Nice to be Featured

Hi there, Long time no blog. Just a quick little braggy blip to say "thanks" to some sites that have featured Tree By Sea items lately.

My "Lovely Leaves" earrings were Jewelry of the Day, March 16 on JewelryoftheDay.net.



Foundhandmade.com featured "Belle Blossoms" (middle, 2nd row from bottom) on their blog on March 9th.


The Seasonal Cottage included The Love Dove in their Saturday feature "Wonderful Whimsical Gallery of Etsy Art" on Feb. 7th

Plus a few features in Etsy Treasuries. So nice. I really do appreciate it. Thanks!

Back with some Beads

Hey there. It's been far too long since I blogged. Crazy with holidays and buried in snow for the last few weeks like most people around the USA I think. I have also been working on a novel feverishly because I got inspired by the snow (which is sort of almost a key character in the book) and that has been all-consuming.

Now it's Jan 2009 and time for me to get back into the groove. I was lucky enough to sell quite a few pieces of silver and beads over the last month or so, in part, due to the magazine article (see prior blog) so I need to get busy and restock the stores!

I've added some new beads to my bead shop and there are more coming soon.

Speaking of beads, one of my bead store customers who is a wonderful jewelry designer, kindly sent me a photo of a finished necklace she made using two of my antiqued silver dotted chunky sphere beads. I just love it. Be sure to check out her store L3G Originals.

More Twilight twinkles...

Well since I am now a full blown fan (to put it lightly) of the Twilight novels and the movie myself, like others, I have been inspired to create some art based one some of the surrounding described in the books. Living in Washington and being a tree lover, it's only natural that the scenes that talk about flying through the woods and the vine maples that form arches around the edge of a meadow hit me with intense visuals. Here are a couple of the pieces that I have recently added to my store.

Cullen's Woods

Woodcrest

To make these pendants, I carved a relief in a large rubber eraser, pressed precious metal clay into the mold and when it was at the leather hard stage, I used a needle tool to make tiny holes in the area I wanted to be darker so that the antiquing medium would pool in them. I guess that would be pointilism in the literal sense. The pieces have been kiln fired, tumbled, antiqued then hand polished.

Precious Metal Clay Over Porcelain

Hi. I recently had a fun collaborative project proposed to me from a fellow Etsy member, marlasmud. She is a porcelain bisque artist who offered to send me some samples in exchange for some photos of the finished work that she could use for advertising to PMC artists on her website.

PMC-ers like myself can lay pure fine silver paste, clay and syringe clay over bisque forms and fire in a kiln to make pieces that have the look of chunky silver, withouth the weight and cost of it. (See the instructions in my previous post for making beads with this method.) I still have a few more pieces to complete when the inspiration hits me, but this is what I have done so far. Most of these will be posted in my Bead & Findings Store soon.

Pubished! ..... Almost

What this?
It's a little sneak peak of the article that will be coming out in the Winter 08 issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry magazine featuring an article & a photo tutorial by yours truly. I am very excited! This week the editor sent me a draft copy of the layout for review. They photographed the 3 pieces of silver that I submitted for the article and edited the text a bit. It was fun to see what they did with what I sent. I'll post more about this article and how it came to be when it hits the shelves!

Featured in more Etsy Treasuries this week...Thanks!

Hello, Just learned that some of my work has been featured in a few Etsy treasuries again. A treasury is a collection of like items that are pulled together by an Etsy member and featured as a group. Sometimes they get selected for the front page of Etsy, which is great publicity and a nice honor. I keep my fingers crossed that I will be lucky enough to be on page one some day.

Thanks for selecing me PoliticalPooches. My pendant is the one on the lime green polkadot background below. See the full shot here http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=11046

And here is another one by Floralia. Mine is the crow in goggles... 2nd treasury it has been in this week. Thanks Floralia! See the full shot here http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=11517

Always a nice surprise to be picked by someone! =o) Thanks again.

Precious Metal Clay Beads

Nope. This is not a picture of some alien form of plant life, or a scientific model of a Universe of oddly shaped planets. It's one of the things I have been working on lately... fine silver precious metal clay over porcelain beads.

There are 3 kinds of beads that I make using the fine silver of Art Clay Silver or PMC ~

*Hollow Silver Beads

*Solid Silver Beads

*Silver Overlay Beads

Hollow Fine Silver Beads

Hollow beads are made by putting silver over a core material that will burn out during firing in the kiln. (You should not try this with a torch.). There are many possible materials you can use. The most common are paper clay, cork clay, cereal. Yep, that's right.... breakfast cereal like Cheerios & Kix make great cores for beads, though it is pretty fragile to work with. Paper clay is a bit of a pain in my opinion because it does not completely burn away. You must chip it out of the center of the bead after firing. For me, cork clay is the perfect core medium. It is easy to form and it completely turns to fine ash when fired. This is how I do it...

Form the desired shape in the cork clay and let it dry for at least a day. Insert a wood toothpick into the cork where one of the bead holes will be. Don't put it all the way through, just insert deep enough to secure it in the cork. Break another toothpick in 1/2 and coat it with a non stick medium like "Slik". Stick this on the other side where the hole will be. This one will be removed before the bead is fired to allow a place for the ash to fall out of. Prepare a 'mandrel stand' by sticking a chunk of polymer clay to a plastic lid. Use the long toothpick as a mandrel to hold the bead while you work on it. Coat the cork in melted wax or a thick layer of water soluble glue, stick the toothpick end into the polymer mandrel stand and let the coating dry completely. The wax or glue will burn out faster than the cork, allowing a little wiggle room to accommodate the shrinkage of the silver clay & it keeps silver from flowing into the porus core surface. After the coating is dry, cover the bead in a thin rolled sheet of silver clay, syringe clay or use a paintbrush to paint the bead with silver clay paste. If using the paste method, you must use at least 5 layers of paste, letting each layer dry before adding the next. Once you have your silver base, decorate using syringe clay, paper clay, etc. Let it dry. Remove the short toothpick. Place the bead open hole side down, on a bed of fire blanket or vermiculite. Fire per manufacturers instructions. I fire my low fire ACS at 1270 for 30 minutes. The cork burns out around 700'. Until that point, you must leave the top vent of the kiln open. You will smell the cork burning and see a puff of smoke. (Be sure not to breath it. Work with plenty of ventilation.) Plug the vent hole after this occurs. After the beads are cooled, finish as you would any metal clay pieces.... burnish, tumble, antique, polish, etc.

Solid Silver Beads

This type of bead is pretty self-explanatory. Form metal clay into the desired shape, put a hole in it, fire and voila! You have a solid silver bead! Some ideas... After forming the desired shape, stick a wood toothpick all the way through to form the holes & keep them open during firing. In the kiln, they will simply burn away. Or you can use professional bead mandrels made especially for this purpose. You can form large hole beads or tube beads by wrapping a sheet of clay around a drinking straw. Remove the straw from the dried clay before firing.

Silver Overlay Beads

This type of bead involved putting a layer of silver over a core that does NOT burn out during firing. The core remains he center support for the outer silver surface. I have heard that brass and steel can be used for a core, but I have no personal experience with that. My favorite core material to overlay is porcelain. I prefer this method to the two bead styles mentioned above because the overlay beads use less silver, weigh less than solid beads and cannot be crushed like hollow beads. How I do it...

Form a mandrel from a drinking straw by cutting a slit about 3/4" long on one end of the straw, then cut a small slit perpendicular to that at the end of the first slit.

Roll the cut end of the straw into a tighter tube and insert into the bead. The tension from the straw should be strong enough to hold the bead on it securely so that you can work on the bead while holding on to the straw. Coat the bead in at least 5 layers of paste clay, letting each layer dry thoroughly. Decorate with syringe clay, sheet clay or stamped clay, etc... When it is dry, fire per manufacturers instructions. Burnish, tumble, antique, etc...

Visit my shop www.treebysea3.etsy.com . Many new beads & fine silver findings to be added to the store soon!

New Tree By Sea 3 Fine Silver Beads and Findings Store is now OPEN!

To go along with the Fine Silver (.999 % pure) metal clay pendants and earrings I have been making for a while now, I decided to start making some of my own pure silver findings and beads to complement them. I seemed silly to make something out of pure silver and then use sterling silver findings & beads with it.

My guess was that other PMC/Metal Clay artist were thinking the same thing. Turns out there is actually a bit of a market by fellow metal clay artists for the pure silver findings for use with their own creations.

There are also many people who are alergic to the copper and alloys used in Sterling silver that find fine silver is more hypoallergenic who are interested in things like the pure silver earwires. As an added bonus, it's said that pure silver tarnishes slower than sterling. That's cool!

So, I decided to go ahead and market the findings. I'm just getting started but have sold several findings to a local bead store and a few findings and beads on line too.

I will be adding a lot more soon and updating my website to feature the beads and findings, so if this is something you are interested in, please check out the store today and come back again later to see even more of a selection. Thanks!

http://www.treebysea3.etsy.com/

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An "Oops" Turned Around - Rescuing Precious Metal Clay from Boo Boos at Any Stage

Funny story... the brown stone you see here is actually blue tanzanite. I made this pure silver pendant with a blue stone and the words "blue moon" stamped at the bottom. However, the stone is more heat sensitive than I realized...when I fired it in the kiln, it turned brown. Luckily it is a gorgeous brown stone with red & gold fire (the picture does not do it justice), but it was obviously out of place with the words "blue moon", so I thought hard about how I could salvage this pendant that I really liked and came up with the idea to cover "blue moon" with "eclipse' because the moon looks brown during an eclipse, right? So the pendant ended up being something completely different than I planned, and the "oops" turned into something that is kinda cool and different I think.

So far there is nothing that I have done with metal clay that has not been salvagable no matter how hard I try to screw it up!

Before the clay is fired...

• In the wet stage, you can always ball it up and start over or augment with more clay.
• If the clay starts to get dry before you are done forming, spritz with water.
• In the dry greenware state it can be turned right back into clay by spritzing generously with water and sealing in plastic or an airtight container for a day or so.
• If at any time you make it too wet, expose to the air until it is the right consistancy.
• If you break a piece in the leatherhard or greenware state, you can use the metal clay paste to glue things back together.
• You can refine edges and smooth flaws with a wet paintbrush or with sand paper. (If you sand the greenware, be sure to salvage the 'dust' from you sanding and add it to your paste jar. The moisture will turn the dust into more paste or slip so there is no waste.)
• If cracks form while drying, you can 'spackle' them with silver paste.

After the clay is fired...

• You can repair breaks using silver OIL paste and re-fire (Kiln only), then sand and polish until the seam is not visible.
• You can add another element made from metal clay and use paste to adhere it to the original piece then refire.
• You can enamel, paint, or collage over mistakes (as I did in the eclipse pendant) to turn the item into a mixed media piece.
• You can file off small mistakes using metal files and different grits of sand paper or if you have metalsmithing tools, you can saw off boo boos or drill, etc.
• If all else fails, the item is .999 silver and can be melted and poured into a mold or can be sold to a precious metal buyer for the going rate for pure silver.

I just love a hobby with built in safety net!!

Silver For Sale in My New Jewelry Store... Opening Soon (I hope)

Happy Weekend! Too bad it's almost over. Well at least I finally had some time to start taking some photos of my work for my online jewelry store that I will be opening soon. I will be selling my pure fine silver metal clay jewelry, charms & beads as well as beaded & glass jewelry under the name "Tree by Sea" (I think) on Etsy.com.

In the interim, if you see something here you are interested in, please contact me direct for pricing & purchase information. Lisa@kamerakat.com THANKS!!

I will send announcements when the store is officially up and running!

Here's my store header:





Here's a few sample shots. Hope they look OK.

I think I'm gonna dig this metal clay stuff...

I have made beaded jewelry & mixed media jewelry for years, but what I really wanted to make is what I really like to wear - Silver Jewelry. I have looked into metalsmithing classes and working with Sterling silver, but it all seemed to overwhelming and time consuming, and I already am running low on time most days. So, I thought silver was out of the question.

Then a few years ago I started hearing about this stuff called "Precious Metal Clay" or "PMC". I heard you formed it just like clay & then fired it in a kiln and it turned in to 99.9% pure silver. Say what?! No metalsmithing classes required? No scary jewelers saws and bench-vises needed? No smelting & pouring of molten hot liquids? Yahoo!!

The I started checking in to it and it seemed like such a big investment to try a hobby I didn't know that I would be good at... $700 kiln, $300 for a 1-day class at my local bead store or college, $80 tumbler, $200 in misc tools, shapers & files, and then the ongoing expense of the clay in it's various forms... It's not that cheap - It is silver, ya know? And, on top of that, I heard the jewelry was really soft & semi-fragile and the clay shrunk un-predictably when firing so rings were not recommended, which is of course, what I wanted to make the most.

Another couple of years past before I took a second look at this media. There was now more choices. There was another manufacturer "Art Clay", and there was "Low-Fire clay" that cintered (became solid silver) at a temperture & speed that allowed it to be fired easily by a $40 torch vs. $800 kiln. On top of that, the shrinkage was lower and predictable. The resulting fired metal was stronger. And there was "Slow-Dry clay" that allowed more working time to make things that are more time consuming such as rings. YAHOO for real this time!

So I bought a book called "The Art of Metal Clay" by Sherri Haab. The next thing I knew, I had ordered a starter kit. And I made my first pieces. OK, not perfect, but it was silver, it was made by me, and I was hooked.

Fast forward to now... I now have invested in that $700 Paragon kiln and the aforementioned tools & tumbler because working with these items expands what I am able to do with the media & is frankly faster & easiler on the carpal-tunnel so I can make more pieces.

Little by little I am learning how to read the material and keep the moisture of the clay just right & how to work it in the fragile 'greenware' stage. I have learned what stones & types of glass can be fired in the kiln with the clay. And I am learning how to antique with Liver of Sulfer patina and bring the silver to a shine with polishing.

I really am beggining to love this media with only a few negatives...

• There is a learning curve if you want to make quality, detailed pieces.
• It is a bit costly and as the cost of silver rises, it will only get worse.
• It is not metalsmithing, but it helps to learn some basic metalsmithing techniques.
• It is takes quite a bit of time to make a highly detailed & polished piece.
• It a bit dusty and dirty. You should wear a high-quality dust mask and goggles and work in a well ventalated area.
• It's addicting
  

So far I have only made pieces for myself and family to learn this new skill, but am now working on some pendants that will be for sale through my Etsy store soon. Please keep an eye out! Thanks!

So that is my story regarding silver clay. If you would like to give it a try, all of the supplies listed above in BOLD and more are available from the links and "I recommend" shopping widget on the sidebar of this blog.