A Mother's Heart

The show in the Gallery was there for about three weeks.  There weren't many visitors to the gallery during that time but there were a few that made staying open the extra few days worth it.

Krystal was one of those visitors who stopped in, found some jewelry she liked and asked us if we ever made anything that someone else designed for us.  Basically she was talking about a commission.  Both Swan and I do commissions, which sometimes are a little daunting.  We want to make something the customer will be happy with, but can't get into their heads to see what they are thinking.

Krystal wanted to have a ring made that her son would design.  Her son is 17 and has muscular dystrophy.  I suggested that he probably could make the ring himself.  So we set up a class for her son Alex, and his cousin Brandon (who helps him out.)

We decided to have Alex make a by-pass ring.  The by-pass ring is made flat, fired and then bent around a ring mandrel.   I expected Alex to use some of the ready made textures and molds to create his ring, but he had different ideas.  Instead, he created his own texture on the band with the handle of a needle tool and a drawing tool.  The top of the ring was also drawn free hand by Alex.  His idea was to create a cog type of design.

It was definitely tiring work for Alex but he did it.   I sanded the pieces, added the stones, pasted on the top pieces and finished it after firing.

His creation is definitely a ring to warm a mother's heart (and anyone else who knows this young man.)
He made us all proud.

Tiny Tools

Yesterday I shared some photos of demo pieces from my latest classes.   The left over clay earrings were not created with a ready made texture.

When first starting out in metal clay, it's easy and fun to use ready made textures.  But, after awhile it becomes rather boring (and expensive.)  Sometimes I make my own textures from polymer clay or PPP plates.  On this pair of earrings I finally used some little tools I purchased years ago from Leslie Tieke when I took my PMC Connection certification class.  I didn't know what they were or how to use them at that time.  I just knew they were cute little kits with cute little tools in them.   (I like little things.)

For these earrings, I created the texture directly on the clay.  Some of the tools are little wheels with different types of edges on them.  The other set of tools are shaped at the end.  The pattern is random as I just rolled over the clay to test them out.  Now that I've finally used them, maybe I'll create a series of textures with them.