Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Great Instructors and Awesome Projects!

Finally! Here are the projects I/we did at Terri Brush Studios with Natalie Hansen and Terri. You know how much fun I had! We stayed up late doing fun things with art outside of the class too! Below you will see a sneak peak of Terri's next class! Isn't the house great? This one is mine... it has 2 sides.

First we collaged using vintage papers and pictures, we all had yummy things to share. Then we traced around some house shaped glass, sandwiched the 2-sided collages in between...

And then soldered the base to our houses! I also made "stone" shingles on mine. I meant to get pics of our 3 houses together, but forgot!! I'll get pics of Natalie and Terri's. Natalie and I were so honored to be able to be the first ones to try this project out with Terri! (I call us the "Test Dummies")! Such fun! Then once the base was on...

We stamped on sayings with metal punches. Mine says "Life: Cherries & Rocks!" I'll tell you why in the near future! Here I am below working on said house.

And here I am getting ready to solder it! (See that torched up work surface next to my hands)? Yep, I did that! (Kinda messy looking, but it means I torched)! Hurray, it was so much fun, and not too scary! Well, it was probably very scary to Terri because we were doing it in her dining room, and Natalie and I had never torched before! I love a woman with guts!

See the bracelet on my hand above? I made that!! Yes, I did! It is not sterling silver, but REAL and 99.5% silver! I'm happy to tell you that I torched it and pounded it myself out of thick square silver wires! HURRAY!

Above are some of the Silver charms we made in Natalie's PMC class! What fun this was. PMC is Precious Metal Clay, and you can mold it, stamp it, hand build it. Then it goes into the kiln, and in a few minutes you have pure silver! Not sterling mind you, but 99.9% fine silver! You brush the ash off with a metal brush, and Voila! A piece of silver, just the same shape and size that you placed in the kiln!

Above are my PMC bird (rather large rubber stamp), and the hand built bird house I made. In the center of that, I am going to suspend a small darling silver bird that Natalie gave me! Now you know my necklace theme!

I worked on this large charm to attach to my piece, and as you can see I didn't finish as I left 2 hours early. (It's 2 1/2 hours home and weekend traffic toward Portland is ugly)...

Above is the front of the piece, and below is the back. I think that with all the twisted wires (they don't show up well here)... that it looked like a cool nest, so I glued little pearls inside to signify bird and eggs.

The bird with be on the necklace once finished, the birdhouse, with little birdy in it, maybe another house I made, and maybe a few words soldered into a charm. The words might say "Nest Egg". What do you think? Any ideas before I solder it closed forever?

Can you see the round piece has the image of a crown?

It came from a vintage checker which I gave Natalie. She then made a mold from it, and then we could all make crowns if we wanted to! (The blue "blob" looking thing is a mold that Natalie made in about 2 minutes out of that vintage checker I gave her). See those pretty links above? Those will be used to attach my "Nest Egg" charms and focal piece! Those are silver as well, which we torched and soldered.

Here are a few links of my silver bracelet from the day before. Some smarty pants type girls made their shapes perfectly round (NATALIE)! but I obviously preferred the more misshapen, um... "organic" look instead.

I'll show you more as I get more pics from the other girls, BUT... I do have one more exciting thing to tell you!!

You know the house project using collage and house shaped glass above? Guess who is hosting one at her house on November?? Me! Terri will come and teach us, and everyone will all go home with beautiful houses! What will yours be? Christmas theme? Vintage house theme?

I'll officially post the class tomorrow, but if you are interested in coming once you see it, please let me know asap, as my little house will only hold 10-14 of us in one spot. It includes a wonderful lunch, all materials, all tools, solder, soldering irons, etc. It is an all day class and it will be $140 which also includes the class, a beautiful snack, drinks and a nice lunch. (OH, and of course FUN girls)! Haven't soldered yet, or it's been a long time? Terri and her helper will get you up to speed in this fun class. Materials will be here of course for your use, but if you have special picture(s), or paper or words, jewelry or a little lace or special fabric you want to use in your house, start putting those aside.

I'll post more pics of the pretty ladies in class with their awesome neckaces tomorrow.

Hugs!

post signature

2 comments:

  1. Sheila,
    I live your necklace piece. Looks like a beautiful stained glass window.
    Have a great weekend,
    Erin

    ReplyDelete
  2. these are fun- I can't wait to get the chance to use the PMC!! been wanting to for a while now!!!
    I loved the irregular links of your bracelet- really cool!
    hugs. and thanks for popping over and your beautiful perspectives, I always love seeing you've come to visit- Can't wait to visit with you in person one day!!!
    hugs, COlette

    ReplyDelete

My 2 cents worth: