Pricing Calculator Version 2, Collaboration, Etsy, Great Expectations, Metal Clay, My First Foray Into Silver Land

METAL CLAY, MY FIRST FORAY INTO SILVER LAND

Yes, it’s true… anomaly though it may be, I learned Bronze and Copper clay before ever even TRYING silver clay.

I have a friend that I want to make something for… big hole bead caps. So I tried yesterday, finally opening my silver and making, oh about a dozen or so. Two different sizes, three different patterns.



That’s my set up for drying them. The largest spheres I have are some massive Quartz beads. But they roll!!! It was a lightbulb moment when I noticed a tray of Alex beads sitting on my coffee table. Ah, perfect set up to hold my Quartz beads still. Then I just laid the wet clay bead caps on top of the Quartz spheres and let them dry. (Once they were dry like this, I moved them to the candle warmer.)

I looked up on the internet, and not taking it from ONE source alone, determined that I’d try a firing schedule of 1650 degrees for two hours. Almost all the websites said this was best. I’m talkin’ PMC3 here. Yeah, I know… the insert-recommended firing schedule is something more like 1250 for 30 minutes. But I swear, there were a million websites that said PMC3 should be fired at 1650 for two hours. Wwwwwwaaaa!

Darn… just remembered that my kiln supposedly runs hot. Argh!

Got up this morning, opened the kiln, and actually thought at first that my bead caps had evaporated. But no, they’d merely sunk into the aluminum hydrate (the stuff you use if you don’t want your silver to slump during firing… helps it hold its shape).

Everyone said silver comes out of the kiln white, so don’t be startled. Um… mine came out black. Or at least dark gray.

Please don’t laugh… here’s my disastrous results.



Okay, seven flat out broke. Three were intact (one is off camera), one of which has a gnarly edge and can’t be used… the other… meh.

Here’s the one I think is salvageable. I didn’t tumble it because it wasn’t ever white. Shrug. I did, however, LOS it a bit, then buffed it. I like the two-tone look.



My thinking is: either that firing schedule is really NOT appropriate for PMC3… or my kiln runs hot and I need to lower that a bit… or I just made my pieces too dang thin (I was idiotically trying to make my silver last).

Not all my pieces fit into the bowl of aluminum hydrate, so now I need to know…

Can my five leftover, non-fired caps be reconstituted?

Can anything be done with my icky, but fine silver busted bead caps?

Oh, now here’s something interesting. As I sit here and type this, I pause and pick up the quilted pendant. I turn it over and notice pitting.



But then it hits me! The back of this pendant is copper; copper isn’t supposed to pit. And then… I get an idea. I grab the photo I took before firing… the photo of the bits of binder in this piece. I make the photos match in size and I lay them one on top of the other. Then I make the top one translucent and start rotating it. There! I’d say those binder bits match up pretty well with the pits. Wouldn’t you? (The white dots are the binder; the dark dots are the pits.)




Oh, and great news! Monica’s pendant is selling tonight. Whoohoo!!!


PRICING CALCULATOR VERSION 2

Finally got it listed, in eBay, Etsy, ArtFire, and my website.


GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Saw Great Expectations the other night. The one with Gwenyth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke. What was up with all the green? Personally, I found it to be overkill. The point (whatever the point was) could have been made without hitting the audience over the head with green overload. Subtlety works too.


OPINIONS

Is it possible for me to go one day without voicing a single opinion? I’m considering this and may expound upon it at a later time.


ETSY

Watched an interesting thing on Etsy just now (which was last night). I listed a piece of jewelry, then went to the main page, clicked on BUY, then CATEGORY, then JEWELRY. Then I watched… and refreshed every few seconds. Within five minutes my listing went straight from oblivion to… the second page. Ha ha ha! It never even got on the front page… not of jewelry anyway. It did last a few seconds on the front page of the subcategory of necklace at least.


COLLABORATION

Here’s a sneak peak of a bracelet Mon and I collaborated on. She made the bronze clay pieces and I put the bracelet together.




COMMENTS

Cindy Gimbrone: Thanks for sharing your bronze and copper clay journey in such rich detail, Laura. The mandala is beautiful! I don't doubt you'll sell many of those!

I love LOL cats! Sometimes I feel like I'm the staring contest :-)

Keep doin' whatcha do! It's all lovely!

Cindy

Thank YOU for reading my blog. Y’know, I go back to my posts all the time when I need to refer to something I’ve done or a setting I’ve used. It’s nice to think that anyone else reads about my metal education.

I agree with you about Alex’s mandala. She’s going to let me use it when I post the tutorial listing. Yay!

BTW, your most recent blog post comes on the heels of someone chastising me for having a blog with no focus. Ha ha ha! I’m supposed to have one “jewelry” blog and one “personal crap” blog, I guess. Far be it from me to ever do anything I’m supposed to, though. Besides, my jewelry IS me… I can’t separate them. Everything I do in my life is connected to everything else I do in my life. It’s all intertwined and would be really hard to pigeon-hole things into separate compartments.


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Metal Clay Follow-Up

ARTFIRE COMPLAINTS

Yeah, I know they’re new and all, but there are enough people who’ve joined ArtFire to warrant ArtFire having enough hired personnel to deal with some of the consistently annoying issues on the site.

I can’t begin to list the things still being complained about by those of us trying to use the site that have NOT been dealt with. What a huge disappointment they are turning into.

BTW, this has nothing to do with my success or non-success in selling there. I’m talking about annoying things that have been mentioned to the ArtFire admins time and again that are not being taken care of. It makes me not want to list any more products there until they get their act together… but I’ve been waiting months and it’s still not happening. So sad.

I hear that it’s even worse if you try to use the site as a buyer. Ugh!


METAL CLAY FOLLOW-UP

Last night, after I posted my blog, I had one of those lightning bolt moments. During class Friday, when I was showing my “Orient Express” bracelet (so named because it’s a “mystery” to me what the Chinese characters stand for) around and Hadar had asked me if I’d done anything different that might account for the colorful patina. I thought back, and nope, nothing different. Even quite the opposite of what one might expect, as I didn’t even take the pieces out while they were hot… after both phases, I let the kiln cool down all the way naturally.

But then just before going to bed I remembered… I remember that icky moment I’d had with the kiln. During phase two, I was trying to look at the numbers on the digital read-out, y’know, see where I was progress-wise. During the day, if the sun is on this side of the building, you just can’t see an LED readout. I thought my kiln had stopped. So I began to push buttons. By the time I’d figured out that it was just the LED readout and not the kiln itself, several minutes had passed and I don’t even know if when I got it back going again with its program if it was starting the cycle over or picking up where it left off or picking up where it left off but ramping up fast to catch back up to wherever it was before I started messing with it. Argh!

And I think what a shame it is that I don’t remember exactly WHEN this happened (as in, what exact moment of phase two) and/or exactly what I did at that time. I’d love to replicate it if that’s what produced my colorful patinas.

So I wake up this morning and I’m laying in bed thinking, “It’s your birthday, you really should get up and do something.” And then I remember I have a kiln full of stuff to check out. Oh yeah, baby, THAT gets me out of bed.

Here’s the goods, straight out of the kiln.



Apparently it wasn’t my mistake from earlier that gave me the patina. Yay!

BTW, that black stuff is just charcoal powder. After the pieces sat for a second (and after I took the picture), I turned the pieces upsidedown and all the black stuff came off.


A PET PEEVE

I don’t like being asked what my favorite (of anything) is. I don’t have a favorite color, meal, movie or book. First of all, I have many “things” that I like in any given category, and secondly my likes and dislikes change.

Okay, that was no big deal. But I just wanted to get it off my chest.


COMMENTS

mclainjewelry: It was great to see your finished pieces in the bronze and the pot and the kiln. I love the raku look of the finished product. I don't think I will venture there, though ... so much schtuffz going on with charcoal and containers, etc! I think the bead mandala is fantastic!

Thanks, Cathleen! Y’know, I actually allowed myself to be intimidated by clay for years based on a comment from a lampworker about how difficult a medium it was to work in. I mean, I figured, heck if LAMPWORKERS think it’s hard, what chance would I ever have? Ha ha ha!

But it’s funny, because it’s the list of “things” that keeps me from soldering projects. The pickling and the flux and the polishing (not in that order). I need projects that I can do here and there, in bits in pieces. If I have to get a whole “set-up” going, well that just doesn’t work. I rarely (if ever) have a full day to spend doing something.

Meh, I’m sure those are all just excuses on my part.

Anyway, I agree, Alex’s bead mandala is fab! I hope she does more. If she put them on notecards, I’d buy them in a heartbeat. Maybe I can talk her into a partnership deal.

Alex: Laser cutters aren't generally available to the common man, unless the man has mega-bucks. It might have been cut with a plasma cutter, still spendy but the common man (with a few bucks) can get one. My guess is it was a purchased component... And cool bracelets!

Hm… plasma cutter. Y’know, my first thought was also “purchased component”, but after looking at the profile and other items for sale, I really got the impression this was a bonafide metalsmith person. I’m gonna have to go back into my history for that day and have another look. Hee hee.

And thanks for the compliment on the bracelets. 99.9% of the credit, however, goes to the glass artist (as in most cases with my jewelry). I hate to think I’ll be making less and less jewelry in the future out of Lampwork, but I just can’t put the prices as high as the pieces deserve and I feel it’s so disrespectful to both me and the lampworkers if my pieces (using their work) sell for huge discount prices (as in, materials cost or less… ugh).

There was a post in the LE bathroom yesterday where a lampworker showed a matching pair of beads and asked for comments as to her idea on price ($30). The general consensus was that her price was spot on. The beads were really nice and I agreed that the price was spot on. The problem with a jewelry maker, though, is that if I buy those beads and make earrings out of them, it’s unlikely I’d make a profit and I’d most likely take a loss when selling them. Why? Maybe it’s me… maybe it’s where I sell. Perhaps in a Beverly Hills boutique or given the right artist’s name, those earrings could easily bring a profit to the maker, but I don’t sell in Beverly Hills boutiques nor do I have a name that commands such prices.

So although I TOTALLY feel the lampworkers’ prices are fair to them as artists, I can no longer buy any Lampwork beads because it’s not a feasible component option for me as a jewelry maker.


mclainjewelry: Laura, I totally missed why you are going to Hanover (Dartmouth) Is Gabe gonna go to school there? You know I am just over 2 hours from Boston .. if he does end up going there on one of your trips East, please consider flying into Bradley (Hartford) and visiting me (15 min from airport.. I can pick you p) then driving north to Hanover (only adds maybe an hour to your journey and hey you can visit my mess and my kitties!!)

About the laser cutting ... Google : laser cut metal and you will see many links including Youtube videos. At its best there are some cool intricate results... but usually it is just used for kitsch.

Thank you so much for buying my pin... I have spent 400 dollars for car repairs in the last week (there goes my rent) so it REALLY REALLY REALLY helps! Now .. the other day you were pondering on how to maximize your Etsy ... um um the way to make money on Etsy is to hang in there and NOT spend all your profits *snark*... but thanks so much anyhooooo.

I feel sad when I see empty shops on Etsy or elsewhere... people do give up a bit too easily. I have had sales come out of the blue so I just keep on listing. I just finished a big batch of pins, so my photographing extravaganza is about to begin, then I will list. I also have a craft fair in RL 3 weeks from tomorrow and saturday. Hope the weather cooperates, that is all I ask.

Thanks again.

Ha! Cathleen, I don’t expect people to keep up with my ramblings. I’m going to Dartmouth in July with Gabe because he has a goalie camp there. I wish I’d known ahead of time about Hartford. I really didn’t have any preferences as to airports, once I realized there weren’t any big, convenient ones. Ha ha ha! I would have loved to see you!

Okay, I will google laser cut metal and have a look. Apparently I’m intrigued enough. :-)

Sorry to hear about your car repairs. I was just thinking that since mine is over the 80,000 mile mark I’d better stash some cash… y’know, just in case.

And no, I’m not giving up yet. Heck, I’ve been with Etsy practically since it began, why would I give up now? Ha ha ha! But now that I’m settled in, finally, after the move, I am making more items and trying to keep the listings going.



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Astounding Ebay Discovery, Dreams, Weather, Friends, Bead Mandala, Bronze Clay Rocks Necklace, Metal Clay

METAL CLAY

Sold my second work in Bronze Metal Clay. Yay!!! It was the necklace earring set with orange enameled beads and textured bronze charms.

And, I got the most heart-warming letter from the person who bought (and just received) my first sold piece in metal clay. I swear, I have the best customers. They are just beyond awesome.

Went to Hadar’s class last night. And before I forget, let me tell you that the Friday night group of ladies are some of the most artistic, creative, bright, friendly, and innovative women I’ve ever had the pleasure of hanging out with.

Anyway, as usual, I’d done no thinking previous to getting there. Lucky for me, I forgot my already made clay (I mean, who thinks to look in the fridge for something they may have forgotten?), so I got to stall by mixing up a new batch. I think part of the problem is I’m just not an “evening” person. My brain is like off-duty after about 3pm.

So I mixed and rolled and I guess Hadar figured it out pretty easily. She mentioned that when people were learning silver clay from her, she’d usually start them on her… hm, does it have a name? The quilt pendant perhaps? I’m too lazy to go look it up, but it’s a pretty familiar piece if you know Hadar’s work.

As much as I thought I really did roll my newly mixed copper clay quite enough, I see now I didn’t. Here’s the back of my quilt pendant (as it was drying)…



See those white dots? Binder. Grrr… They’re not supposed to show like that. It means I didn’t mix the stuff up enough. I will say one thing, though… This bit of copper was at the end of my container of copper and when I mixed my first few batches from this container, I didn’t realize I was supposed to shake the container before pouring the powder into the bowl. So it could be I needed to roll WAY more because there was more binder at the bottom of the container (this I did notice).

These three pieces are newly made, dried, and currently in the kiln. The big bamboo pendant at the top is nothing special but I thought if it turned out I wanted to give it to a friend of mine and she could hang it somewhere weird where she’d see it every so often and maybe think, “Well, that’s not spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, but someone thought of me when they made it and I love sentiment.”



Then there’s also my quilt pendant and in the upper right is something I made just ‘cause I had nothing else to do while I was waiting for my quilt parts to dry and I didn’t have the time to start an involved project.

Here’s a photo of my new kiln pot. I can’t remember if I already showed you. It’s shallower than the old pot (which means I can raise it up on stilts and it doesn’t touch the lid of the kiln (as the old pot did). It’s also round, which makes it a better fit for even heating since my kiln’s inside is roundish. It’s larger in diameter than the old pot, so every part of the outside diameter of the new pot gets some kiln heat (the old one only heated one side well). And finally (and the best part), it came with a flat lid. Yay!



Here’s how I arranged my stuff.



At first, I was going to try the large pendant in a vertical position, but it really would have been close to the top and bottom of the kiln. And now that I look at it, I’m thinking, “Shouldn’t I have put it face down?” D’oh!

Here’s the position of the new pot in the kiln.



As I continue to learn and experiment with metal clay, I want to try to record most of my methods so that I can repeat things that work and alter things that don’t.

The kiln finished phase 1. I let it cool with the lid closed from 1000 to 556, at which point I opened the lid a couple of inches. I plan to let it get down a couple more hundred degrees like this then I’ll open the lid fully. After it cools all the way down, I’ll vacuum the ash out, put the lid on and start phase two so that I will have some finished project by morning. Yay!


NEW LISTING

Finally listed this necklace, btw, with the bronze rocks (another Hadar technique).



Next week I’ll put that and the two latest bracelets in the other stores (Etsy, eBay, ArtFire).


THE NEW PRICING CALCULATOR

I took a couple days off. I’ll get back to it… I already have many orders. Hope to have version 2 done by Monday.


THE MANDALA TUTORIAL

I had several people test it for me. I’ve gotten some good feedback. I’d like to thank my testers.

Here’s a sample of one of the mandalas that a tester made. I think it’s fabulous and have been given permission to use it when I list the tutorial.




FRIENDS

One of the most important things I learned through my divorce from the children’s father was that friends are a crucial part of life. It’s taken me a few years now, but I’ve built up a little mound of friends over the past ten years… and it’s really comforting. I think complete isolation can be a bad thing.

I’m still not a terribly social person, but I want to be there for my friends and I know they are (usually) there for me.

I recently called upon one of them. She dropped what she was doing and instantly drove an hour to see me. How special that makes me feel. I hope I can do the same when someone needs me.


WEATHER

The heat has finally set in. I’m not poking fun, but I will say that this will now bring on a slew of threads by lampworkers complaining (for months) about the heat and how it’s too hot to torch. Then a month or two will pass and they’ll switch to complaining about how it’s too cold to torch. It’s almost comforting to see these threads… sometimes consistency is soothing.

Anyway, yeah, it’s hot here, so I pulled the a/c out of the patio closet and got it into the window. Can’t start it up yet ‘cause the kiln’s running, but I will try it later. Wish me luck.


DREAMS

I dreamed last night that I was in a crowd of people and a large tree (well, I only saw the trunk) fell right smack in front of me. I remember screaming or gasping. I didn’t know, at the time, that it was a dream. It missed me, for which I felt fortunate, but it did fall on others. “To see a falling tree in your dream, indicates that you are off balance and out of sync. You are off track and headed in the wrong direction.”

I also dreamed I was staying at a sort of fancy commune or hostel-type place. But part of the agreement of being able to stay there for free was that we had to work, which was fine. We were supposed to wear a uniform but no matter how many I tried on I couldn’t find one that fit.


ASTOUNDING EBAY DISCOVERY

You can make the pictures in eBay bigger!!! Like, when you’re doing a search. I had no idea.


This first one, TOTALLY reminds me of Sharky…


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Mandalas, Pricing Calculator, Jewelry Kits, Threading Eyebrows

MANDALAS

I'm working on a Photoshop tutorial for making mandalas. I hope to have it done by today or tomorrow.


PRICING CALCULATOR

I am just putting the finishing touches on version two. People who already purchased version one can upgrade for $5, and version two will be selling for $10.


JEWELRY KITS

I've also been toying with the idea of throwing a few kits together. I was thinking how easy it would be for someone to have all the components to make what they wanted without having to go out and buy oodles of stuff and be stuck with all the leftover. And unless you buy in bulk for the best prices, there is always leftover. It you DON'T buy in bulk, you can end up paying outrageous prices. Ask me… I do it whenever I have a custom order and need just one or two specific things.


THREADING EYEBROWS

So, I wanted to see what the actual process is, and in looking around I stumbled upon a YouTube video of someone who actually shows you how to do it yourself. I thought it was pretty cool. I'm sure I'd take about 400 times longer to do it than the instructor does, but it was still cool to watch.


GABE

My son does NOT get homesick. I used to joke about how he went to a goalie camp in Canada when he was 13 and didn't call me once.

But here he is, doing it again. He's in L.A. for a two week goalie camp. He left on Father's day and although I did speak with him briefly on Monday, he hasn't called or texted since. I'm trying not to sound all clingy ('cause I'm not, really), but I guess I just want to know that he's enjoying the camp… so I don't have to worry about him down there having a terrible time on my dime. Ha ha ha!

Well, I'm taking the silence as good news. I will infer that he's just having so much fun he doesn't have time to get in contact with me.


COMMENTS

Melanie-Pearl: that last bracelet is amazing! it's really quite set apart from all of your other designs. wow!

Wow, Melanie! I'm so glad you commented. Well, thanks… first of all for the nice comment about my bracelet. But I got to check out your blog and your Etsy store. Both so interesting and inspiring! I love your metalwork.


mclainjewelry: This has been my slowest month ... Laura please don't judge by THIS month... try your experiment in October or November and I bet you will reap the benefits! It always works for me ... the more I list and relist the more I sell ... even if I cycle something 5 times that is still just a $1.00 listing fee ... really worth hangin in there!

First off, I don't know how you can sell your artwork for such low prices. Wowie! I couldn't resist. Although this one was also very tempting.

Anyway, thanks for reminding me that it's June. D'oh! I know that the summer months (particularly June) are slower for sales. That, combined with the current U.S. economy, is making sales, sellers, and buyers scarce, I guess.

And yes, I will continue cycling and re-cycling… When I gave Ruby Lane a "good shot", I spent a fortune in their in-house advertising blah blah blah. You can't say I didn't try.


Misty: Just thought I would leave you info. on the US version of "How To Look Good Naked". It is on lifetime. Here is a link to the page where you can watch past episodes. http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/shows/how-to-look-good-naked/video

Thanks for the link, Misty! I didn't know you could watch whole episodes.



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Laser-Cut Metal, Favorite Sellers, New Jewelry, Dartmouth, Movies

LASER-CUT METAL

I saw a listing on Etsy today that caught my eye. I was impressed with how someone could sell such a meticulously cut out piece of metal for such a small amount of money. I mean, first you design the piece, then you have to saw the parts out that get removed, then you file and sand and polish. But in the description, it said it was laser cut.

This confuses me. Are machines that can cut a given pattern via laser readily available to the common man now or was this person just using a component they purchased somewhere?


WHERE DID ALL MY FAVORITE SELLERS GO?

Anyway, this week, some of my time was spent in market research. I had already known that many (okay most) of my favorite eBay sellers were not selling anything and probably haven’t been for awhile. If I go to someone’s eBay listings and they have nothing listed, it’s usually a while before I go back.

What surprised me, however, was the high number of my favorite Etsy sellers whose stores are empty.

Have a lot of jewelry sellers just stopped trying to sell or have they gone somewhere I’m not aware of?


NEW JEWELRY

I have some new stuff, but listing is a slow process… particularly when I’m watching Sense and Sensibility at the same time. So far I only have two bracelets up.



And…




DARTMOUTH

I (finally!) made the flight arrangements to Dartmouth. When I saw the sketch of the airplane during the “choose your seats” part of the process, I admit I considered backing out. Flying! *shudder*.

I even went so far as to rent a car for the week. No hotel yet… can’t do it all in a day. Heh

We’re flying in to Boston, then will drive for 2-3 hours to Hanover. I’m not rushing us. Gave us plenty of time on each side of going and returning in order to pretend this is a vacation.


MOVIES

Mon and I watched Slap Shot (I’d never seen it). I wasn’t impressed. We watched something else (that I wasn’t impressed with), but I don’t recall now what it was. Oh yeah (I cheated… and looked at our NetFlix queue)… Wuthering Heights. There was no one in that movie to sympathize with. Blah! A movie entirely about self-centered people.

Well, now I have to go pick some new ones.

TTYS!