Total Art Soul - for artists

I thought I would share a secret with you guys that may not be a closely held secret. Precious Metal Clay is perfect for creating from a mold. A bought mold, or one you make on your own.

As an example, I saw a gorgeous Deco button on Ebay that happened to be on sale from one of our members, Krishenka.

Krishenka had made a gorgeous ring with this vintage button, but I could also see that design in a silver pendant. So I bought it



Then I made a silcone mold of it, mind you, the mold will pick up imperfections and often time it will not pick up some design elements. Some times that is a sad situation that you can fix and sometimes not! I then added a bail in metal clay, worked on it to refine in it's leather hard state then fired it and then did some finish work- well lots of finish work. And voila!




So was it worth it????

Oh wow! Yes, yes, yes! Well worth it! I'm also delighted that 2 members from TAS collaborated in this way. Fabulous! That's worked so well and you have a great eye Carmen! Fancy spotting that.

I have some cool button molds that I made for polymer clay. One day when I get up the nerve I want to try metal clay. I have all of the tools that I used for polymer clay but just don't know what all else I need or which metal clay to buy. There are so many on the market.

I'm sure you didn't just buy a package and make something wonderful and marketable your first time around. Couple that with the fact that my jewelry making skills stink and you have my other excuse for not trying metal clay...LOL

What you create is sure tempting but I know better than to think it's as easy as it looks. The button mold idea did brings up another question though, can you color the metal clay? Maybe with food coloring? The one thing I love about polymer clay is the layering of colors to create a patterns within patterns. Just curious. Might be fun to try, kind of like the Black Hills gold that comes in different pastel colors.

Oh I just found this and it's absoulutely stunning I love it , I have some other buttons that I can see would work really well with this technique. I am very impressed. Thanks for letting me see this I just stumbled it too and might add to my blog if I am allowed to use your pictures. Let me know

That's awesome
Metal Clay is definitely high on my list of 'To Try', but unfortunately it will take some time to get there.

I have so many ideas I want to try though...

It's beautiful, Carmen!