The Sparkly Tree Silver and Crystal clay mirror.

This was a Christmas gift for my mother in law who is allergic to most metal but though she has been very supportive of my jewellery making endeavours can't wear any of it! So this was my solution, mixing the media of silver clay with crystal clay. So this was the full and quite difficult process. 

The idea behind it was a family tree, with each grandchild's birthstone represented as a crystal. (I will have to make her something else if we get any more babies in the family)  

I sketched a rough scale version of how I wanted it to look. 

I transferred the rough image to a white ceramic tile. I then "drew" the tree using silver clay in a syringe with a fine tip.

This is the tree drying on the tile. I left it 24 hours.

I transferred the clay to my firing block but typically it broke! I repaired it and strengthened the tree with multiple thin layers of silver clay paste. This took days and days to get right. It had to be left to dry in between layers for 24 hours. 

Once it was fired and carefully cleaned up and polished  I mixed up some crystal clay. 

                 (you can see how to do that here) and added the tree and the birthstone crystals.

I added AB crystals at random  until I was happy with the overall look and left it to harden for 12 hours.

My mother in law really liked it so it was worth the effort :) 

Crystal Clay steampunk compact mirror

In which I am so enchanted by my own reflection I fail to see time is the wrong way round. 

Last year we visited the MOSI Maker Faire.  It was a really good day out and we had great fun. The Mite learnt to solder at age 3 and made some cool flashing badges, my husband drooled over 3D printers and Raspberry Pi stuff. I admired the jewellery makers stall.

I ended up buying a piece that I really loved, a necklace made from an old watch.
Though I loved it, there were two problems with it, firstly I thought the back of the piece was prettier than the front and I liked the little rubies in it, but it sat weird if I wore it that way.  Secondly, if I wore it the right way, it scratched my skin terribly! So I decided to re-purpose it.

Back 

Front

I removed the pearl from it and will use this in a future project.  I also got some other watch innards from my husband who is a bit of a chronophile. Some of these bits also had tiny rubies.

                                                 

I used a bezelled compact mirror with a lovely flower engraved design on the back.

I added the clay roughly to the mirror. After it had been mixed.

 Then I added my watch bits and a few of the rose pink chatons from my ring design. I tidied up the surface of the clay with FIMO tools.

It was then that I realised that I had put the watch from my necklace on backwards! So I had to dig it out, which wasn't easy, clean it and replace it in the clay!

But luckily it worked out ok.  I need to smooth the clay a bit more and then polish the compact itself when the clay has hardened.  I am glad I now have something cool for my handbag, made from something that would otherwise be left in a drawer or thrown away.

Finished mirror.  I have a little velvet pouch for it so it can travel in my bag in style.

June side project - Crystal Clay ring

Whilst I was browsing the Cooksons website and trying to find some more fireproof gemstones after messing up my silver clay pendant.  I came across Crystal Clay.  This is a two part epoxy clay, that air dries. It's a bit like fancy, sticky FIMO. So I thought I would have a play with some of it after my disaster with the blow torch.

Here is all the kit, it comes with the two parts of the clay, a pair of gloves (very necessary as it is sticky stuff at first) and a beeswax stick for picking up chatons. I thought the beeswax stick was rubbish, I used my own bead/gemstone tool which I got from Hobbycraft

 Here are the two parts of the clay, A gives the colour, B is the hardener. In this case I am using black but it comes in loads of colours.

 You make equal sized balls :-) 

 Mix them together 

 I then made a sausage shape and added to the channel of the ring blank.

 I then started to add the chatons

 Completed pattern 

After 12-14 hours the clay is completely dry and the piece is ready.

I really liked using this clay and have a few other ideas for using it which I will post when they come to fruition. I need to work on having a more even surface and less finger marks in my work though!