Personalised Gifts Using Art Clay Silver

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by: Adam Hunter
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Word Count: 515
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 Time: 9:28 AM
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Jewellery making has always been about adding that personal touch. Past craft endeavours however, may have been limited to clay and other such materials. This though has changed a great deal in the past 10 to 15 years and it is the development of art clay silver that has brought about this change.

Art clay silver was developed in Japan in the early nineties and has since revolutionized that arts and crafts world.

The structure of the clay consists of small particles of precious metals (silver, gold, platinum etc.), a binding agent and water. When fired in a kiln, the binding agent is burnt away, leaving a piece of precious metal.

The versatility to create various personalized gifts using silver clay is down mainly to the ease, with which it can be moulded, sculpted or shaped. Being a relatively cheap material, it comes as no great surprise that art clay has become so popular.

A variety of pieces of jewellery can, not just be made, but also designed depending on the scope of the user. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets are just a few of the types of pieces of jewellery that could be made using art clay.

To show the simplicity of crafting a piece of jewellery out of art clay, we've produced a guide on how to make a pair of domed earrings:

Roll out around 4 grams of the clay using your hands, shaping into a ball. Then take the ball and place between two pieces of card and roll out using a roller. Once done, this should resemble a flat circle.

The next step is to take the texture plate and coat with either cool slip liquid silver clay) or vegetable oil. Like in baking, this will prevent the art clay from sticking to the surface. Place the circle onto the texture plate and slowly and gently roll out over the clay. Then gradually lift the clay away from the texture plate.

From here, take a cutter and in exactly the same way as in the last step, coat with vegetable oil or cool slip. Place the cutter over the rolled out art clay and push down to cut out the first earring.

To give the earrings a dome form, take a domed surface (for example the back of a measuring spoon) and again, coat with cool slip or vegetable oil to prevent it sticking. Having done this the piece should then be left to dry (usually takes a few hours).

Once completely dry, remove from the dome shaped surface and take a piece of medium grain sandpaper to sand down the edge of piece. Drill a small hole for the ear wire. It should be noted that you should drill a good distance from the edge, as art clay silver shrinks in the kiln due to the binder being burnt away.

Now at a thoroughly dry stage, take the art clay silver piece and fire using a kiln, hot pot or butane torch.

Once cool, the earrings can be given finishing touches such as using the technique of enamelling etc. and the ear wire added.

About the Author

Adam Hunter - E-commerce Marketing Manager of cooksongold.com. Cookson Precious Metals offer a choice of supplies from over 10,000 products including gold and silver wire, jewellery findings, tools, fimo polymer clay and art clay silver - gold, silver, platinum and palladium plus technical information for jewellers, jobbers, designer, craftsmen, artisans and students.