Tell us about your awesome jewelry project!

[trilobyte]

With today's announced changes to the ePlaya board structure, this board has gotten wider in scope. In addition to art installations on the playa, this board is for talking about all the great hand-held art projects you might be working on or thinking about.

Show us and tell us about your jewelry! Necklaces, earrings, pendants, ALL THE THINGS!!!

[torrey.smith]

Let's get this started!

[trilobyte]

I really love those pieces, Sarge. The BRC iris/aperture for all of its mechanical detail and intricacy, and the 'man opener' for its simplicity and utility.

When I get a chance to dig a little deeper through my pics I have a couple other projects to share, but here's a set of laser-etched dog tags I made in 2014.

[Strata]

I have been learning to work with silver metal clay, and did my first home firing yesterday. The flowers are gifts for a birthday tea party I'm having this weekend, but the leaves are for this year's burn. The first one was pretty ragged, but I'm getting smoother at making them as I go along-- syringe work with the clay is tricky for me so far!

The colored parts are painted with Ranger Adirondack alcohol ink, great for non-porous surfaces like metal and glass. I did one of the man pendants with the red heart, but I think I like the plain silver better overall. I can always "erase" (dissolve) the color off with rubbing alcohol. I think. It cleaned off the brushes. [edit: It worked, the little leaf is now all silver again]

[burner von braun]

Nice work Strata! It appears that you're off to a good start! Are the larger ones about the size of a quarter?

I wasn't familiar with the silver metal clay process. What technique are you using to fire these? And where does the syringe you mentioned fit into the process? You've certainly shown that there is a lot of opportunity to make some nice custom art pieces this way.

Now that I think about it, wasn't VultureChow making some little metal claws of some sort at one point? Perhaps she was using this technique as well.

Keep up the good work!

[Strata]

Thanks, Burner von Braun! Yes, the larger pieces are slightly larger than a quarter.

Silver metal clay is fine particles of silver in a binding suspension that behaves like real clay-- you can moisten it with water to make slip to join pieces together, or wet it to a slurry and put it into a hypodermic syringe to make fine lines (the burner )( lines on my pieces). Here's a Wikipedia piece on precious metal clays: there are gold, silver, and copper clays. The silver is about $2/gram, so there's incentive to keep the pieces small. All of the pieces in the picture came from a chunk of about 25 grams.

I'm using PMC3 specifically, because it can be fired without a kiln. Firing is simple, for small pieces like jewelry. The piece is placed on a firing surface, such as a Solderite board. An inexpensive Bernzomatic handheld torch is used to circle the piece multiple times with the flame from about an inch above the surface. The piece will turn orange-hot (not bright, but visible) and sinter within 2 or 3 minutes of this-- for thicker pieces, you can turn the piece over and repeat. The sintering bonds the silver particles into solid metal and burns off the binder. Use a brass brush to take off the white coating of the binder ash, and your piece is ready. For a better shine, tumble it in a mix of steel shot and tiny rods, but I don't have a tumbler at this time.

As you can tell, I'm very enthused about discovering this new medium!

[sparklerice]

I love the"oil slick" metallic finish. What would you call it?

Beautiful pieces. Simple but breathtaking.

[Ratty]

Iridescent.

[kowtow]

Here are a bunch of tiny box necklaces I'll be bringing for 2018. Each box is laser cut from 1/8" wood and measures 3/4"Lx1/2"Wx1/2"H.

There is a sliding top that comes out to reveal a tiny bell inside. The premise behind this being that once you leave the playa in 2018 this tiny box will be a symbol of every exciting memory you experienced and the bell will serve to be the trigger to remember one of those memories.

The spring clip prevents the box from sliding open, so there isn't a moop hazard until the box is removed from the spring clip.

TinyBoxNecklaces-sm.jpg

[Strata]

Those are fabulous!! Congrats on both the idea and the execution.