CraftEdu Is Live

Donna Kato's new site for crafting tutorials, CraftEdu is finally live.  She has an insane number of amazing artists who will be offering web-based video tutorials.  I am super excited.  There are only a few metal clay ones up so far, but there are some AMAZING polymer clay offerings.  The site is loading very slowly, so you may need to wait a bit.  I can't wait to try one. 

Free Metal Clay Projects

Patrick Kusek (who I featured as one of Whole Lotta Whimsy's Master Muses) has four free projects sheets available from Aftosa.  Check them out here. 

There are projects for beginners up to advanced metal clay workers.  One of the projects is on water etching, which is something I have wanted to try.  Aftosa also has some interesting stamps I had not seen before.  Not a huge selection of metal clay products, but worth checking out. 

New Earrings and Photo Editing

Below are some pictures of my new hydrangea earrings with a tiny cubic zirconia in the center.  I am not putting these on etsy yet, I am saving them for the HandmadeMN show on May 8th.  I am experimenting with my photos, working hard to improve my pictures.  Although the difference appear much more subtle on this blog, each photo is a little different.  What do you think?  Which one looks the best?

How about the photos of these sage leaf earrings?  I think they needed more light.  You can see the fabulous blue and purple patina very well. 

Here some of the other new earrings I made last weekend.  Do you have a favorite?

The left pair have rose quartz cabochons and the pair on the right have faceted black spinel cabs, all with handmade ear wires.  The last pair are hand sculpted little flowers.

BronzeClay Bothers

So how was your weekend? I was very productive, creatively, but not very successful. For the most part I work in silver clay and have no problems. Lately I have been trying to make some bronze clay pieces because I love the colored surfaces you can achieve. But my experiments this weekend did not turn out well. Most all of my pieces had bubbles in them. I first thought I over-fired them and my kiln was too hot. So I decreased the temperature. Nope, the next batch still had bubbles. Then I thought perhaps I had not dried the pieces enough before firing. So I dried them overnight and fired them Sunday. Nope, batch number three still had bubbles. So now I am off to the wonderful web to find some answers. Because BronzeClay is still relatively new, there is no “guaranteed” firing schedule out there. See this squidoo lens that gives a number of different firing schedules. After looking at this and Cool Tools photo trouble shooting guide, I think I might have one of two problems. I guess Bronze is more likely to have air bubbles in the clay when you first open it. It seems to need more conditioning than silver clay. This might be true for my pieces because the thinnest pieces were the ones that made it without bubbles. But according to Cool Tools, I may still have my kiln too hot. But if that is the case, I would expect the thinner smaller pieces to have more bubbles than the larger pieces. But it is easy to try it and figure it out. I only dropped the temperature 25 degrees. I hate wasting all this clay, but now I am sort of determined to make it work out of pure stubbornness. I’ll show you the finished “successful” pieces soon (hopefully).  In the meantime, you can admire the work of BronzeClay master, Celie Fago. 

Friday Featured Artist - Willow and Me

I am planning to feature a new artist each week to show you some of the other wonderful people selling on Etsy and/or working in metal clay. Today’s artist, Lisa from Maine, is both. She sells lovely silver and copper metal clay jewelry on Etsy. If you like my pieces, you are going to love her shop Willow and Me, we have a similar style and both have a love of leaves. And how can you not adore her cat Willow, who the shop is named after?

Are you a beader? I adore this clasp and could see it with some lovely amethyst or labradorite beads and silver spacers.

Perfect for spring, I also love her pussy willow collection. I fondly remember going for walks as a kid and picking pussy willows to bring home. Don’t you just want to rub the felt on these guys?

Lisa is also trying to raise awareness through her blog about a rare disease called Wegeners Granulomatosis. It is an uncommon disease causing bloody noses, chronic sinus infections, perforated steptum, and respiratory problems, such as chest pain, tightness and breathing problems. You can read more about Lisa’s struggle with the disease on her blog. Also, through the month of April, ten percent of all sales in Lisa’s Etsy shop will be donated to the Vasculitis Foundation. So let’s go shopping!

Master Muses Tutorials - Patrik Kusek

Have you checked out this week's Master Muses tutorial from Whole Lotta Whimsy?  This week Patrik Kusek made a lovely pair of earrings using copper clay, silver clay, and torch fired enamels.  I like the way he let some of the copper plain and non-enameled.  What do you think?

Last weekend I made a TON of stuff, getting ready for the HandmadeMN show on May 8 (check out the link on the right hand side of the blog).  I made a bunch of simple earrings using some of my newest texture sheets from Whole Lotta Whimsy.  These two are my new favorites.  I left them in simple shapes and plan to solder them to wires with some bezel set cabochons.  I will try to post pictures of the finished pieces this weekend.

 

Welcome new followers!

Welcome to my new blog follwers from the HandmadeMN giveaway.  Today's post is short because I worked until 11:00 last night at my regular job.  I am insanely tired.   So please enjoy this copper oak leaf necklace, one of my personal favorites.