Last week I took a
silver clay jewellery course. It was something I've wanted to try and have never done before so it seems the perfect opportunity to link to
The Crafters Apprentice's
Learn a New Technique (LANT) Challenge. For those of you who don't know Wendy has challenged her fellow crafters to try out new crafts they've never done before and then write about what they have learnt. If you need any ideas for crafts to try then Wendy has compiled a
huge list of ideas for you!
The
course I took was a four day intensive course to teach how to work with metal clay with the aim of coming away having made at least one piece of jewellery each day. There are various different types of
precious metal clays but we just used silver. The silver clay is a combination of water, binders and very fine particles of silver. This can be moulded into whatever shape is required and then fired. When it is fired the binders burn away and you are left with a solid piece of metal that is 99.9% pure silver. The first time you see this happen it seems like magic! Or alchemy! I wish I had taken more pictures of the whole process but I was enjoying myself so much I forgot.
We were given three sorts of silver clay to work with - packets of silver clay (similar to polymer clay or fimo), a little bottle of silver clay paste which could be painted onto things with a brush and a syringe preloaded with silver clay for piping.
The first thing we made was a pendant with the metal clay. After playing around with polymer clay to work out a design it was time to use the real thing! We only had 7g packets to work with and the metal clay is quite expensive so it is important not to waste anything. The clay itself is funny stuff - very sticky so you have to constantly put olive oil on your fingers to stop it sticking to you and it dries out very quickly so it is best to work fast. The best thing about the silver clay is that until it has been fired you can keep reworking it - if you make something and you don't like it you can add some water to it, work it for a bit and it becomes clay again. This is excellent for people like me who have a tendency to make lots of mistakes!
This is the first pendant I made:
The texture was added using a rubber stamp with the texture imprinted on it and the circle was cut using a small cookie cutter. It was curved slightly over a domed mould to give it that convex shape and a clay bail was stuck to the back. After the clay was dry we fired it with a small creme brulee torch. It was then polished and stained using liver of sulphur to give the darker look in the crevices.
After that I was away. The next thing we made was a ring, this was using another 7g packet of metal clay and I decided to use a small stone in mine. It is a cubic zirconia - apparently you have to be careful about which stones to use as not all of them can withstand the heat, diamonds are fine but a little pricey for my second piece!! This is it:
Making a ring is a little tricky because you have to allow for the 10% shrinkage of the metal clay when it is fired. Even though I did this you can see that this ring is a little bit small which is a shame. Although I think it will fit in winter when it is a little colder and my fingers are less swollen!
The next thing we made were 3D "cage" pendants which was brilliant. And I actually remembered to take a few step by step pictures of this one so here is what we did:
Step 1: We made the shape of the pendant in cork clay. I chose a teardrop shape for mine and hid a little cubic zirconia crystal in my cork clay so that it would be in the middle of my pendant. We added a fine silver loop to the top (this is where the pendant will hang from). The cork clay was thoroughly dried and then sanded down to ensure it is exactly the right shape. I ended up with this:
Step 2: Using the syringe loaded with metal clay we piped a pattern all over the cork clay. We made sure we paid special attention to the top loop to ensure it was secure and that the loops of metal clay overlapped and were close together so there would be no holes where the crystal could fall out. At this stage it looked like this:
Step 3: We let the clay dry thoroughly (it has to be completely dry before it is fired). We did this using a hairdryer and a hotplate. After that the pendant is fired in a kiln. During firing the cork clay is burned away and you are left with a hollow shape. When it first comes out of the kiln the silver looks white but after some polishing, ta-dah:
It is difficult to see from the picture but the crystal that I put inside the cork clay is still inside the pendant and gives it a bit of sparkle as it catches the light as well as making a cute little tinkling sound. I really love this piece.
Phew! This post it getting a bit long - not long to go now I promise!
The last day of the course we were told to bring in a leaf to use to make a pendant. We spent the morning painting this with lots of thin layers of silver clay paste, allowing it to dry thoroughly between each coat. When the paste was thick enough to make a strong pendant we fired our leaves. During the firing process the leaves burned away and we were left with something like this:
Cool, eh?
During the course there was the opportunity to buy more supplies and there was time to work on other pieces here and there. In the end I made another couple of rings and a small piece including a bit of glass to test whether this would work. Not a bad haul for four days work:
I really enjoyed this course and would definitely recommend it to anyone who was thinking about having a go at using silver clay. I was amazed by how professional looking the results were after only a few hours of practice. I am also really excited by the idea that I will be able to make things at home now with very few materials. The one downside is that the silver clay itself is quite expensive but I think this is more than offset by the lack of expensive tools needed and the speed with which you can make things.
I'm really looking forward to having a go at making more things! I know what everyone in my family is getting for Christmas this year....!
Dotty xx
PS. Sorry this is such a long post - there was just so much to say. Congratulations if you made it this far!!
This was cut around the mount board and stuck down before we added the rest of the decorative cover - in this case we used old maps but anything could be used. Everything was kept neat and tidy using an (ominously named) tool called a bonefolder!
Anyone who knows me might also recognise that the map on the front of my book shows my local area, including my road!
We also added a map on the inside cover but I forgot to take a photo of that stage. After the cover was finished we folded some A4 paper in half in groups of five to form the pages of our book.
To finish we made holes in the paper with an awl which lined up with the window in the cover. Suzanne then showed us a clever sewing technique to fix the pages in our book and ta-da:
I can't tell you how pleased I am with this book - it was lovely to make something so functional, using such basic materials and come out with something so lovely. Another bonus is that the tools for this hobby are so cheap - all you need is some mount board, some paper, a bone folder and an awl (although you could use a needle). I got the lot for less than £10 and am definitely planning to do more of this - it would be great for making personalised presents I think.
If you look closely you can see that the map I put on the inside cover is upside-down! Whoops!
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