New Brooch

Well i brought myself a beautiful long black woollen winter coat at the weekend, which of course i really really needed, as my dark navy blue one and grey one clashed with some of my suits ;0), and anyways of course it was crying out for something to be added. So out came my silver clay and I made a brooch.

I just love my zetti house stamps so thought i wanted to use on. so i stamped into the clay, using 21g of clay, made two rolled beads and the "leaf" shape with the leftovers, used my Liver of sulphur to age it, attached the beads and then soldered on a brooch pin. So now i have a rather unique silver brooch to show of now on my lapel.

well thinking about it now i''m just going to have to make two more to go on my other coats!!!!!!!!!!!

A couple of ReTreat demo items

Well now the craft retreat is over phhheeewwwwwww

I have been soooo busy up dating the website, sorting other bits out that need doing, making a list of certain items that a certain crafter took without permission which seems to happen a lott!!! and oh yeah still working and getting on with other stuff that needs doing that just doesn't get done!!!. Well finally late i know i thought that i would post a couple of images of some of the silver pendants that i made as demo items.


All of the pendants that people made were totally different, out of both groups no one made the same thing which was great, everyone said they thoroughly enjoyed the workshop.


The biggest surprize for all of the people attending was when after we had all made our items and they were dried and then i got to play with "fire" and I fired all the pieces, but still they just looked like bits of clay - but in lovely shapes - well to finally take the wire brush to the items and then give them a good scrub and finally see that in fact they were totally solid silver - we had ooohhhhsss and arrrrggghhhhs in unison which did sounds very funny.

It does still amaze me every time i do it, it is just darn clever. Well here is a small collection of the items that i made. The long oval pendant in fact i put into the draw as we held a raffle to help raise much needed funds for The Animal Health Trust where our retreat was held, we are very grateful to people to buy the tickets, i put in the pendant, Debbie put in a silk paints picture, and we have two wax pictures, two books of poems and of course the bottle of wine that is compulsory.

The piece that i like the most is the round inards of a watch - i made the mould myself and it really does look so effective in the flesh - in fact i liked it soooo much i just by chance had to make two - one for me and one for someone else!!!! it really doesnt photograph well as its silver - and of course nothing to do with me being pants at photography

necklace

So what have I been up to.....

Well i have been playing with my beads again. We were given a fab pattern at my bead group, and could i get my head around making it..................................... nope. Its done as two parts really - the centre column which is herringbone stitch which is easy peeesey and i managed to whizz two off quiet quickly in differnt colours - silver and black, well then second part you stitch the fringe at the bottom and then the middle, well the blow's the mind bit was having to stitch around the centre column with the same beads you have used to make the fringe. Well i seriously got annoyed with it as i just couldnt get my head around what i needed to do. i had a sneak look at my friend Debbies over the weekend and my brain got what to do DOH!!. The top image is my black one and in fact i have photographed it with only the one side complete just so you can see how i did it, as the photo's really do not do it justice, they look better for real HONEST!!!. Bottom image is the complete necklace - which i dont think i will keep mmmm now who to dump it on LOL, anyways it does look better in the flesh. Right onto the next project.....