PMC Silver Clay Hydrangea Pendant

I wanted to share with you the PMC Silver Clay hydrangea pendant I made for my friend Susan. I made this when I went to visit my sweet friend Janise in Austin last fall. This piece is sooooooooooo hard to photograph because without a flash (the photo up above) the photo is yellow.

With a flash… there is a burn or bright spot on the piece. If any of you are experts in photographing jewelry please give me some tips. But, on with the story of the pendant.

The clay is a mixture of FINE particles of silver mixed with a binding compound & water. You manipulate the clay to create the piece which is a green ware, fragile, ugly piece placed into a kiln for firing. What comes out is 99% pure silver. I used a stamp (found at Michaels) to create the flower part. I pressed the stamp into the clay & then went outside on Janise’s patio to pick the 2 leaves off her bushes. She showed me how to create the leaves for this pendant. Don’t you love the veins & how they showed up so clearly? Next came the stone…which started out as a beautiful blueish/purple color… Janise made that incredible bezel for the stone & I LOVE the way that turned out. But, this is where it took another turn. In the firing of the piece the stone turned that amber/red color (yes, the stones are CZ’s that are supposed to be fire safe). Was this the piece I thought it would be? NO! I had this more in mind…

With Art/Jewelry sometimes the piece will have a mind of it’s own & you just have to GO WITH IT~

While at the Gem Show in downtown Ft Worth (a couple of weeks ago) Cindy & I looked for just the right beads to go with the new pendant. I am very pleased with the ones I found & then made the decision that for all the jewelry classes I have taken NO ONE has covered stringing beads or the design process of putting all the pieces together with strung beads. Once in the very beginning I had asked Diana Frey & she had shown me quickly how to finish the piece I was playing with but, since then I had strung beads & had “ISSUE’S” with the crimp bead/wire slacking up & creating an ugly space. I went into Ft Worth & visited the gals at The Artful Bead (where I buy a lot of supplies) & had a class on stringing. I was so happy to learn that my biggest problem was using the cheap “base metal” crimp beads from Michaels & that the sterling silver crimps really to mold to the wire & HOLD it much better. And ya gotta LOVE the sterling crimp covers for a much better finish on a piece. So, with it all complete I gave to to my friend Susan (a belated Christmas present) when she was up here for a visit from Houston. SHE LOVED IT! And I had so much fun making it for her. THANK YOU JANISE! YOU ROCK!

And IF you are interested in learning about PMC Silver Clay my amazing friends Diana Frey & Riki Shumacher are teaching the bracelet shown above. The class will be in Riki’s studio February 18 & 19 in San Luis Obispo, CA. Girls, I can’t tell you how amazing these two teachers are. And how can you resist that bracelet???? Come JOIN US! Click HERE or HERE to go to the link for signing up. YOU WON’T BE SORRY!!!! I can’t wait as my gal pals SANDY NAVARRO & JOY CAMPBELL will be joining me & we are going to have such a great time creating this Valentine Beauty. So, tell YOUR VALENTINE this is what you want & COME PLAY WITH US!

Hugs! Charlene