Charity Bracelet Raffle

Shortly after I opened my Etsy shop in 2009 I joined the Etsy Metal Clay Team. My purpose was to gain more exposure to my shop, but it's turned out to be that and soooo much more. We are a worldwide group of women who have become close friends, some of which I had the pleasure of meeting in person at the PMC Conference last June.

In the past few months two of our team members have passed away. Lucia Gulino and Mieko Takahashi Shull were both talented artists and cherished team participants. In their honor we have created two charm bracelets out of metal clay to be raffled off in their honor. (You can see my copper charm on the first bracelet, below.) The proceeds will go to charities that they were passionate about. A ticket is $5.00 and you get a chance at both bracelets, so two chances with one ticket!

Please go to the Etsy Metal Clay blog for more information about the charities and to get your raffle ticket. It's as easy as clicking on the "Donate" button. The drawing will be held on September 30.

Ramping Up!

A tree growing out of the rocks at Kohunlich Maya Ruins, Mexico.

I think I'm back to normal (whatever that is) after my vacation. I'm working at the Main Street Gallery today and it's foggy and dreary and there's not many people here. Good day for a blog post!

The holiday season is approaching fast! Only a few more days until Black Friday and the craziness of holiday shopping after that. I have been and will continue to ramp up my Etsy Shop for Cyber Monday and beyond. Listing lots of new things and renewing old ones, striving to be at the top of search lists. And I still have a lot of Studio Stash listed at some great bargain prices. Here's a couple of new ones recently listed:

Silver Daisy with a CZ Center
Click to go to the Etsy listing

Amethysts and Fine Silver
Click to go to the Etsy Listing

Do yourself a favor this year and try and avoid the malls and the big box stores. If you shop at small, independent retailers you'll have a more relaxing time and more of your money will stay in your community. Or, shop online with your favorite jewelry artist!

If you've read this far, I have a reward for you. Many of the members of the Etsy Metal Clay Team are offering free shipping through December 15. You can use the coupon code EMCFREESHIP to get that in my shop or any of the other EMC Team members' shops. If you order after December 15 your purchase will need faster and more expensive shipping in order to arrive in time for Christmas. And, as a special "thank you" to my blog readers, use the code BLOGREADER to get 10% off in my shop only.

At this time of giving thanks I want to say out loud that I am so grateful for the people who appreciate my work and who take the time to come here and read about what's going on in my life. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Copper Clay Update

If you read the previous post you'll see that I was soooo happy with my copper clay pieces. Now I'm thinking, not so much.

It appears that many of the pieces did not sinter. When I drilled holes through some of them in order to attach jump rings, there was the dreaded brown powder, meaning that the outside was a nice, solid, shiny copper but the inside was still powdery. And, a couple of them had parts attached with slip (watered down clay used like glue) and these parts popped off. In the first photo above you can see that the bail broke off. When I tried to drill a hole, it just crumbled. Since this was all experimental, I decided to try breaking one with my hands, and sure enough, "snap"! Broke in half like a saltine cracker. In the second photo you can see the one I intentionally broke. The center piece was put on with slip (it came off) and you can see the brown powder very clearly. I can rub it off with my fingers. This is not good. Fully sintered metal clay should be as strong as sheet metal. And, I want to be sure that none of my customers would ever encounter breakage.

I suspected several things that could have caused this. 1) I had too many pieces in the firing pan, causing the heat to be distributed unevenly. 2) I should have done a 2-phase firing. And 3) The kiln did not get hot enough.

So, I went online to my Etsy Metal Clay Team colleagues to see what their experiences were. Kelly Fehr disputed #1. She has fired as many as 60 pieces in a single firing, so I don't think that was it. She also says she has no problem using slip if a little lavender oil is mixed in with it.  Lorena Angulo makes large sculptural pieces out of copper clay and she told me that she has success when firing them at 1770F. I followed package instructions and only fired to 1700F. It now looks like that extra 70 degrees makes a big difference. Lora Hart was the one who originally told me about the 2-phase firing. First you fire the pieces on an open kiln shelf, then transfer them to the stainless steel pan with the activate carbon and fire them again. She was helpful in reminding me that this material is VERY new and that when silver metal clay came out around 15 years ago many artists had failures until the formula was improved. So, we're all esentially experimenting with this stuff.

I'm disappointed that my things didn't come out as planned, but it was a good learning experience for very little money, and Debbie, Torrey and I sure had a lot of fun with it last Sunday. I may try firing the remaining pieces from this first batch again and see if that solves the problem. I still have a little copper clay left in the package to use up and I'll do them all at once.

Here's a some successful copper clay pieces by Kelly and, Lorena. Lora is taking a break from her Etsy shop right now, but here's the link to her wonderful blog: Such and Such

Om Pendant by Kelly Fehr. Click HERE to go to the Etsy listing.

Copper Lines earrings by Lorena Angulo. Click HERE to go to the Etsy listing.

I'm Charmed!

There's a team of artists on Etsy that consists of nothing but Metal Clay Artists. We call ourselves the Etsy Metal Clay Team (EMC Team). I'm proud to say that I'm part of that team. A few months ago we decided to do a charm swap and there were 25 of us who signed up to participate. We each made 27 charms and sent them to one team member who coordinated the sorting of the charms. Yesterday I received 24 charms back plus the one that I created. (Mine's the one on the upper right.) The photo above shows what an incredibly talented group this is! Most of them are made from silver clay, but a couple are made from bronze or copper clay. The extra 2 charms that each of us did will be made into two bracelets and donated to charity. One of them will go to New England Celebrities Tackle Cancer (read about this organization at http://www.joeandruzzifoundation.blogspot.com/ ) and I don't think there's been a final decision made yet about who will get the second bracelet.

If you'd like to see the rest of the work by members of the EMC Team, go here. I think I'll be working on making my own charm bracelet just as soon as I can get to it!

Murano Silver Give Away

"Toth" Limited Edition Fine Silver and Gold Collarette by Murano Silver

Here's a good reason for a new blog post! Nicola Callow of Murano Silver does a monthly give away and this time she's giving away two books - a signed copy of PMC Technic by Tim McCreight and a copy of Fabulous Jewelry From Found Objects. You can enter her contest in several ways and you get one entry for each place you enter. (So, the more places you enter, the better your chances of winning.) This blog post counts as one of my entries.

Nicola is a fellow member of the Etsy Metal Clay team. She lives in Market Deeping, England and is also a member of the British Jewellery Association. Her beautiful work can be found on her Etsy site.