Steampunk heart!

Materials used: Old wristwatch gears and parts, Kato Polyclay, jump rings, hinge, large fabricated gear.

Process: After conditioning copper and silver Kato Polyclay, I combined the two colors and repeatedly rolled out the blend until I got an arrangement that looked like old scrap metal with enough variation to be visually appealing. I hand-formed the heart shape, then sliced the heart in half in order to press in the gear to be used for attaching the finished heart to a cord or necklace. I also added other embellishments at that point in time (the jumprings and the spiky end of watch crowns). After reattaching the heart and smoothing out the seam, I then sliced out the front right quarter of the heart using an X-Acto knife. I hollowed out the main body of the heart as well as the inside of the quarter heart to make room for gears. Texture was added using carving tools, and the gears were pressed into the clay. I attached the hinge to the body of the heart and baked the two pieces separately. I baked the clay on foil and tissue in my toaster oven according to Kato Polyclay's directions, then once the heart pieces cooled I marked out the drill holes for the hinge to be attached to the quarter heart, pre-drilled the holes, then attached the hinge using the screws that were packaged with the hinge (I did have to trim the tips of the screws to prevent them from poking through the clay).

Notes:
This was my first time working with Kato Polyclay (or any other polymer clay brand, such as Sculpey or Fimo), so I'm thrilled with the overall success of the piece (i.e. I didn't burn it to an awful-smelling crisp, though the piece did do some ominous smoking and emanated an unpleasant odor during the first several minutes of baking). The edges did do some minor cracking where I tried to blend the seam, but it's held up well so far after at least one drop onto parking lot pavement. Overall, I think I'll continue to use Kato Polyclay for now. If I ever give Fimo or Sculpey a try, I'll post the results here!

The photograph is of the incomplete piece before I attached the quarter heart to the hinge.

Other things I do for the fun of it

Sometimes beading just isn't enough. Sometimes there are just times in life when you look in the mirror and say, "Self, I need to make a silly hat."

Or, rather, the hat was needed for a game for a good friend's bridal shower, but still. Who needs a reason to make a silly hat, anyhow?

I took a plain white bucket hat and glued and sewed and painted to my heart's content. The painted script reads "Let me eat cake!" There is also a glow-in-the-dark fabric paint halo on the top seam of the hat.

A very similar design will be making its way onto my hard hat in the near future.

Creativity on a schedule

One of my greatest challenges as a jewelry artisan is my schedule... I work full-time, have an apartment to help keep up, plus other hobbies that also like to suck up my time. This means that I have scant little time to make jewelry, let alone blog about my artistic escapades. This would be why I have a very loosey-goosey update schedule (read: there is no schedule, I write when I can for now).

I try to sneak in jewelry-making when I can, and of the several projects I have on the docket right now I have a chainmail necklace that I carry around in my purse. It's easy for me to add a couple new rings to it during things like my lunch break at work, and I don't have to lug around my heavy bead tote. I also carry a small Moleskine sketchbook with a full 12-pencil set of Prismacolor Turquoise drawing pencils in my purse as well, which is why I've recently had to upgrade to a much larger purse to carry at least some of my hobbies around with me!

Also on the agenda while I sort out this whole not-enough-hours-in-the-day thing: Sorting out and organizing my hobbies!

The way things come together...

One of the things I do to challenge myself as a jewelry artisan is take advantage of assortments and mixes to expose myself to materials I would not normally purchase. Some of the things sit in my sorting bins for years, only to wait for the right counterpart to come along and complete the design. Such was the case with this necklace/earring/bracelet set. I had the rough chips of this as-yet-unidentified stone that came in a chip assortment I purchased, and while the color and texture was appealing, the inspiration wasn't there.

Lo and behold, some years later my sister-in-law contacted me and said that she had a bundle of beads and materials that she had no idea what to do with, and would I be so kind as to give these wayward materials a home? Of course I would! So a happy bundle of beads showed up on my doorstep some weeks later, and included in the mix were these gorgeous red faceted stones in approximately the same shade as my lonely chips! Add in the focal bead from another assortment of mixed stones, with some silvertone filigree beads, and voila, a design!

What's so interesting about jewelry, anyway?

A) It's shiny! Pretty, pretty shinies to tempt the eye and strain the pocketbook.

B) Making my own jewelry is awesome because I know exactly what I like. Making jewelry for others is awesome because it gives the jewelry a deeper meaning in the form of a personal connection, especially when it's made for family and friends.

C) Showing people how I make my jewelry and the materials I work with probably sounds redundant. Try searching for jewelry-making how-to books. There's a lot of them out there. I know one of the reasons I started making my own jewelry is the thrill of developing my own personal style and my own unique pieces, but I had to start with basics and sources of inspiration. The how-to books are great for that, and this blog is no exception. I pull my inspiration from dozens of sources, whether it's from books or something that strikes my fancy. In return, posting my designs and methods helps fuel other new and interesting ideas. It's a giant melting pot of creativity!