CPAW8 work in progress

It's the children's school holiday week so not much clay time for me. I did manage to sneak in a quick hour this evening in order to keep up with the Color Palette a Week Flickr group . I had lots of ideas but not enough time to fulfil them so I opted for some quick things. Here's what I've made, the sanding and finishing will have to wait til next week. I will try and remember to show you the finished items.

This weeks colour palette - back in my comfort zone ;)

Striped jellyroll cane covered oval cabochon pendant, domed disc pendant (getting good mileage out of my light bulbs  at the moment ;) and 2 small cane slice beads which will become earrings.

There's no black in this mokume gane and the dark purple isn't really showing in these bits. Not sure if I will leave them as they are or do something more to them. 

The mokume gane shavings on a sheet of black, domed disc pendant. This is probably my favourite at the moment.

GIVEAWAY!!

It's time for a giveaway! There are now 100 lovely followers for this blog - amazing!
 Thank you all for reading my ramblings.

To enter the give away simply leave a comment below, making sure I have means to contact you should you be a winner (easiest way is of course to be a follower).

 The winner will be drawn on Monday 14th March by random number generator.

They will win this lovely necklace!

Should there be more than 100 comments I will add another prize. Everyone is welcome to join in, friends, family (yes even you mum!), followers, people new to my blog.....

Good luck!

Cara

PS If the number drawn out is for someone with no contact details I will draw another

Colour Palette Challenge - week 7 - coffee

Being as I am working on my mokume gane technique at the moment I used this weeks colours from the Color Palette a Week Flickr group to play about with it some more.  You may I have seen the sheets I made, here's some of the jewellery I have made. Got some beads too but I haven't polished or strung them yet.

Textured domed disc with a centre from the stamped mokume gane sheet

Domed disc pendant made with the shavings from the stamped mokume gane, it has such a different feel to it

Pendent made up of 2 oval pieces, one plain colour the other mokume gane. 

I am half way through a series of blue, turquoise and green mokume gane pendants. Can't wait to show you but I will have to as it is the kids school holidays and we are busy, busy, busy! Hope you all have a good week.

Remeber these extruded stripey beads?

A while ago I posted a tutorial for making these beads

It never really occurred to me that people actually used it until recently when someone commented on another post to say thank you for the tutorial. If you have tried it out - how did it work for you? Did you get the crumbles? I haven't tried it with new formulation Kato yet, I might need to do some leaching to get it to work.

If you have photos of beads you made can I see them? I've only made them in brown and green for some unexplainable reason. Would love to see other peoples versions - everyone always adds their own twist to things. Leave me  a comment with a link - or mail them to me (there's an email me link in my profile).

I find this blog fun, and it helps me focus and think about things a bit more than I might otherwise (sometimes anyway ;). I love it when people leave comments so please do if you have the time. I am often guilty of reading things and not taking the time to comment when I have something to say but I know how much I appreciate it when people do.

Only 2 more followers to go before I launch a giveaway of some jewellery. I shall have to go and decide what the prize/prizes are going to be! Thanks for reading

Cara x

Mokume gane - again....

Bracelet 672
Originally uploaded by Angela.B

For a long time I have been admiring other peoples mokume gane but never quite managed to get results I was equally stunned with myself.

Here's one of the pieces I love by Angela.










I was determined that I too was going to master this technique. I had already read several tutorials and played about with it a bit but still wasn't quite getting it how I wanted it. I reread some tutorials and played about last night until I cracked it! Having a decent deep texture definitely makes it easier so I am glad I bought the Lisa Pavelka texture stamps.

Here was my first attempt, well you can see the pattern but I had 3 colours (you might recognise them as being this weeks colour palette from the Color Palette a Week Group on flickr) and I was only seeing 2 and it just didn't have the magic.

Rereading some of the tutorials I decided my layers weren't thin enough. I made a stack that was 12 layers within a sheet that was made on the thickest setting of the pasta machine - pretty thin layers! Again I used the 3 colours from the coffee colour palette. Finally I am happy!

Successful mokume gane sheet!

I used the shavings on sheet of scrap clay and love this too!

I have made some things with the sheets but need to get them sanded, strung and photographed before I share them with you. Teaching a workshop tonight so I am off to prepare for that. I hope to share my finished jewellery soon.  Kids are home from school next week and we are mainly away with friends and family so it'll be quiet here, and I'll have to try and cope without my clay.....

Texture in shapes

Whilst making up some pendants I thought I would be clever and try and do 2 jobs at once. Well it didn't work out how I thought but I quite like what happened.

I wanted to make a circular pendant with a textured back, I decided to cut out the circle whilst the clay sheet was over some rough sandpaper thinking it would get textured as I cut. As usual once I saw what happened it was obvious that's what would happen but you don't always think about these things late at night.

I picked up the sheet and discovered that of course it didn't texture the whole back as pressure was only applied to the area that the cutter was pressing on. But I think this could be quite a neat thing to do - texture in shapes. I'll play around with it.

PS I am going to have a giveaway when I get to 100 followers - only 7 more to go

Gift vouchers now available

There are now gift vouchers available either for just workshops, just purchasing jewellery or one that is valid for both. This is what they look like. They can be purchased online and emailed to you, or bought from me in person. I will have some available at my next sale.