Hadar’s class was fabulous and realized how nice it would be to have my own Makin’s Professional Clay Extruder with an adapter to make TUBES! How ingenious- and time saving. I bought mine from Whole Lotta Whimsy since Michaels didn’t carry it..so much for that 40% off coupon. What I did find at Michaels were those leeetle clothes pins that can hold your clay together for you. They were in the wood/dollhouse section, and I also found some round wooden beads I plan to use as molds.

Now to just make myself take the time to finish those pieces-I suppose I could blame it on my little little man..nah.

Tomorrow I get to take Hadar’s class about metal clay and hopefully will get over my fear of -*gulp*- hinges. The other benefits of taking a class is meeting new people and seeing those you already know- yahoo, Beady Gals!
I haven’t gotten nearly as much done this week in preparation for the class as I had hoped due to my son’s surgery on Monday at the children’s hospital at Stanford. What a wonderful place with great staff and doctors.
Now to finish finalizing my list since I’m prone to forget important things..

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been back from visiting family for a week and a half already. Could be that my time has been sucked away by an active and seriously teething baby.
Now we have to worry that all of our pictures and information may have been lost in a computer crash last night. Keeping my fingers crossed that it is something fixable.
If I could only find my beadmaking mojo- maybe once this current drama has passed over, my mojo will return.

The color from this batch had me thinking of the Amazing Technicolor Coat- only for Bronzclay. There were some unfortunate mistakes on my part, as you can see some bubbles/blisters- I don’t recall leaving any air trapped between layers, guess I’ll have to be more vigilant next time. Or it could be the temp. now that I think of it- I forgot to lower my kiln by 5 degrees like I normally do..could this be the culprit for my beads’ wart-like appearance? The leaf pendant has that amazing color on the front and back. I placed it on the very bottom and middle of the firing chamber- et voila!
As always, after my firing is done I try and get out to the studio to crack the lid slightly to let the heat escape until the inside reaches 1000*. Then I take the lid off of the kiln and let it continue to cool- this is also the point that I normally take the lid off the firing chamber, but I left it on this time. Before, I would wait until the interior reached 600* and would remove the chamber w/ my pieces -carefully!- and let it continue to cool for a few minutes before sifting the pieces from the charcoal.
This morning I was distracted and sorta forgot about the bronzclay after I took the kiln lid off and the interior read around 285* when I got back to it. When I took the lid off the chamber, I set it on my kiln lid and left it too cool to room temp. since I was feeding my son. And these were the colors I had after I sifted them from the charcoal!

Today, I made a dent in my pile of hollow forms that needs to be textured. Focusing on the smaller pieces made it seem a little more manageable, they’re in the kiln right now and hope to have a nice batch of beads in the morning ready to be made into a bracelet or earrings.

Maybe I managed to get so much done today in an effort to avoid having to pack for my trip to Indiana on Wednesday. Grr, how I dread doing the airport and flying shuffle w/ a baby. Here’s to a smooth and uneventful travel day.

I finally had success with Hadar’s Copper Clay- this time I made sure to follow her new firing schedule to the letter that she posted on her blog. This is just a quick pic of my small pile of copper clay beads- a couple are from a friend that wasn’t too scared to let me try and fire them for her.
Now I may cook up the other pieces that I was too scared to take a chance of ruining.

Hadar’s books are fun to flip thru and my hands are itching to try some of the techniques. The one I’m currently focused on is hollow forms- how addictive!

There is approx. 165 grams, dry weight, alltogether in the big pile. The bigger pieces weigh in at about 115 grams, dry weight. The reason I list dry weight is the clay is premixed, which means moisture that will dry out and leave the piece a littttle bit lighter. I probably used a whole 200 gr. package and sanded quite a bit away to get the shapes refined.

Now I just have to decide how I want to decorate them…

I was about to throw out an empty Pringles can when I realized this may be a perfect tool for bangles! Since closed circles don’t shrink (hardly at all) in Bronzclay, maybe this will save time and effort. It was covered in press’n’seal Glad saran wrap carefully so there weren’t any wrinkles. The top had a slight lip that would impede release so that had to be cut- et voila!- a cheap-o bangle/bracelet shaper. Now I’m on the look out for things in other sizes that can be used as molds, etc..
Hopefully up later, more bronzclay beads. The kiln is running and I’m looking forward to what comes out.

My copper clay beads didn’t sinter properly, so it’s back to the drawing board to try again. Some problems may be that I didn’t let my beads cool enough before doing Phase II, or maybe you have to let them cool in the charcoal before pulling them out? Once I work my courage up again, I’ll probably try the rest of my copper clay- for now, I’ll stick with my Bronzclay since I know my firing schedule works.

I played with Hadar’s Copper Clay and have found I like it. It is in powder form so you mix as much as you want for your session. It takes wonderful impressions from stamps/texture plates and releases easily- you use olive oil as a release agent, which is nice, because who doesn’t have olive oil in their house?
Hadar has also set up a blog recently to help educate those interested in her products and how best to use them.
Here are some quick shots of the pieces that are in the kiln right now. These are not-quite-perfect ones that either ripped, cracked or warped from me learning about the clay. If there’s time, the pics of the fired pieces will be up this evening.