Edinburgh jeweller

Samples from my taster class in silver clay, suitable for beginners I regularly see questions in the facebook metal clay groups about which metal clay to try as a newbie. Firstly, if you are a newbie to metal clay - welcome! Metal clay is a fantastic material to use to make jewellery. It is flexible and easier on the hands than sheet metal and can be used at home with minimal tools. Of course there are lots of tools you COULD buy - but that's for another post! BUT if you start out with the wrong clay you can quickly become disheartened and decide it's not for you and that would be a shame. Choosing the right metal clay to start with may feel a little daunting as there are a few different brands and many different metals available including fine silver, sterling silver, bronze, copper, gold, brass and steel. As a newcomer to metal clay you might look at the prices of these clays and think, well copper and bronze are cheapest so I'll start with them. I think this is a ...

I love the Saul Bell Design Award , an annual prize for jewellery design. All of the finalist's work is jaw-dropping so it's well worth a look. As part of the the awards there are nine categories including metal clay . The winner this year in the metal clay category is Cindy Miller for her necklace called Cultivated Woodland. It is made from bronze clay and pearls. You can find an interview of her here where she talks more about how she made the piece and what inspired her. Cindy Miller - Cultivated woodland necklace In second place was this gorgeous piece by Liz Sabol . Liz has shared some of her process in this interview with Creative Fire . Liz Sabol - Cheshire Cat The runners up were Iwona Tamborska Helen Sang Wendy Wallin Mallnow The big news for 2018 is that they are no longer going to have a specific metal clay category. I think this is a shame as I have always looked forward to seeing the fantastic work on show. However, the orga...

I have published a free tutorial on the London Jewellery School blog. Follow this link to see the step by step guide, suitable for beginners and improvers.

I've been working on some chain making over the last few months. This piece is made of bronze and silver clay links. The bronze is Goldie Bronze . This is a clay that you mix up yourself from powder. I mixed a 50/50 mix of hard and soft bronze clay. I shaped the bronze links and fired them in carbon as instructed. They came out well fired. The silver links are Art Clay silver new formula . I made the links, dried them, cut them, reformed them in between the bronze and torch fired each link separately. It does take a bit of work! I'm pleased with this as my first metal clay chain. Using the bronze makes it more affordable than just using silver. I also had a go at some more traditional chain making with copper and sterling silver. I did the chain making course at the London Jewellery School and enjoyed focussing on soldering for the day. We learnt to make our own jump rings, textured them and soldered them into a chain.

This blog post  is being reblogged (and slightly modified) and was originally written for the London Jewellery School blog and published on 27th May 2014 Silver and gold metal clays have been obtainable since the 1990s but other metal clays are now on the scene. Here is some information about what is available. Pieces made by me from PMC silver clay Silver Silver clay is a putty like substance made up of silver particles, a binder and some water. It can be rolled, textured and worked in a similar way to ceramic clays. Once it is dried it can be fired with a butane torch or in a kiln. The resulting piece is 999 fine silver and of hallmark quality. The two main manufacturers of silver clay are Aida (Art Clay) and Mitsubishi (PMC) . I have used both clay types and tend to buy whichever is cheaper at the time! I don’t have a particular preference. Silver clay is available in different forms - lump clay, syringe, paste and paper. Sterling silver Sterling silver i...

I spent a very informative and experimental weekend learning how to use Bronze and Copper Clay at the Mid Cornwall School of Jewellery which is fast becoming my second home! The tutor was Carol Douglas who showed us some of her work which was both inspiring and intimidating! There were four of us on the course, with varying experience (I was probably the least experienced of us all). Carol spent some time at the beginning of the first day explaining about the issues of using bronze and copper clay. They aren't as easy to fire as silver clay, with most types having to be kiln fired in charcoal. Results can still be mixed and pieces can end up needing to be fired again. Because of our experience Carol let us loose on lots of different projects at the same time in order to experiment with the clays. I found this really helpful because I was able to try out lots of different techniques that I wouldn't normally try in order to see what came out well. I made a number of differen...