How to make a silver clay pendant using a texture – for Beginners

Do you want to try a new craft? Have you heard about Silver Clay Jewellery? Find out how to make a silver clay pendant with a texture?  Do you want to make jewellery at home?

Last Autumn I went to Denman College on a Taster Weekend with my Mum, who’s a member of an afternoon WI in Berkshire.  I’ve been to Denman College which is part of the women’s Institute four times now. My Mum and I had a fabulous time, We tried various things – Modern Calligraphy, making broaches with beads, crochet but the stand out course for me was silver clay.  It was fabulous what we achieved in 2 hours or so.  I have always wanted to make jewellery but because of my osteoarthritis in my fingers, it’s hard to grip and is painful. I’d made my husband’s wedding ring with help from Charlotte, the jeweller, and My Chap but it was hard work on my hands.

Crafts make us feel rooted, give us a sense of belonging and connect us with our history. Our ancestors used to create these crafts out of necessity, and now we do them for fun, to make money and to express ourselves. Phyllis Georg 

I’ve been to Denman College four times now, twice to flower arranging courses, the taster course and a full weekend beginners course with Melanie.  I’ve written about flower arranging at Denman – I make door wreaths often now.

• How to make a Spring door wreath with tulips

I definitely need to write about Denman College – it’s a wonderful place in so many ways, gorgeous location, a Georgian mansion in Oxfordshire, with expert tutors in a myriad of topics and the food is delicious too.

• www.denman.org.uk

Our tutor – Melanie Blaikie

We had a fabulous tutor called Melanie Blaikie who has worked in the jewellery industry including in Hatton Garden.  She discovered silver clay over 10 years ago and been making and teaching classes since then.

Melanie is on social media and has her own website:

• Instagram: @melanie_blaikie
• Facebook:www.facebook.com/IMadeItCrafts/
• www.melanieblaikie.com/

She runs courses in Oxfordshire, East Anglia and the Isle of Wight – and one-off events too.

Luckily for the rest of us; she’s written an excellent book explaining how to make your own jewellery – it’s called ‘Silver Clay Workshop’ and you can buy it from booksellers:

• Silver Clay Workshop – getting started in Silver Clay Jewellery  (note that’s not an affiliate link as I don’t have Amazon affiliate).
• I bought this book after my 2nd weekend course – the projects, photos and pictures are clear and simple to follow.
• There are projects for absolute beginners too.

Melanie is an excellent tutor on many topics:

• Silver Clay Jewellery
• Polymer Jewellery
• ‘Teach what you Do’ courses and books
• Instagram Master Classes

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What is silver clay?

It’s not clay! – that describes its texture 😉 Silver Clay is made from a mixture of wood pulp, water and silver reclaimed from the photographic industry.  It was developed in Japan in 1990 – it can be hallmarked as ‘fine silver’ as it is  99.9% pure and doesn’t tarnish like sterling silver.  It is easy to purchase online too. There are many advantages to using silver clay including how easy it is to do at home and that you don’t need loads of tools or a specific kiln to fire the silver clay.

How to make a Silver Clay Pendant using a texture

This is a simple craft to do – the main thing to note is practise your design many times in playdoh before you open the packet.  This is because the clay begins to dry in the air as soon as you open the packet.

It’s a free form shape so you don’t need any additional cutters just the roll play-doh out and get stamping or using a texture from cake decorating or doll house/modelling.

What you need

• acrylic rolling pin – Photo 1
• A4 craft pad
• some playing cards 3 x 2 for the height and card
• flexible texture – this is doll’s house texture – e.g. stone walls, bricks or flowers
  Or you can use a stamp block or cake decorating templates
• playdoh (or similar) to practise your design – Photo 2
• olive oil or wax to ‘grease the cards’
• a straw to make the hole
• 5g silver clay packet
• emery board for smoothing edges or bumps.

Remember: the silver clay will start air drying as soon as you open the packet.

You also need a hair dryer to dry the clay before firing.  It will also air dry but it just takes much longer.

Firing the silver clay

• wire mesh for the gas cooker ring
• gas cooker ring or camping gas ring
• or Brule touch with a fireproof brick

After the clay has been fired

•  polishing implements – like a wire suede brush, stainless steel spoon or crochet needle (Photo

Instructions

• Practise first!! with playdoh – roll out a marble sized blob of playdoh – roll it out on a playing card.
• practise with as many textures as you like.
• Light delicate touch helps – and be careful not to push too far through the playdoh. 

There was such a diversity of designs using the different textures – not all oval too. Some people used plain space too.

Practise with playdoh

We spent about 20 mins practising with the playdoh and getting an idea of how the textures would mark the doh.  you can also make raised features too – but remember this makes the doh spread further.

I rolled and re-rolled the playdoh about 15 times to get the idea of how much pressure I needed to use to get the texture even and deep enough.

I decided to use a different texture – It won’t be a surprise to regular readers that it is a flower a rose.

Note: the hole is made with the end of a straw. 

Using the silver clay

Open the silver clay packet carefully – clay is much heavier than playdoh and slightly firmer so take this into account.

• put a smear of badger balm or olive oil on your playing card – as this stops the clay sticking.
• Roll and carefully place your texture – and don’t wobble it.
• You can re-roll the clay but the appearance will be a bit more marked – this doesn’t matter if you are using an all over texture as it will hide it.
• carefully centre your straw to make a hole – not too close to the edge of the clay.

Dry the silver clay using a hairdryer

• Keep the silver clay on the playing card and place in a small open box – like a sandwich box.
• Dry the clay using the hair dryer – when the clay is dry it will slide off the card.
• Handle the clay carefully it is still ‘clay’ so if you drop it will shatter

File the clay to remove any bumps

• file any rough edges or bumps using an emery board.
• Check the inside of the whole is smooth.
• Note: any marks on the clay will still be there once it’s fired – and you can’t easily file then.

Firing the clay

When you fire the clay

There are various methods to fire silver clay

• in a jewellery kiln – this was how we made our
• fire brick and a brule torch
• on a wire mesh on the gas ring or a camping gas stove

What you see

• the silver clay will glow red and you’ll see a little smoke as the wood pulp burns off
• cook the silver clay for 15 minutes on the cooker hob – and for 3 mins on the brule torch

I’ll make a video next time I make silver clay on the hob. It is like alchemy.

wait for the silver clay to cool down – this takes about 10-15 mins – time for a cuppa.

Polish the pendant

The silver clay doesn’t look very different – it’s still got a white chalky appearance – but that soon changes when you polish it.

• Use a stainless steel spoon, crochet hook or jewellery polishing tools.

Look at the difference! doesn’t it look fabulous.

• add a jump ring or a clasp
• or thread a ribbon through the hole

Next step:  Hallmarking

Silver clay is 99% pure silver, whereas sterling silver is 92.5% pure.  it’s known as fine silver and it has it’s own hallmark ‘999’ so it’s very easy to get your silver clay pendant sent off for hallmarking.  I’ll be doing this in a batch and will report back about the process.

Cost: you’ll need 5g of silver clay for this project in one project so this costs about £10-12 or so (Date May 2019).

I’ve worn this silver clay pendant and got so many compliments – it’s about 4 cm long and suits many outfits too.

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If you want to know more about silver clay follow Melanie and have a look at her book too.

• Instagram: @melanie_blaikie
• Facebook:www.facebook.com/IMadeItCrafts/
• www.melanieblaikie.com/

 

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Have you made jewellery before? Have you tried silver clay before? 

Since I’ve made this pendant, I’ve made charms for a bracelet and other pendants. I’ll definitely hooked on silver clay jewellery, so watch this space 🙂

Carpe Diem,

Love Bec xx

 

Note:

Neither Melanie Blaikie or Denman College asked me to write this blog – I wanted to write about the process and give beginners like me a good idea of how simple and straight forward it is to do.

You can book courses:

• www.denman.org.uk – there’s also cookery, art, crafts and all kinds of lifestyle courses.
• www.melanieblaikie.com/

I don’t receive any commission from mentioning Melanie’s book or her courses.  There are no affiliate links in this post.