23 July 2010

6 days and counting....!

until the pmc guild conference at purdue university!
at each conference there is a charm swap, which is a lovely opportunity to trade small pieces of jewelry art with like-minded souls.
this year i decided NOT (see emphasis?) to make charms.
NOT. TO. MAKE. CHARMS. no ideas, and running out of time...why force the issue?
until last night. a little idea popped into my head, and i thought the little bit of pmc+ i had left (waiting for the conference to buy more-no shipping!) would be enough to execute 15 or so charms...
well, cut, cut, cut a bunch of circles aaaannnnnd-nope, not enough.
so last night i went around looking for a way to drape/dry a multitude of dome shapes, all at once, and here's what i came up with....

on the subject of not enough metal clay, i started getting panic-y about breaking into the "emergency" pack (you know, the pack you save in a dark corner just in case your masterpiece idea strikes when you're waiting for the mail to bring your latest shipment-doesn't everyone have an "emergency" pack?) when i realized that barb fernald has a tutorial on her webite for re-hydrating all your old clay dust. i have A LOT of dust accumulated. well, when she says "Don’t add too much water or the clay will get too sticky to work with." she is not kidding!

i have been trying to dry out this sticky blob for hours!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had many batches of rehydrated clay that looked like that! Arrgh! That's why I now add water with a spray bottle. If you leave it exposed to air, it will start to dry out. Like put in on some Saran Wrap, let it dry for a few hours, then cover it with the saran wrap to knead it a little. The open up the wrap to let it dry a little more...
What are those little domes drying on? I just got an idea for my charms today. Will I have time to execute the idea.....?

holly kellogg said...

you will most assuredly have time!

those forms are learn-to-play-chess pieces and a strange phenomenon called mighty beans ( www.mightybeanz.com ).
oy. HOURS, it took me! finally, it was barely ready to use and i cut a bunch more (very floppity) circles. i found the texture of the ground-up pmc to be more like marshmallow fluff than the saltwater-taffy that right-from-the-package pmc feels/looks like. i hope it fires up reasonable well. the pieces are decorative, rather than load-bearing...they'll probably be fine. i'm only gonna have about 15- that's fine, right?
xoxo

Anonymous said...

Its all good. Just save one of those charms for me! I'll have to check out the mighty beans.
Still working....getting better at fusing fine silver, but that's all I'm going to say for now!
When does your flight get in on Thursday?
xoxo

holly kellogg said...

about 9:40, how about you?