August Kansas City PMC guild - Cuttlebone Textures

The August meeting is Tuesday, August 20 at Harder Driving School - 7 p.m.

We will be playing with cuttlebones! (Birdlovers will have seen these in your parakeet cages...)
They have jewelry applications as well as being great sources of minerals for pets.

They also have great, organic textures and are soft enough to carve and use for metal casting.

 (Plaster of paris is probably easier to work with, however.)

There is a very good tutorial for carving cuttlebone for casting here, at Art Jewelry Magazine.

And, they can be used to polish things....as in a natural sandpaper of sorts.

We will be working with the texture aspect - making silicone molds for use with metal clays. Bracelet with cuttlebone texture.

SO, members, bring your tool kits - especially you will need . . .

• a work surface
• a roller
• oil for release if using metal clay
• clay (optional - we'll be providing silicone molding putty to make texture molds)
• small tiles to flatten and/or hold molds

Extra cuttlebones will be available for purchase - we bought a big box!

Not a member? Get onto our email list and receive our monthly meeting Evites by contacting Lynette Fisk. Send me an email with your name and email and I'll make sure you are added. * Remove the spaces in my email address before trying to send.

Note: non-members can come to 2 meetings without joining, but must pay for materials we provide for that night's demo. Membership dues help us provide materials for our hands-on activities.

June Meeting - Finish Covering our Bisque Beads

 Phase 2 - Coat our fired bisque beads with PMC silver paste. They will be fired again, giving us all silver beads! If you missed last month, don't hesitate to come this month.....we'll have extra beads for you.

What to bring:

• Metal Clay Tool Kit
• Various fingernail files for sanding bisque beads (check at Walmart or Target for nail sanding/polishing sticks)
• Toothpicks or something to hold beads (we will be providing some wire tongs)
• Something to hold the to hold the beads in place to dry
• rice or dry corn in jar/container. 
• styrofoam, etc.
• paintbrushes for slip 
• optional fired, glazed beads to add silver to...

We will be providing for members:

• PMC paste slip
• Piano wire spring tongs
• Mini dental tool applicators 

May Meeting - Making Ceramic Beads for Metal Clay

The next KCPMC guild meeting is Tuesday, May 21 beginning at 7 pm. We also have a pre-meeting no-host eating out at 5pm. Feel free to join us for  some social time before the meeting! (This month we'll eat at D'Bronx, at  D'Bronx (7070 W 105th off Metcalf).

This month we begin a two-step project -

 Making Ceramic Beads Covered with Silver  

 The possibilities are endless, and clay is much cheaper than PMC!!! So coating the outside of a ceramic or bisque bead makes for larger silver beads but less investment!

 You can also add surface embellishments, paper clay punches, or textures.

 I THINK this is silver clay around a glazed ceramic bead, but don't know for sure. Hopefully, we'll find out on Tuesday night!

 Silver-coated ceramic beads with designs.

 

Phase 1: (May meeting) At the meeting, we will be making beads by hand from dirt clay - to be fired before the next meeting.

Phase 2: (June meeting) At the meeting, we will cover our fired clay beads with PMC paste clay. After firing, these beads will look like silver, but have a clay core.

Members will be provided with both dirt clay in May and PMC silver paste in June. (Your dues at work!!!)

To the May meeting, you should bring:
Your PMC Tool Kit
Needles, oiled toothpicks, mandrels or other things to hold the formed clay beads.
Polymer clay, foam, bead rack or other things to hold your wet clay beads.

The clay MUST be completely dry, or it will explode in the kiln, so firing must take place later next week. We will have firing information or those of us with kilns will help with the firing.

Tools for Bead Making

Found some great ideas online to help with bead making and drying... Check out this blog by Sallie Bly.

Since I have over 50 handouts, I decided to share them with readers who would like to know more about how to work with clay. I have students who have come to my studio from as far away as Mexico and Maryland, and I also teach when I am traveling. However, not everyone can fly to the Dallas area or find the classes that they want locally.

A tutorial for making ceramic beads to cover with silver metal clay, by Sallie Bly.

Can you guess what these are for?

 Here's a hint...

 

And what about those straws??

They burn out! But are not strong enough to break the bead and you don't have to remove them.

Get WIRED at the April Meeting

Next meeting is Tuesday, April 16, 7pm at Harder Driving School, 10362 Mastin in the Wycliff Shopping Center, Overland Park, KS 66214.

Items to Bring for a night of WIRE WORK.:

• your jewelry pliers (round, chain and flat nosed)
• flush cutters
• needle files  
• bench block (with pad if you have one)
• small hammer
• wire (craft or copper, various gauges from 16 - 24)
• a few beads - some small, some large

We will cover making Basic loops, wrapped loops and various connections, do a little forging and annealing. Learn some cool tricks. like balling wire, and make-your-own closures. Start with this...

 

End with this!

We be making spirals and other charm-like elements. We'll try to answer questions about wire, show you how to make custom hooks, head pins, and look at what's "trending" internationally with wire weaving! Don't miss it.

If you ordered the book Metal Clay for Jewelry Makers, you may pick it up. We will do another order if needed.
 

Members' Favorite Tools Sharing

In case you missed last week’s meeting where we distributed the 2013 schedule (subject to adjustments), click HERE to see it.

We shared our favorite tools (list below of those I remember..) and you should be sure you have your PMC-working tool kit ready to bring to meetings this year!

Favorite Tools - many are common, household items or easily found at a "Dollar Store" or garage sale.

My hands - the best tools we all have
My eyes
Clay shapers - Gale Schlagel ( available online or Creative Coldsnow, etc. )

Tree stump – Carol Harder The stump provides a solid base for hammering. (needs flat bottom to be sturdy)

or holding forming stakes or carving out spaces for shaping metal.

Work surfaces (meat cutting mat, 2 for $1 from the Dollar Store)

Clay thickness rolling frames

 

Rolling slats to control clay thickness (tape playing cards together 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 cards thick. use card numbers to show thicknesses)

Sanding sticks (3M makes great ones for metal clay but cheap nail filing blocks and sticks work great, too)

Needle tool

 

Ball Stylus

 

Exacto blades and Tissue blades

Cup warmer from a garage sale

Foam pad from packing material (for drying)

Metal dog dish from the Dollar Store (for firing pan)

Fire brick firing box, carved from a block of soft firebrick

Silhouette Cameo Cutter (Template or Paper Clay Cutting)

Scratch foam texture plates (or recycle your foam food packaging trays!)

Dental tools (ask your dentist to save his old tools for you)

Templates (or cut your own from tagboard)

PMC Tool Kits and Favorite Tools Show and Tell

The March 19 meeting of KC PMC Guild takes place Tuesday at Harder Driving School.

Our Tuesday topic will be
 Favorite Tool Sharing
 Everyone should bring your favorite metal clay working tool. It can be a commercial tool or a repurposed item that you discovered works really well. Be prepared to

• explain why you like it
• what it does
• where to find or buy it
• demonstrate what it does or why it's cool
• bring some to share if you have lots of freebies
• bring name of website or store where it's available

We will  provide the 2013 Demo Schedule and discuss plans for the year. We hope to do MORE hands-on metal clay projects and will want everyone to be able to bring a tool kit to meetings. Especially those who are new to metal clay, this will be chance to start your clay-working kit.

PMC Kit Preparation
There are lots of commercial kits available, but you don't need to spend a lot to have tools to work with metal clay. Wait till you see our easy-list.