Water casting fun

I have been a little AWOL this week as I had a rather special girlie staying. Daisy and I had some magical days and as the weather was horrible we crafted non stop. Today though I am going to share another of my silversmithing projects from last year which got forgotten about with all the excitement of Christmas. 

A couple of weeks ago I showed you my up-cycled Murano pendant. If you missed that project you can see it here

With every project I make there are always little bits of silver left over. As I have been attending classes for over 16 years in all that time those little pieces of silver have turned into a whole bag full of "waste" and our tutor decided that our valuable silver could be turned into something usable using a technique called water casting. 

Boy was that fun...but without proper safety measures could be really dangerous.

We put some of our off cut silver waste into the furnace and melted it. We then carefully took it out using long tongs protected by aprons, gloves and gauntlets. This photo was our tutor showing us how to hold the container.it was cold at this point..when we actually did the technique we were well gloved up. 

 Once the silver came to temperature and was liquid we tossed it into a water bath.

 

 Out came these very cool, rather organic shaped pieces of silver. These pieces below came from 3 separate water casts. I could see leaves, branches...

and a "rose". Can you see it too?

I cut off the spare silver under the "flower."

 I then designed myself a pendant....as I could also see leaves and a stalk in my water-cast pieces.
  I soldered my "leaf" under the bud....looking more floral at this point.

 Then saw a "stalk" which I filed down and soldered this on too. 

I then filed everything and soldered a hanging loop to the back.

After a final polish my "rose" pendant was finished.

Here it is.

My card today is one I recently made having enjoyed a day being able to play with my Lavinina fairies. This one is for my sister in law 's birthday.  I made an oxide background using black soot and antique linen. The sentiment is a Tim Holtz die cut.

I would like to enter her into the following challenges;

C.R.A.F.T 1/2  distress your project/vintage
The house that stamps built 1/3 anything goes
Creative Moments 1/3 anything goes

Let's Craft and Create 3/3 anything goes

Noor UK anything goes
Shopping our stash 1/3 birthdays

How quickly the week is flying by. It is nearly the weekend again. Thanks so much for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. The sun seems to have returned today thank goodness and today was quite mild and sunny. Let's hope it hangs in there for a good weekend.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A new life for a Murano bead

 My silversmithing class re started after the Christmas break and I realised that I have not shared any of my recent makes.  So I thought that today I will share a pendant I made last year.

Like most crafters I tend to hoard  keep things just in case they will come in useful. I had a lovely Murano pendant I bought years ago in Italy and the bail had come off. I had every intention to fix it but it remained in a drawer for years. I decided that this glass star would be perfect for my project which was to fuse glass with silver metal clay. I designed a heart and using silver metal clay and I cut it out and added some texture. I also made 3 small heart to use as "claws" to hold in the star in place once fired. I also cut a star shape out (covered up by the bead) so that the light can shine through.

Unfired it doesn't look like much...this was a photo of it drying. We use playing cards when cutting out the clay so they are useful to dry the pieces on too. If the clay is wet when fired it explodes! Not a good idea really 😂

These were the texture plates I used.

Once fired and polished things look very different. This shows how the little hearts hold the glass in place.

This is the reverse where I cut out a star to let the light shine through. The texture worked out really well and the back is as pretty as the front.

I held it up to the window to show how the bead shines (these photos were taken last year)

and yes someone photobombed 😺

 One more photo

I have been busy making new cards for Dotty's Tea Rooms in Carshalton, where I sell my cards. Tea themed cards always sell really well so today's card is one I sold there recently.

I used a new teapot stamp and die set which I bought in a sale and had yet to be inked. I made an inky background using distress inks and added some stenciling and stamping.  The sentiment is Visible Image and you can see their old Bronte script too (sadly long discontinued but still my fave for adding some inky words to backgrounds). The dies are a mix of Memory Box, Marianne, Sizzix and The Works.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Allsorts 1/3 No patterned paper
Sweet stampin 1/3 Lots of layers
Fussy and fancy 1/3 distress it
Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes
Happy little stampers anything goes with dies

Thanks so much for stopping by. Enjoy a lovely weekend, we have a nice quiet one ahead....I can craft to my heart's content.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane (and Billy 😼) xx

Face It...a very special bag charm

Good morning friends. First of all please can I thank everyone, both here on my blog and on the Visible Image Facebook page, for all your kind birthday wishes you left me on Saturday. I had such a lovely weekend...and the sun shone too. 😊

It's another marvellous Monday and I'm here with my latest DT inspiration for Visible Image. Although most of my time is spent making paper crafts many of you are aware that another of my hobbies is silversmithing and jewellery making. I attend a weekly class and I have just finished a new pendant (which I will share with you soon). I was recently commissioned to make some more of my bag charms. Here are a couple of examples of what I have made..and yes over the years I have made just about every theme you can imagine...cat lovers, artists, chocolate lovers, musicians..the list is pretty endless!

My most recent were for; a knitter

 some very girlie ones

and one American lady wanted something very "English" so I made an Alice in Wonderland bag charm...with tea themed charms. 

I use artisan one of a kind handmade glass lampwork beads in my bag charms, made by my talented friends and attach metal charms.

For my inspiration today I wondered how I could incorporate Visible Image stamps into a special bag charm. Whilst spring cleaning my garden studio ready for my summer crafting I found a packet of Shrink Plastic..with one last snippet left inside...which got me thinking....👀

Grab a cuppa and I will share my step by step....

I used my Face It Stamps available here

and the Bold and Beautiful sentiment from the Own It set here. These stamps are now all back in stock, having sold out several times recently. Visible Image will also be at Ally Pally at the weekend...and I will be there on Sunday.

I found that black Ranger Archival ink worked best on my shrink plastic but I did also use a red for the lips.

I die cut out all my "charms" but you can cut the plastic with scissors. I used blue pencil to colour the eyes and added some purple to the lid for eyeshdow.

Try to keep a firm steady pressure when stamping. It's very easy to slip on the plastic. I used an acryllic block rather than my MISTI as I felt I had better control over the slippery plastic surface.

Once die cut I made a hole in the top of each piece.

To give an idea of scale pre heating I have used a £1 coin. I haven't seen the new £1 coins yet..have you? To shrink the plastic I used a heat gun but you can bake it too.

There is no way I could take photos whilst heating the plastic, it does have a mind of its own. One tip I can give is, "Be Brave and don't Panic!" The plastic will crinkle up and appear to stick..just flip it over and gently tease it with a pokey tool. When it finishes shrinking immediately place an acrylic block on top to flatten it out while it cools down.

Here's the after photo....look at those diddy charms... you can see that the eyes are about the size of the £1 coin now.

I thought they looked too plain left white so I had a play with some methods of colouring.

I found that the best method for me was to use Sharpie pens, a lot of other mediums just wipe off.

I even coloured the edges and the backs

So then it was time to wire wrap some gorgeous artisan lampwork glass beads from my stash.












add some jump rings to my shrink plastic charms

and put together my Bold and Beautiful Visible Image bag charm....

and a couple of close ups to show the details

I would like to enter my bag charm into the following challenges;

Pixies's snippets playground week 275/6 I now need to buy some more shrink plastic as I have none left! It just shows how useful our snippets are and why us crafters keep all those little bits and pieces...you never know when you might need them ;0)

Love to create 1/2 #7anything creative/mixed media

Stamping sensations 1/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes


I hope that you might be inspired to use your stamps to make some charms to use...not just for jewellery but to use in your card making too. It really is great fun playing with shrink plastic ...enjoy 😆 and don't panic when heating it! If you have any questions do email me...my email address is on the right hand side bar of my blog. I'm always happy to help.

Thanks for visiting me today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Christmas makes

I attended an enamelling course recently and made some pendants. I really enjoyed playing for 4 Monday evenings. I love the way crafts cross over and I was intrigued to find out that rubber stamps could even be used for creating enamel pieces! I took a couple of photos which I thought you would find interesting. First I sieved a white layer of powdered enamel over the copper circular pendant. This was then put into a kiln to fire.

Once it had cooled I used the smallest snowflake from the Snowman Jack Visible Image set  and stamped with archival ink. I then added some blue enamel powder which sticks to the ink. The pendant was then fired a second time

and below is my pendant after firing.

I also made some other pendants which I will make into jewellery at some point. They are sooo hard to photograph!

 The one below has lots of layers and was fired in several stages. I added a glass bead layer and gold micra powder. I can just about give you an idea of the depth with this photo but IRL it is magical. It is like looking into a pool.

I have also made some Christmas decorations for my children's homes. I decorated a 2nd VI Monolith which I gave to my son and his girlfriend.  The first one I shared here last month and is with my daughter and family.
I started with some gesso and Joanna Sheen ivy die cuts on the front

and on the back a lamp post and Cheery Lynn icicle die cut

I added lots of washes of Decoart media paints.

Then I stamped, embossed, paper pieced and cut out Snowman Jack. I added gems for eyes and buttons and coloured his nose and arms.

 This is the front.

I added lots of Decoart snow and glamour dust to the base for lots of sparkle just as I did for my snowflake monolith which you can see here in detail.
Below is the back, complete with glittered mittens and the fun sentiment.
These are my last guest design pieces for Visible Image. They have just made some new business decisions for 2017 which means they no longer need the extra 3 new design team and 2 guest designers they took on in September. It's been short but very sweet to guest design for them and I have lots of lovely new VI stamps still to play with. I wish them every success with their new crafty adventures ahead. I will of course still love creating with their gorgeous stamps.

I would like to enter my Christmas Monolith into the following challenges.

Mixed Media World Winter Wonderland

A Vintage Journey Winter Magic

Simon Says stamp Monday Let there be snow

Simon Says Wednesday gift it

Craft Stamper take it make it snow and ice

        Mod Squad Use chipboard my monolith is chipboard/MDF

Rhedd's Creative spirit December

WOW embossing powders December, winter

Emerald Dare Winter Wishes

Creative Artiste anything goes

Studio 75 Christmas decorations

                                     Happy Little Stampers untld anything goes with dies

                                            Christmas at sweet stampin inspired by a song mine is pretty obviously as the words are on the back! ....Baby it's cold outside by Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews. The funny thing is that it has turned ridiculously mild here again..it was 16c in garden yesterday!

We had a mammoth wrapping session yesterday and the presents are mostly done. I also managed to make my crackers and will share them with you very soon. Today I am taking a day off to have lunch with my best friend Karen and share some festive chat, our last for 2016!

I hope you are getting your lists ticked now?

Thanks so much for visiting and for all your kind comments. I appreciate just how busy everyone is at the moment. I would also like to extend a very warm welcome to my newest follower. Thanks for joining me on my creative journey here at Jane's Journal.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

On show

I only have 2 more silversmithing classes left for this year. There is an annual exhibition, which is held in the library, to show work by the students for all the crafts taught at our college.

It has been up for nearly 2 weeks and finishes in a few days time so I went to have a look yesterday.
We are allowed to exhibit any piece of work so I chose a pendant I made which is one of my favourites.

These are pretty grim photos as I didn't have my camera with me but by next week it will be over so I took a couple of snaps to share with you on my phone.

It's lovely to see everything set up

 My work is number 35...the pendant set with a beautiful dendrite agate stone.

and to show you closely here is a photo below from my file on my computer. It was very fiddly to make the setting but worth the effort.

I always think of this as a little winter's snow scene ;0)

My card today is certainly not a wintry snow scene but something very appropriate for this Sunday, which is Father's day. It's one I made for Dotty's Teahouse and it went down very well.
I used a Mo Manning digi which I coloured with Promarkers and highlighted with Prismacolor pencil.
The stamped sentiment is by LOTV.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;


DP2 anything goes #264
ABC J for just how you like it
Try it on Tuesday all about him
Die cuttin Divas Father's day
Crafty Boots masculine cards
Double D challenges all about the boys

Thanks as always for your kind visits and sweet comments you take the time to leave. I am still sorting out my fun Peppa Pig visit photos and hope to be back to share them on Friday...such a fun day out.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x