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These are some Bottles of Hope that my mother and I made a few weekends ago.

They’re a great small canvas for trying new techniques, color combinations, or using up interesting scraps, AND, more importantly, you’re giving something to someone else to tell them they’re not alone – someone cares.

Side 1

This was my first attempt at using my new metal working tools. I had some scraps of brass sheet laying around – they were meant for trophy plaques I believe. I don’t have a torch (yet) so I tried kiln annealing the metal. I’m not sure if it’s the right way to do it but 1000 degrees for about 10 minutes did the trick. I ended up with some color change and patination on the brass, and some nasty fire scale on the copper tubing I tried, but it worked.

I could have cleaned the brass but I rather liked the look and just banged on it a bit with a textured hammer to give it some interest. Then I cut out a brass rectangle with an attached vertical football type shape at the top for the bail. I only broke two saw blades doing it.

I filed down the corners and edges to get rid of any burrs and sharp edges. Then I used a set of forming pliers to fold over the bail although I could have just used a set of regular pliers and bent it around some sort of mandrel.

I drilled a couple holes for the rivets (brass escutcheon pins – thanks for the idea, Libby) in both the metal and the two clay pieces I wanted to attach. Then I cut the pins to length (love that tube cutting jig). The great thing about the brass pins is that I only had to mushroom one side. I ended up using a bolt as a punch since I couldn’t get the hammer in to the pin without smashing the clay.

It all worked out though and I made two sets of earrings to go with each of the sides. I’m pretty pleased with it for a first project when I didn’t really know what I was doing

More stuff from the Weekend of Clay. I’ve done faux turquoise before but I got some really good tips.

Dirt! It’s the way to go We mixed real dirt into our antiquing acrylic paint and it added a “gritty” touch of realism.

Since I’ve done it before, I decided to do take some liberties with the colors and I made a cane and sliced it, instead of making beads. Still needs to be sanded and buffed but it came out pretty well.

I can see why people do beading now. It’s not quite as hard as it looks and it could be soothing. It could also drive me out of my flipping mind when the stupid thread gets tangled around the stupid bead for the tenth time.

I enjoyed the class but I’m not sure I’ll ever make a beader. I could see doing some simple stuff once in awhile though and this gave me some good background.

Dragon's Keep

I finally finished this! I started it last year but hadn’t gotten around to the finishing touches until recently. This is a relief that I sculpted using a 6″ ceramic tile for a base. I took the clay off the tile after baking and I’ll probably glue a hanger on the back and make it a wall piece.

I sculpted this in all black clay – I was experimenting with Kato clay which seemed to work fine although I’m not a big fan of the vinyl smell. I used Pearlex mica powders to highlight the dragon. After it was baked I drybrushed the stone with light gray acrylic paint to bring out the detail.