color...color and oh yeah color.....

I have been designing and making jewelry for 7 years now.  Maybe its the 7 year itch but suddenly I became a full time student....For the past few months, I have been learning about enameling, different techniques of using Metal Clay, different types of metal clay....Yesterday I dabbed the day in playing with Glass Clay...I have to say I am not a big fan of Glass clay although I absolutely love Glass work. 




Enameling on the other hand, stole my heart.  It brought back all the childhood "wishes"....I used to have this beautiful little gold pendant as far as I can remember with two peacocks which are enameled and I always used to admire and wonder how they do it.....and to be able to learn that now is just absolutely amazing....Here's the first piece I ever enameled...

And I usually like my pendants to be beautiful on both sides especially the flat ones....and in enameling, its advisable to do counter enameling (enamel the back side too), its only natural to make the other side as beautiful as the front...


As I get more pieces ready with enameling I will post them here and soon will start blogging about how some of these can be done...

Sterling Silver class by Patrik Kusek

Took an intense weekend class to learn all about Sterling Silver Clay offered by Patrik Kusek....And decided to do both the projects he was offering...a pendant and a ring:)  This is my first time working with Sterling Silver and also my first ever ring I made.  It was awesome learning new techniques and had lots of fun with all the other 'students'.  Patrik is a great teacher (Thanks Pat for referring him to us) and hoping to take more in the future.

We not only learn how to work with Sterling Silver, but also how to incorporate UV resin with Silver to make a beautiful center.  I never thought I will use UV resin into Silver but learnt how elegant it can be!

Here's the pendant I made in the class.  This pendant has a hole in the center to let light through.  And I loved the SteamPunk theme Patrik had in the example and decided to adopt that. I used Lisa Pavelka's steampunk collection of gears in the pendant.  I also incorported a piece of paper from pre-1920's printing along with a couple of pieces of gold and copper foil for color.

To test out resin, Patrik made us do a sample in a bottle cap.  This came out sooo good, I turned it into a magnet for my little one who absolutely loved it.