Hello

Precious metal clay, that's where my jewelry making addiction started!

(PMC butterfly, one of my first pieces)

Hi, I'm Niky Sayers, the newest member of the Art Jewelry Elements team and I come from Surrey in the UK.

5 years ago, after giving up my job to become a stay at home mum, I decided that I needed a hobby. A short Internet search later and I had ordered 50g of PMC, a load of tools and a torch, of course those were the days when silver metal clay did not cost a fortune! 

(PMC heart with handmade chain, another early piece)

After a short romance with metal clay, I found I rather liked working with chainmaille and wire, then I stumbled into art beads and all hopes of ever being able to shake this jewelery making addiction were lost!

(this was one of my first ever art beads, a beautiful lampwork bead by Laura Sparling, I still have the rest of the set, unused in my bead display, oh how I love them)

I have since learnt the joys of soldering and I am enjoying playing more with sheet metal and setting gems.

(my most recent necklace made using one of Sue Kennedy's stunning lampwork focal beads)

I am now a fully fledged bead addict and have even started selling my own handmade jewelry elements.

(prong set Roman coins, my newest love)

All of what I know I have learnt from fantastic blogs such as this one and You Tube, so I feel very grateful for the opportunity to join the wonderful women on this blog and to help inspire and encourage others in this fantastic jewerly making community!

Creating a Library of Textures and Forms

I hope you don't mind a little reprise of a former post... this one is about building a collection of forms and textures that can be used to make an endless variety of bead styles... enjoy!

Over the years I have been building a library of hand formed and hand carved texture plates, molds and stamps. I thought I would share a bit of my process and some of my latest designs...

Using Found Objects

Most of my stamps and texture plates are created by hand carving. But I sometimes create them from found objects found in nature or from among other sources.

Here is a collection from my beach combing finds in Jamaica several years ago, along a few other odds and ends. In the example at the bottom of the image below, I used a tiny pottery shard (shown in the upper right corner of the image), smoothed by the ocean, to create numerous flower and star fish designs on clay stamps.

Drawing and Carving Designs 

As someone who loves to draw, I especially like drawing my own designs directly onto clay. I make a lot of stamps using this carving technique. Some of the sources come from my journeys to the southwest and to the mounds of the midwest, in addition to studies with a Hopi teacher, other studies of native culture (primarily Ojibwe, Algonquin, and 6 nations), and my own sketch journals.

I will often make several impressions of my initial carved design, both "innies" and "outies"...

In the example below, I used a carved tree design, and a wood grain texture on the back from a texture plate (shown below in "Making Molds").

In the following example, I used a carved tree ring cookie bead to create a texture plate, then from that I made several stamps in various sizes.

Building Textures on Thrown Forms

To get a nice spiral base, I threw several forms on my pottery wheel, fired them, made reverse impressions, carved onto these, then over several more rounds of making impressions, carving, and firing, I evolved the spirals into multi-layered textures. These form the basis of my "Fossil Spiral Hoops" and other designs.

Making Molds

I often make molds of my own carved designs. Depending on what I am trying to achieve, in either silicon molding compound or porcelain. Porcelain gives me a more rigid mold - good for when I want a highly detailed and precise form.

The top part of the image below is also an example of a texture plate made into a mold. I form a textured slab from the plate, then carve a design on top of it.

Combining Textured and Sculpted Elements

The real fun happens when I get to combine several elements to create completely new designs. Here are a few examples...

Making Blank Forms

I sometimes make "clay blanks". Then I make molds and later add texture to them. This is a simple process of paddling,  pulling and smoothing clay.

Here are a few examples of added texture and sculpted details to clay blank forms to create my signature leaf and feather styles. I also made molds of some of the resulting textured / sculpted forms.

Building a Library

Though I haven't counted them, I probably have over a hundred hand formed / carved texture plates, stamps and molds, all of which reflect my own unique style. You can build your own library that reflects YOUR style. It does take time to develop, but start with simple impressions from found objects, then move own to layering and building complex forms of your own invention. I think you will find it a very rewarding experience.

Finished Beads and Components

Finally, here is a brief tour of a few beads and components made from the above techniques. Some of these are available in my shop at Starry Road Studio.

Starry Road Studio

© 2014, Karen Totten. All rights reserved. All work in this post is copyright protected. 

Saturday Share - Re-Visit...Embossing Metal with a Sizzix Big Shot

Hi all, I have been swamped with day job woes, meeting publication deadlines, and well, just everyday family life.  Today, I decided to am re-run a post from almost exactly 2 years ago. Hope you get some inspiration and ideas!

It's no secret I love textured metal...hammered, punched, stamped, etched, embossed. My 1st foray into the arena of texturing metal was by hitting it really hard with my chasing hammer...I didn't really know what I was doing, but it made cool divots in the surface, and I was immediately addicted. Plus, it felt really good to pound the hammer against the poor metal, leaving a lasting mark!

I eventually went to metal stamps, which deceptively a lot harder than it looked...I could never get a complete design, and when I would try a second hit, I got a lot of shadow images!

Next was etching...I like the result, but it is messy.

Next, after falling in love with Keirsten Giles' gorgeous stamped designs, came hammering brass texture plates directly onto the metal.  Her generous posts on using vintage coins actually opened my eyes to more possibilities...also, she stressed the fact that you needed to anneal the metal and tape it down to your steel block so it doesn't move!  Why didn't I think of that!  I still love this technique and use it frequently!

Next, I became drawn to gorgeous designs by various artists created by using ordinary textures found in nature...leaves, lace, screen mesh, etc.  This, I found out, entails using a rolling mill.  Want!  But, yikes, the least expensive ones are expensive!  Like so many of us, I was/am broke!

Fast forward to seeing a blog posts by Erin Prais-Hintz about her Vintaj Big Kick.  I was intrigued and interested, but not so much in using the thin brass Vintaj blanks that were recommended.  I wanted to use metal sheet, and I wanted it to be more durable.  Then, this past fall I came across a blog post at Cinnamon Jewellery on her experiments with the Sizzix Big Shot.  I immediately decided I wanted to give this a go.  Right before Christmas, I found it on sale at Amazon and told Hubby that he could get it for me to put under the tree or I would get it for myself.  Nice, obedient (snort) guy that he is, he got it, but wouldn't let me play with it until after Christmas!

Here it is...

 Basically, it is a rolling mill originally created for embossing paper goods and other scrapbooking crafts.  It comes with this sort of folder that enables you to place media in with the embossing templates and create a layered stack that is thick enough to press the images into the media, be it paper or metal.  The embossing folders to use are also created by Sizzix, or you can use other similar ones by other companies.  I actually found the 2 I currently have at Michaels, but there are lots more on line.

I have tried up to 22 gauge metal with great success.  The trick is to anneal the metal very well.  I usually pickle afterward so as not to stain the embossing folders with firescale and grunge!  The cool thing about these folders is that they are a bit transparent so you can see the design on top of the metal and line up the metal exactly where you want the embossing to happen.  The folder has a positive and negative design, so the finished piece is 2-sided, unlike etching and stamping.

Here are a few pieces I have created since using mine...

These were patina'ed with Ranger Inks and sealed with Ice Resin
...featuring ceramic beads by LeAnn Weih.

These were torch-fired enameled for a cool effect...featuring lampwork by Jelveh Jafarian.

These were run through the Big Kick, then punched with holes!

Favorites..they were bought by my sister as a gift to her daughter-jn-law!  I need to make more!

That's all for today...I want to do some more experimenting using texture plates and maybe some found object textures, but that will have to wait...I have an 11 yo with the dreaded flu, and 3 new baby guinea pigs to figure out!  Please share any experiences you have had with using the Big Shot or Big Kick with metal...especially non-Vintaj brass!

*****

Thanks for letting me share this older post....a few months after I posted this, I did a followup, using other things for embossing...check it out here!  And don't forget that 1 week from today is the AJE Component of the Month hop, featuring metal clay components from yours truly!!!

Improvising A Jewelry Booth In Oaxaca

When I came to Oaxaca for the winter, I brought bead supplies, shipping supplies and a sketch book.  It never occurred to me that I might have an opportunity to show my work here, but that is just what happened!

 Usually my booth display looks something like this.  See all those props?  They are all in the states, not here!
The Oaxaca Lending Library is the oldest English Language Library in Mexico and they host an annual so-called "Flea Market" in February, as a fund raiser for their many projects.  Most of the people selling at the market are expats who are downsizing and selling their collections of local crafts.  There were many gorgeous textiles, as well as household goods, Mexican silver jewelry, woodwork etc.

Photo by Alan Goodin

But there were also a couple of artists' booths, so I decided to give it a go.  The booth fee was reasonable and I figured that even if I didn't sell anything, the money would be going to a good cause.  Ah, but how to set up a halfway decent booth with no props and no intention of spending money on new booth decor?

I wanted to create some height.  Nothing is more boring than a bunch of jewelry laid out flat on a table!  I figured that making tented earrings cards would add some height. My first thought was to buy a couple of sheets of card stock to create the tented earring cards and hang tags.  But all I could find here were complete reams of card stock!  Uh, no way was I buying a whole ream!  So instead,  I bought a brown legal sized file folder and cut out earring "tents" from the folded side.

I used a sewing needle to punch hole for the ear wires. I wrote Linda Landig Jewelry across the top of the cards and put my web address on the back.  I wrote the price in pesos and dollars on the bottom, front of the cards (Yes, I had to convert all my dollar prices.).  Not elegant, but the earring cards were functional and stood up nicely on the table.

I used the rest of the file folder to create price hang tags. I didn't have regular string, so I used some waxed cotton that I'd brought with me for knotted jewelry designs.

My regular jewelry both has several risers to create height, so I scouted around the house for a substitute. I found several baskets without handles that could be flipped upside down for risers.

 To cover the table I used two sheets of scrapbook paper that I brought with me for jewelry photo backgrounds.  I also used a gray foam sheet, that I had been beading on, two woven place mats and the unused remainder of the file folder.  And here's the result:

Its not fancy, but hey, it's not bad either, especially considering that I was creating something out of nothing and I only shelled out 10 cents for the cost of a file folder.

And here's the thought that I want to leave you with.  Situations that knock you out of your usual ways of doing things, lead to creative problem solving and flexible thinking patterns.  That is one of the reasons I enjoy traveling.  As artists, I think it is important that we seek out experiences that challenge us to move outside our routines and usual ways of doing things.  It doesn't need to be travel, but just don't let yourself get too comfortable.  What are some ways that you create flexible thinking for yourself?

Linda 

Linda Landig Jewelry