Skip to main content

Making silver charms for a charm swap

I'm looking forward to attending the You Can Make It residential metal clay conference in just a few weeks time. Although I'll admit I'm not looking forward to the train journey! This time last year I still lived in London and so the journey was only a few hours. This time I live in Scotland and it's likely to be at least 7 hours on the train. I looked at the option of flying but I'm teaching soldering and need to bring all my equipment. I didn't fancy getting there to find my butane torches had been confiscated at the airport! I'll do a blog post on my epic journey! I've just checked, it's 470 miles away. Last year I only had to travel 130 miles.
Anyway, I've been getting ready for the conference, writing some notes for my workshop sessions, making sure I have all the materials and samples I need etc. One of the fun things I've been preparing for is the charm swap. We make charms and then swap them with others at the conference and make a charm bracelet (or necklace). It's a really lovely idea and I have lots of charms from last year. This year I've made 30 tartan-inspired charms. Here's a quick snap of them.
I've seen on facebook some of the gorgeous charms that others have made so it should be a fun swap


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Making a hollow form silver clay ring

One of the benefits of starting the Make A Ring A Month movement is that I get to choose the theme each month! I had already settled on t exture as the theme for January and had a good idea of what I wanted my ring to look like. And weirdly it has ended up as I imagined it would (that doesn't often happen!). I decided to create a hollow form ring because I am a bit obsessed with making box forms at the moment. If you'd like to learn how to do that I suggest taking a look at this online course  with Tracey Spurgin. I then carved into the silver clay to make the texture. I use the  dockyard micro carving tools .  I kiln fired the ring (I always recommend kiln firing rings as they need the strength of a long hot firing). I fired at 880 centigrade for 1.5 hours. Although I'll add here that I'm pretty sure my kiln is underfiring at them moment meaning that it is heating up to lower than the temperature it states. I need to do a proper kiln test f...

Silver clay on the BBC

If you are reading this blog then you probably already know that I make jewellery with a material called metal clay. It's not a well known material so I was really pleased to see it featuring on a programme on BBC1. The programme is called Countryfile and a metal clay artist called Emma Mitchell was featured, interviewed by Anita Rani. Emma talked about the mental health benefits of getting out into the countryside and getting inspiration from nature and natural surroundings. They picked leaves and other natural materials and used them to make moulds and silver jewellery. It's fantastic that silver clay was featured on TV as it raises awareness of the material. The metal clay world is quite small but I haven't met Emma yet although she is also teaching at the Y ou Can Make It metal clay conference in March so I am looking forward to meeting her there. You can watch the programme here on the BBC iplayer until 6th March 2018 (but only if you're in the UK unfortun...

Ring a month theme for February 2019

I've been overwhelmed by the number of people being inspired by the Ring A Month challenge. At the time of writing, we have 351 members in the Facebook group and 300 followers on Instagram. If you'd like to join in there's still time! Facebook group  https://www.facebook.com/groups/makearingamonth/ Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/ringamonth/ I have decided to announce the theme for the coming month a week before the start of the month. This is to give people time to think about their designs, particularly those that are busy and have a lot to fit in. The theme for February 2019 is .... music and lyrics Here are some ideas to get you thinking about how to interpret the theme Be inspired by A song/piece of music you love A specific lyric from a song  A style of music e.g. classical, metal, rap, funk etc A musical An instrument/s Music artwork (CD/LP sleeve or music video) A concert you went to (or wish you went to!) A music festival Choose ...