Metalwork in Clay

 I had so much fun today at Lolly's house!  She invited me over to have more fun with metal and settled me in at this wonderful desk her hubby made for us (seriously, he made it for us -- he's awesome!), one side for her and one side for me. It is my studio away from home. It is wonderful!

We took out our tools.  We started at 10 and took an hour for lunch and I left at 5:30. Time flew!  I can only hope I didn't overstay my welcome.

 I am trying to learn now to solder and I'm not having a lot of luck with the torch so I used an soldering iron and copper tape instead.  It was fun.  

This one has just a tiny bit of copper tape, which I cut into an oval and draped over both sides of the pendant.  Yes, I had to use a dab of e6000 glue.  It is a good solid hold though.

I fired these particular pendants a week or so ago. They are of an ivory stoneware clay and a dark red stoneware clay. I coated them with a pale pink glaze.  I like this effect of this particular glaze with these two types of clay. And of course, I love decorating using sprigs of clay.

  This is a pendant I wrapped all the way around with copper tape and then applied lead free (of course) silver solder.  I attached a jump ring to the back for a bale.   The great thing about this pendant bead is that the back is not covered so my potter's mark is visible.

I am thinking I may add some Swarovski Crystals to the little dimples in this bead.

 Here's another in the same style.

 A long long time ago I bought a few tiny mirrors and scrapbook odds and ends. So I made this. 

 I tried to solder two halves of copper domes together numerous times.  Here they are. This is called pure determination.  I used a clear flux and painted it on each dome.  I held them together with tweezers and attached a glob of silver solder on both sides to hold the two domes together.

Then I realized since the entire copper dome was covered with flux that I could simply 'paint' the silver solder on with the top of the soldering iron. So I did.  When I was done I pickled them and used my Dremel to shine them up.

 When I got home Joy was thrilled to see me.

Mister was extremely glad to see me too, because that meant the grill would be started, and the grill always means good smells and a bite or two of whatever is cooked that night.

So that was my very fun day!  Thanks for stopping by!