Father's Day Jewelry Clay Bolo

My husband and I have always been dog lovers.  Since we treat our pups like children, we feel like we ought to participate in both Mother's and Father's Day festivities.  This year Paul received a special hand crafted gift from our dog Magnus, via me his two legged companion for Father's Day.

The pendant was so easy to make!  I added some clay to this bolo tie setting and simply pressed in my extra -terrestrial bead and black crystals.  I brushed Carbon Black Pearl Ex across the surface of my exposed clay colouring it this wonderful matte black.  It turned out exactly as planned and my sci-fi loving husband was thrilled to receive it!

How to Wear a Plate - Part Two

I knew I was going to love broken china edged with our Jewelry Clay!

This is another faux soldering technique!

(see yesterday's post for first half)

I added a little extra colour to my pink edges with metallic wax after my clay cured overnight.

These turned out even better than planned...so I won't cry over broken china anymore!  In fact, I may "accidentally" drop a few more pieces in the future!

How to Wear a Plate - Part One

 This post may have you breaking some plates.  

Fair warning.  I went out of my way to break this one.

On a recent outing to an antique store I found a pretty plate.  When I brought it home, I showed my husband and asked him a simple question.  
"Can you break this up for me."

Being my husband, his response was fast and simple.   
"How big should the pieces be?"

 I bet you can tell where I am going with this.  

I made a batch of Jewelry Clay and wrapped it around my plate edges.  I coloured the clay with Pearl Ex.  I also added a little screw eye to make it instantly wearable when it is cured.

One last tip.  I used this little rubber tip to make some markings in the clay.  Tomorrow I'll show you everything cleaned up and cured!

 The clay can be used in so many ways!

Baking Techniques for Resin Clay Projects and Brass Stencils-Part Two

 This Jewelry Clay pendant looks wonderful, is light weight and it was so easy to make!

 This is where we left off from yesterday's post.  I was using baby powder in the same way bakers use flour with pie crust.
I let my clay pendant covered in Pearl-Ex cure overnight.

 Today I added some acrylic paints to age my pendant.

 This paint technique I learned from Claudine Hellmuth.  I apply paint and then I use a paper towel to soak up the excess.  By doing this several times I can age my piece with brand new paint mediums.

My Pearl-Ex powders still provide the sheen.  I did tell you I made holes in the clay when it was still moist. It cured with these easy to attach to openings already in place.

Baking Techniques for Resin Clay Projects and Brass Stencils-Part One

I bet you think of pie dough when you see this image on your screen.

This is a little ball of Jewelry Clay sitting on some baby powder on my non stick work sheet.

I rolled it out with a little rolling pin and the baby powder acts just like flour does when you roll out pie crust.

The flattened clay was ideal to press a brass stencil into.

I have a ton of old stencils I never use any more, so I have been hoping to incorporate them some way into projects, since many of them are new, and I never used them at all.  I added some baby powder to the back of this stencil to see if I could press it into the clay...and still remove it afterwards.

Here is how it looked.

Then I applied some pink Pearl Rx to the the exposed clay.

Then I removed the stencil. 

Ta Da!

I applied gold Pear Ex to the areas that were under the stencil.  Pearl Ex will only cling to the clay that does not already have powder on it.

Now we wait.  I made two little holes in the clay so that when it cures I can turn it into a necklace pendant with no further drilling needed!

See you tomorrow!

Glittered Nunn Design Buttons

A week of blogs dedicated to Stampendous last week had me experimenting with all sorts of products.

Nunn Design sent me a group of these button shanks.  I filled half of them with clay for my Monogrammed Button blog post.

I had a few buttons left over so I added some Japanese papers and glitter to them before filling them with Jewelry Resin.  To add glitter I simply added glue around the edges and dropped in the glitter.  When the glue was dry, I dumped out the excess glitter.

I plan to use these in jewelry making projects!

I used Stampendous micro glitter and Nunn Design new Button Shanks.

Simple Bezels - Fabulous Cards

Many of my Resin Crafts blog readers will not know that I really considered myself an art card maker for many years.  I was an artisan in the Toronto One of A Kind shows which take place twice a year.  In order to meet demand, I hand made between 4 and 5,000 cards a year.

What made my cards special were some of the resin embellishments I made in limited editions of six.

 

 I have so many birthdays at this time of the year that I made a few new cards last month.  It reminded me of how much fun I had working on art cards daily.

You can see how simple bezels with cute sentiments embedded in resin can make a simple card very special.