Lots of New Metal Clay Classes

Now that I finally have a base, I've got my class schedule sorted for the next couple of months, as well as running full day classes, I've added some short taster classes which I've wanted to do for ages.

There are too many to list in full, but there's a ring making class, beginners classes, stone setting, and more so just email me if you're near Cheshire and fancy making some jewellery!

I thought the blog looked boring without many pictures of my jewellery! So here you go, they may be bad, mobile phone pictures, but at least you can see some of my recent metal clay work.

I'm working on some new pieces ready to launch my Etsy store. There'll be a range of these necklaces with matching earrings. They are highly polished silver pillow-shape beads, simply strung on sterling silver necklets. There are countless options for these in all sorts of different textures. They look really pretty on - in fact I'm tempted to keep the ones I've made so far!

These lentil shape beads are lampwork beads by the fantastic Claire Morris. They had a top decorative layer of glass that I decided to cover up!! I painted some silver paste onto the top, and left it fairly uneven so that it took the shape of the glass underneath. It silver has cracked in some places which I love because it adds to the texture of the glass. I think there's about 10 of these beads, so I see them being split up into a few different pieces of jewellery.

Better pictures will follow as soon as I can get my hubby to take them. We're currently looking into equipment to set up a proper lighting / photography area. This will mean much better photos and hopefully, even I will be able to point the camera and take a decent picture! Well, maybe!

Becci

xx

PMC / Art Clay Class

I spent a very lovely day yesterday teaching a beginners metal clay class. I had a lovely group that just seemed to gel, we had lots of lovely chat as well as them all making some fantastic first pieces. I think I've managed to convert more people to the world of PMC and Art Clay!!

It has got me thinking today about teaching. I've had a bit of a love/hate feeling about teaching. I've come to the conclusion today that the reason I've not enjoyed it so much in the past is that my creative time has been very limited with me being a stay at home mum. It meant that the creative time I did get was mostly spent teaching rather than creating. Now that I've got more creative time as my little girl is in pre-school, I feel like I can get a good mix of both teaching metal clay and actually working with it and making new jewellery. So, teaching is definitely part of my business plan (yep, I'm being disciplined and writing one!!), I've got lots of new class ideas which I now need to develop and of course need to come up with a class schedule!

Mailing List Competition

So, there's still a lot going on behind the scenes here at Fired Silver!! This means no time for blogging unfortunately, but hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll have some exciting news which will then mean lots of blogging cos I'll have lots to talk about!

Anyway, as there are lots of new things coming up, I thought some of you may like to join my mailing list to be kept up to date with all the new product lines, news and classes. Don't worry you don't get bombarded with emails, I'll hope to make it a monthly newsletter, or more often if I have something exciting to share!

I'm running a prize draw for those who sign up to my mailing list before the 14th February 2008. I'll draw a name from the hat, and you'll receive a surprise! Needless to say it'll be silver!! So if you fancy taking part, just sign up to the newsletter at the top of the screen here, and that's it. I'll announce the winner here on the 15th February.

Bye for now!

Interesting couple of days

I've been quiet for a couple of days haven't I!

I'm really giddy at the moment, I went to Kilncare yesterday to get a new controller for my kiln. Mine has been broken for months and months, so I've been limited as to what I can make, but there's no stopping me now! I did my first firing today and it's fantastic!

So the pieces that you saw as work in progress are now fired, except for the glass work. Everything's going around in the tumbler now, so hopefully there'll be photos soon.

I had planned to do some more work tomorrow, but I've been asked to step in and teach a beginners class for someone tomorrow as her tutor is ill. I'm quite excited as I enjoy teaching and it's a place I haven't been before. There's also the chance for me to teach there again if tomorrow goes ok, so I just need to come up with ideas for new classes - no problem there, I've got a long list that I've never got around to doing anything with. It's a small class, so should be a nice day.

New Class Dates

I've set a date now for my next Beginners Class. It will take place on Saturday 7th February 2009 and runs from 10am to 4pm.

I'm also going to run another open studio date as we had so much fun last time, so that will take place on Saturday 21st March 2009.