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!

Pow!

I ordered a set of steel letter stampers from eBay with the intention of using them to imprint wet silver clay before firing.

My first experiment was a simple but effective one...

A little nod to comic books.  I really love this, it is for myself but I am going to make some more for my shop definitely.  The edges are a little pointy and therefore sharp, not enough to be used as an offensive weapon, handy enough for cleaning fingernails perhaps?  Ew!  I think the next attempt will need to be a little smoother.

I used liver of sulphar to blacken it, then cleaned it back to silver again, leaving a little blackness to the imprinted letters so they stood out more.

What do you think?

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 :)