I love messing around with both positive and negative molds: sometimes the exact look you want to achieve can only be had by going through a few extra steps, and that's what I did for this pendant. This week, I'm going to cover how to make the CopprClay pendant, and next week we'll look at one possibility for stringing it into a finished necklace.
If you haven’t had a chance to mess around with CopprClay yet, you can look through the general directions that I’ve posted about working with it. If you don’t have any metal clay of any type, you could also do a similar project to this one using all polymer clay!
Materials & Tools:
CopprClay (Rio Grande)
Olive oil
Waxed paper or parchment paper
Objects to make molds
Polymer clay
Kiln, firing pan, and activated charcoal
Exacto knife, file, polish
Patina solution
1. Instead of having the lines of my nautilus shell etched into the CopprClay, I wanted them to come forward, like a fossil ammonite. So I started with a lump of polymer clay and created a mold. Bake the mold according to the package directions, and let it cool thoroughly before using.
2. Lightly oil the polymer clay mold and press a small lump of CopprClay into it. If it doesn't release easily, simply wait until the clay dries out a bit, and it should peel right off. Add a hole for the later insertion of a jump ring.
3. Follow the General Instructions for Working with CopprClay. File, fire, clean up, and patinate your piece.
4. The image above shows the difference between a piece right from the kiln and what it looks like after it is cleaned up and polished.
5. This is the finished pendant with patina.
(sources: Rio Grande)
Copyright 2009 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.
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