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

Silver clay

Earlier this week, on a whim, I treated myself to something I have wanted to try for some time.  Yesterday it arrived...

I had briefly read about silver clay before and had rather fancied the idea, though I was somewhat sceptical.  Clay that turns to silver?  And you don't even need a kiln?  Sounds like something from one of my wildest fantasies! 

I ordered myself a starter set from here.  I could just as easily have ordered a lump of the silver clay (or "art clay", or "metal clay" as it is also known) and had a bash at it, but I wanted to make sure I had a small selection of the most basic tools needed.

Despite looking a little like a school chemistry set this little box is actually full of very useful things - like silver polish, a stainless steel brush, a burnisher (I had to google what that was for..), some antiquing solution (which stinks), tweezers, a mesh and safety cage for firing on a gas stove, and a few other very useful bits. So for £40 it's quite a bargain.

It also includes the all important lump of clay!  7g of slow dry silver clay - it doesn't look like much but trust me it goes a long way.

So do you want to see my first effort?

Ta dah!

The whole process was an incredible amount of fun.  You get to play with clay - and it really is just like normal clay, like working with a mix of air-drying and polymer clay, very pliable and very easy to use.  Then you dry it - either leaving it overnight or blasting it with a hair-dryer, then you get to play with fire! 

The clay is fired carefully on a gas hob, which was quite terrifying the first time as I was convinced there would be some kind of explosion.  The fired clay gets dunked in water, at which point it is white in colour and you will still be uncovinced it has worked.  Then you use your steel brush, or your burnisher, or your sanding pad and...magic happens!  Alchemy!  The white rubs away to reveal pure silver!

You can then finish it off to be shiny, or brushed, or you can play around with antiquing it and polishing. 

I am SO happy with the result, I have been busy making more, I think I may be addicted :)