Another Christmas Passed/Past

And a wonderful Christmas it was. My second Christmas with my honey and an absolutely beautiful piece of Pink Sapphire jewelry for me. I don't normally shop at the big jewelry stores but it was fun and we made sure I could wear it every day and it would look good with my hand crafted jewelry. He recently got a BluRay player so of course I helped him stock up on BluRay discs for his Christmas presents.

Here's a picture of my ring by request.

We braved the snow and went out and visited both his and my families, we had a wonderful time!!! Ate too much, exchanged gifts and spent good times with loved ones, it's what Christmas is all about.

We've had snow every day for a week or so I think, must be well over 12 inches total. It is warming up and I'm afraid it might start raining which will most likely mean flooding. I'm hoping the rain holds out a day or 2 and gives these mountains of snow some time to thaw, that'll give us plenty of water to cope with for now.

So....I've been out of PMC for about a week, hoping to get a fresh order today. I've also ordered some silicone mold making compound, cork clay and PMC syringe. I'm anxious to try some more new techniques I read about in the book PMC Technic I've mentioned in a previous post, but I'm also a little nervous to try without somebody to guide me. Precious Metal Clay is not cheap so I hate to waste it. In the interum I'm doing some beading and listing a couple non-pmc items on my etsy site. http://www.dreamsome.etsy.com/

For the new year my goal is to take more classes and start working towards certification, join the PMC Team on Etsy http://www.etsymetalclay.com/ , I've already been working hard to meet the criteria necessary to be considered for membership. I will continue working on ways to promote my jewelry such as this Blog, Twitter https://twitter.com/DreamSomeDesign , Flickr http://www.flickr.com/ screen name DreamSomeDesigns. I'm quite happy with what I've accomplished in a few short months so I'll continue in that direction. And of course I plan to continue having fun at the same time!

2008 was a very good year for me and 2009 will be even better!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Kristi
http://dreamsome.etsy.com/

What to do on a Snow Day...

Today is one of those days when I only went out when absolutely necessary. It's possible to get around but I'm happy to putter around the house and play with clay and do some holiday cooking. Pumpkin pie just about ready to come out of the oven.


With this freezing weather I've been working hard to keep my hummingbird feeder thawed out. I have at least 2 hummers feeding on it and I worry about them, how can they find enough to eat in this frigid weather. Here's one of my cuties taking a sip. Why these particular birds didn't migrate I don't know. I'm happy to watch them.





Other than my park ranger duties and cooking, I've been working with my PMC. I just received a fresh packet of clay and a wonderful new book that has inspired me to continue to try new things and learn on my own until my next workshop some time in the new year. It's called PMC Technic Edited by Tim McCreight with 10 wonderful chapters each by a different PMC Artisan. Some very fun ideas I can't wait to try!!!



Here are a few of today's pieces, in dry clay form, still lots of perfecting before they will be ready to fire. A couple of pendants and a pair of earring charms.



I feel like they are going to turn out very nice. I hope to get a few more done today and tomorrow and fire up the kiln again soon. I can't tell you how much fun I'm having with this stuff, it's a fantastic outlet for my creativity that I haven't had in a long long time. And silver has always been one of my favorites so what could be better!

Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings!

Here is one of the clay pieces show above as a finished product.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=18920254


Kristi

http://dreamsome.etsy.com/

Abalone Inspiration

I managed to get every piece I had ready for the kiln in to it, it was a tight fit.

I think my Abalone Inspiration was a great success, you can barely see the 2 pieces when they are laying on the inside of the shell they were molded from.

I gave them a slight patina and polished them up and I think they are gorgeous.



Now I'll either drill holes or add a bail and they will be ready to list on my Etsy site.

And here it is!! http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=18749157

Kristi


http://www.dreamsome.etsy.com>

Snow and Inspiration

We've had our first snow of the season, and I had an inspiration. Completely unrelated they just happened to have occured on the same night.

I have a large abalone shell and I decided I needed to try to mold some clay on the inside and then attempt to get a patina that might replicate the beautiful colors and shine of the shell itself. Here is one I've left in the shell to dry and one I removed right after pressing it. If it works I'll either use it as is or make a mold of it.

I am hoping they will dry in time to put in the kiln, later today with all the other pieces I have ready to fire today, and I hope it will all fit in my little tiny kiln.

A perfect day to fire up the kiln don't you think!!

To be continued.....

Kristi

DreamSome.Etsy.com

My First Post

OK take a big breath, you can do this!!!

I have a big load of PMC to go in the Kiln this weekend. I've tried a few new things so I'm anxious to see how they turn out. I'll send some before and after pictures and maybe some during.

For those of you who don't know what PMC is, it's the coolest thing EVER!!!

PMC (precious metal clay) or Silver clay, is made of fine silver particles that are suspended in a nontoxic organic binder with water which, when heated, burn off & the metal particles fuse together leaving beautiful .999 pure fine silver.

That's .999 silver, Sterling silver is .925 so this is the real deal. The newest creation of these rocket scientists who figured out how to make this stuff is Bronze Clay, I'm in the process of getting all that I need to give this a try. The clay is also available in Gold, but I've never been a huge fan of Gold, Silver has always been my favorite.

My first post under my belt. Anybody have any comments please let me know! Thank you for visiting.