Silver Clay Workshop

I recently treated myself to an early Christmas present - a silver clay workshop! I have played with silver clay before but quickly learned that it is not the same beast as the air-drying clay I am so used to working with. So I figured a workshop with someone who really knew what they were talking about would help. I found Charm School in Beckenham through a google search and booked myself onto the one day "Fingerprints in Silver Clay course".

I arrived just before 10 on a very autumnal day and found myself on a pretty South London street. Gill runs the workshops from her converted garage, a lovely little space filled with all the tools and materials necessary to create silver clay jewellery.


My workspace



After a cup of tea and a chat we got started. I was very excited! Yes, I am a geek. Gill explained the different types of silver clay, such as slow dry, paste, syringe etc. and the different types of tools we would be using. Then we got started on our first piece - a charm with a fingerprint on it.

Fingerprint charm drying

It became apparent to me very quickly that what I had been doing when I previously used silver clay had been waaaaay off the mark. I had been getting myself into a real pickle by using too much water and handling the clay way too much. When I make my air-dry clay creations I tend to make it up as I go along - add bits here and there, change things, work with it as I go along. But with silver clay a little planning is necessary - it dries out pretty quickly so you need to have a clear plan of what you are going to do before you start.

Whilst our fingerprint charms were drying we moved on to create a charm with a stone set into it. This wasn't something I had given much thought to before the course but I think it was my favourite! I loved picking a stone and setting it straight, cleaning it up and putting the whole thing together.

Stone-set pendant drying, before cleaning and finishing

Although it is technically possible to fire a charm set with stone on a hob it's probably not the best idea, fortunately Gill has a proper grown up kiln :) Can you see my little charm firing away?

The kiln takes about 30 minutes, so in the meantime we fired our fingerprint charms on the hob...

Whilst the charms were firing I had a little clay left in my packet to play with, so I made little charms for my girls. A 'L' for Lillia, and a 'P' for Phoebe, plus a tiny little textured heart to go with each. We then fired these on the hob too.  In this picture you can actually see the binder burning off in a little plume of smoke...

 

And the rewards for my efforts?  Four solid silver charms (well, six if you count the fact I made two mini hearts too)!

 

And I still had a little blob of clay left in my 7g packet! Not bad for a few hours work and one small packet of silver clay.

I was really pleased with my creations and thought the whole day was brilliant and really good value for money.  I was especially pleased with my stone set charm, especially as in the weeks following I had loads of comments on it and I enjoyed being able to casually say, "Oh this? Yah, I made it..." Hee!

I have a head full of ideas now, I can't wait to try them out!  Whether or not I shall sell any silver clay creations I don't know yet, jewellery is a competitive and saturated market and I am not sure yet if I want to join in.  I would very much like to develop my silver "Pow" charm that's for sure...so watch this space!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well here we are at the start of a brand new week.  Last week was a hectic one in the Mudmeddling household let me tell you.  Family, friends, parties, tree-felling....but more on that later this week.

Now, we have Halloween and Bonfire night out the way, what can we do next?  Hmm...

*reaches for the mince pies*

Yup, it's time to get Christmassy!  My Folksy shop already has some rather festive looking items in it...

And there are PLENTY more where they came from!  I love Christmas, and I love making Christmas things.  You have been warned!  I am planning a little blog giveaway very shortly to celebrate my new Facebook page launch and the fact that Christmas is just a mere six weeks away! So make sure you come back to find out more details very soon!

x

Halloween ghosts

When it comes to making my miniature clay sculptures - Christmassy and Halloweeny are always my favourites. My hanging ghosts especially.... I love these cute little suckers. So I was delighted to discover that they had recently been featured on the front page of Etsy...twice! TWICE! They were included in two delightful treasuries which made the front page (deservedly so if I may say!)

Here are those treasuries, enjoy browsing through all the deliciously spooky items as I have...

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you all had a spooky time :)

Witches

Ah, the end of September...just a few days until October and my most favourite time of the year, autumn! Give me a duvet and a cosy night in over a picnic blanket and a day in the sun any day.

Crunching leaves, fresh breezes, golden colours, nippy air and warm radiators...lovely. Except we seem to be having a heatwave..it's flipping 80 degrees outside! Pfffft.

Only one thing to take my mind of the heat...Halloween! It's time to dust off those witches, mummies and ghosts and get spooky in the sunshine! I've been added some new witches to my growing collection, like these two little spooky ladies...

I've been experiementing with a little rouge on the cheeks of my witches and I like how it has come out, gives them a cheeky happy glow, like they might have had one too many ladel-fulls of witchy brew...

 

It's hard to find them too scary I'll admit!  I have lots of other little witches in progress too this week, though I have unfortunately been struck down with my dreaded ulcerative colitis yet again, which is hampering progress slightly.  But I shall not be defeated by by defective body. 

Stay with me for more spookiness this week!  And as usual all these lovlies are available to purchase in my Etsy or Foksy shops!

The return of Mudmeddling

Well hello there.  I am back at last from what has turned out to be a nine month break from this blog and shop.  What was supposed to be a two month break became rather a lot longer, ooooops!

So what's been going here over the last nine months?  Well our second daughter Phoebe arrived on the last day of November 2010 just as a snow blizzard hit Kent and brought the county to a near standstill.  The ten minute drive to the local hospital took over two hours, most of which was spent stuck on the motorway whilst in labour.  Fortunately we made it in time and I didn't become the local "Woman Gives Birth on Motorway" headline :)

What followed was an exhausting (and cold) few months and by Spring I was enjoying motherhood and being an at-home-mum so much that before I knew it summer had arrived!  But now with September fast approaching my thoughts are turning to my favourite time of year - autumn and winter!  And with those seasons comes Halloween and Christmas of course - perfect for witches, wizards, ghosts, santas and elves, just the things to fill my shop with :)


So today I have re-opened both my Etsy and Folksy shops and I have a brand new web address too!  If you are a follower of my blog you will need to change it to www.mud-meddling.blogspot.com (my previous address didn't have the hyphen).  You can also access my blog from www.mudmeddling.co.uk.... pretty good, huh?

I have plenty of old favourites to list, such as my spooky sparkly ghosts...

and cute toadstools...

Plus there's a few new items on the way too...

So watch this space for updates and ramblings from me...it's good to be back!

Ali
x

Folksy Friday - Blue

Good grief, considering I am now on maternity leave you'd think I'd be a better blogger! My time has been rather absorbed though with too many trips back and forth to the hospital. If you follow me on Twitter you will no doubt already be fed up of me going on about all the health issues though so I won't go into it here!

How about a little Folksy Friday to cheer us up? I couldn't think of a topic so hubby suggested "blue", no doubt in a vain attempt to counteract all the pink around here at the moment!








Top row:
Blue Daisy Pendant from Blue Daisy Glass
Blue Strawberry cupcake from Cupcakejojo

Middle row:
Retro Flower Tree Art Print from an Original Painting by Sascalia
Blue Mr Britain T-shirt from SheDraws

Bottom row:
Sea Pottery Cufflinks in Traditional Blue from Silk Purse, Sow's Ear
Amazonite Leaf Keyring/Handbag charm from NOfkantsCurios

Gorgeous things, eh?  All too tempting for my liking!  You can click on any of the photos or the links to be transported to shopping heaven :)

Making Friends

My friend at work asked me to make her a model of herself.

Her only specification was that the clay version of her should have sticky out ears. 

It's nice to make somebody you know as you can add the little things you know about them.  I gave her the designer pink flip-flops she often wears, and a motorcycle helmet as she's a biker.

I also added a little imitation moonstone necklace, as she wears one all the time. 

Lastly, in its own little box, I also made a carrot cake as her homemade carrot cake is bloody fantastic...

I do enjoy making things purely for friends or for pleasure.  This particular effort gave me a bit of grief, I dropped it twice and the leg fell off once whilst it was drying.  Jinxed perhaps?  It was all fixed and relatively sturdy by the time she got it though, I just hope it survived the motorbike journey home!

:)

 

 PS - like the new banner?  Courtesy of the very clever Bonnita Graphics.