These pendants are hollow and I had thought about just leaving them looking like pebbles. Then I decided to try and make them similar to my Bound Bead style from my glass work. The far left is my first as you can see by my not so awesome stringing. If everything goes as planned they’ll be fired tomorrow morning.

I’m fired up about finishing my cheesecloth bracelet and interested *again* about making beadcaps. These beads have been laying around not making themselves useful and were talked into posing w/ beadcaps- made for each other, no?

The bigger bead is hollow, so it’s nice and light. Fumed ivory always looks so nice and organic.

Please pardon my non-model-worthy hands, just wanted to show the bracelet 😉You can tell a slight difference in color btwn the copper clay body and COPPRclay clasp, but I plan on enameling the body of the bracelet- making it a moot point. Have a good night, all!

Here is my pile of current works in progress. I’ve probably used 150-60 grams so far of Copprclay and some of them still need to be textured, smoothed, etc. before they’re ready to be fired.

I had to remake a clasp for my cheesecloth bracelet since the one I refired due to breakage ended up spreading apart and when I tried to move it closer together, it broke again 😦

Let’s hope the copprclay one is a little bit stronger. Next on my agenda is a hinged bracelet of some sort, perhaps w/ empty chambers to add some resin..

Still haven’t managed to master tear away texture- it seems a bit tricky, but I’m determined to get it down.

I thought I’d show you the back of an earring and how I used a tube as an attachment- maybe it’s nothing new to some of you, but I was pretty chuffed to figure it out, lol.

With the tube attached- made w/ my extruder- all I had to do was use a headpin and add a pearl, wire wrap and voila! a pair of earrings.

This happened purely due to the reason that I didn’t want to have to add a hole and then use a jumpring, etc. and I wanted to leave the front of the oval unmarred- imagine if you wanted to put writing or a certain design that would be ruined by a hole, maybe this would be useful.

A group of fellow lampwork artists decided to have an online earrings exchange and here are the ones I sent in:

The last day of May and my son, Z, is now 10 months old- time is certainly flying.
Spent a good portion of the day on repair and finishing copper clay and copprclay pieces for firing. My cheesecloth bracelet should be finished sometime tomorrow, hopefully. I managed to get some Copprclay fired after discovering that my acid-washed charcoal fires w/ no problems.

The links will be a bracelet and the ovals, earrings. I’ve been fortunate and have had no sintering problems w/ Copprclay. Followed the firing guide that was on the info sheet that came w/ the package and fired a little bit longer since that’s what they recommend if you want to enamel. You can see the contrast nicely btwn the polished and untouched, it has a smooth working consistency and takes textures wonderfully. Overall, I’m very pleased w/ this new product and can’t wait to see what everyone else makes.

It’s here! I just checked the mail and my COPPRclay and extruder was waiting for me! So very exciting, can’t wait to rip it open and play..must wait til after feeding little man his lunch. Just from feeling it thru the package and looking at it thru the plastic makes me think it will smoother to work w/ than BRONZclay. Didn’t I read somewhere that Copprclay doesn’t need to be conditioned, unlike Bronzclay? Hmm, may have to do some quick searches online to find out.

On a not so giddy note, I’m not sure I’ve managed to sinter my pieces of copper clay from my previous posts- they still don’t sound like change clinking together (which is *one* of the ways I know the bronzclay sintered properly when I took it out) and I don’t want to test my nice pieces, I’ll have to dig out that one piece that I broke off from before.

I’m also going to take the plunge and try to make my own tear away textures, not sure why this has me so intimidated. Turns out we don’t have the glossy photo paper that I need, so now I’ll be making a run to Office Depot this afternoon.. maybe I’ll be able to make some nice ones and use them on my Copprclay 🙂

The pieces for this bracelet are in the kiln right now and I hope I have better luck than the last. They may just end up getting fired twice, to be on the safe side.

I have one more hinge style to show, I made earrings w/ the third technique- will try and show in the next couple of days..

My copper clay bracelet that I was so excited about finished firing late last night and I let it cool overnight w/ the lid off and checked on it this morning. While trying it on, the clasp broke since apparently the metal didn’t sinter properly.

This bracelet has been weighing on my mind for a week now and I finally made myself finish it and get it cleaned up.

Just ignore those scorch marks on the left piece, it seems my warmer gets a little too hot and almost toasted my card on which was resting my link. I was too impatient to let it air dry since I was finally in the mood and free time is rare w/ a 9 and a half month old to corral.

Speaking of smart, Hadar also mentioned how it’s a good idea to number your links when you’re working so you can make your hinges fit correctly.

Ah, I just remembered another thing for next time…make sure the clasp is on straight!

These pieces are in the kiln right now and lordy, lordy I hope they fire ok- keeping my fingers crossed.