (an oxidation layer) and gives it an antique look. So some of them got dunked, they only need a few seconds.  The liver of sulphur stinks, you have to make a warm water solution but past experience with similar chemicals at work meant I wore latex gloves and used plastic tweezers throughout as this is nasty stuff!

After polishing but before dunking in liver of sulphur.  The liver of sulphur is in a stylish half pint mug. 

After dunking, all blackened

Leaf shapes detail

 After rinsing, I experimented with polishing the charms to see the effect of removing different levels of the patina. I am really pleased with the different effects. I love the heart one and the letter. I will be using skeleton leaves again as it was really effective. I am not sure about the flower shape, it might work better if I use a larger flower shape.

Finished charms!

Chainmaille gold flower necklace

My muse has returned from wherever she was sulking and the last 48 hours have been very very productive :)

I can't post a couple of projects because they are future birthday and Christmas presents but I have a few bits that I have completed in the last few days and am really happy with. This is the first one. 

This is an adaptation of the bracelet I did before with some round bits added at the front.  The jump rings are again from Creative Beadcraft who have lovely stuff but a crap record for actually posting it! Of the three orders I have placed with them now, I have had to chase two. :(

I am going on a rare night out next week so this might be a nice piece to wear, if I can find any clothes to wear with it.