Lisel Crowley - Embrace Pendant using a Fused Glass Cabochon

hi I'm Liz L Crowley and I'm here at cool tools to show you how to create what I call an embrace setting for fused glass or fireable stones in metal clay and these are the tools we'll be using today you need some thickness frames text your child's of your choice I like to use decorative punches you can get any shape or size I prefer the stars these are an example of the types of stones these are some fused glass cabochon Zand this is some labradorite and this is some moonstone and you can refer to the cool tools firing guides as to what is suitable for this project a choice of template obviously some metal clay we're using aren't clay silver today I prefer this for this project because it shrinks less and that lowers shrinkage is helpful in this design a rolling pin my favorite metal clay tool of all time the ultimate clay pick and some coal slip to lubricate our textures first I'm going to show you how to select a template to work with these designs you start by selecting the stone that you want to work with in this case it's a fused glass cabochon and what I want to do is select a shape that will work with this that is large enough to accommodate shrinkage so something like this is perfect for this particular stone but if I wanted to use this shape which is also beautiful shape it's a little too narrow because when I account for shrinkage and the depth of the stone it just won't be wide enough to accommodate the stone all of these are examples of excellent shapes for this type of a design and there are many others that cool tool cells that would really work for this design now I'm going to show you how to select a texture for your design this is what I would call a deep relief texture and this what I would call a low relief texture I tend to text your both sides of these pieces so the piece looks good from the back as well as the front I would use a lower relief texture on the back of the piece and a deeper relief texture on the front of the piece and cool tools has an amazing selection of textures to choose from the other thing that I like to do is take the template I've selected and audition the texture I'm going to use by placing the template over the texture and seeing how it looks in different sections and that helps give me an idea of how my finished piece is going to look now I'm going to show you how to create the back of the piece by texturing and cutting out your shade I'm going to start with a good-sized piece of art clay silver and you want to make sure you have enough clay to be able to get the full size of the piece that you're creating and I'm going to use the thickness frame that is four cards thick and I'm just going to roll a smooth sheet four cards thick and again you always want to rotate the clay so that you stretch it in all directions once I've achieved that thickness I'm going to switch to a two cards thick frame and work with that lower relief texture slot tile that I showed you earlier I'm going to lay my clay on here and this has been pre lubricated as I tell my students it's always better to pre lubricate your textures before you open your clay I've been you rotated it using the cool slip and whenever I roll a texture I roll once with firm even pressure and that should release nicely from the texture towel because I use the cool slip and now this is going to be the back of the piece so I want to lay it on a tough card which is an excellent way to create your pieces because as you create them you can pick them up and set them aside without having to disturb them so I'm going to lay it down upside down take my template and you want to anchor the clay and the template as you cut and use the ultimate clay pick which is one of the best needle tools in the universe and you want to hold it perpendicular and cut your shape out and I like to go around twice always take your excess clay and put it away so that it doesn't dry out this wonderful clay hydrator that cool tools sells now this is the back of my piece and this is the stone that I'm going to put in my piece so I want to decide where my stone is going to go and I'm going to cut a hole out from behind where the stone is going to go the punch I'm going to use needs to be smaller than my stone but big enough to cut a substantial hole out from behind it and this is to allow for pressure reliefs as the clay is shrinking around the stone when it's firing so I'm just going to I'd like a star as I've said but you can use whatever shape you want as long as it's not bigger than the piece of the stone that you're using again I'm going to pull that little bit of clay out put it in my hydrator and that's how to create the back of the piece next I'll show you how to create the top part now I'm going to show you how to make the top part of your design using a texture that is either the same or different from the texture you used on the back going to start with some metal clay and I'm going to roll it out four cards thick using the thickness spring you always want to have plenty of clay because you can always cut away but you want to make sure you have enough to get a good crisp image for the top of your piece I'm going to roll and rotate stretching the clay in all directions until I have it four cards thick now I'm going to lay my texture down Tex your side up and this has been pre lubricated with cool slip I'm going to lay my clay on top of that and my text my thickness frame that is two cards thick on top of that and roll with one firm even swipe to get a nice evenly impressed piece of clay isn't that a lovely design next I'm going to cut out the same shape that I use for the back of my piece and again I'm going to anchor the clay and you can move the template around to just determine where on the texture you'd like to cut I actually think I want to cut right here centering this motif so you take your clay pick holding it perpendicular and cut your shape out you always want to take your excess clay and place it back in the hydrator to keep it from drying out next I'm going to cut down the middle of this of this design because I'm going to embrace my glass and sandwich it between the top and the bottom plates and I like to follow the line of my texture to give it a very organic and natural look that's why I tend to like a very flowy texture for these designs it's always better to cut away less than you need rather than more than you need because you can always cut away a little more should you need to but it you can't add if you cut too much away at first now I'm going to take my original piece with my glass on top of it and I'm going to audition these two side pieces and make sure I like the way they look so I'm going to just lightly drape them over the glass now I don't want to press down around the glass I just want the clay to contact around the outer edge and this is how the clay is embracing the glass hence the name the embrace setting and I really like the look of this so I'm going to go ahead and actually join the top pieces to the base so to join the top pieces to the base I'm going to take just some water and I'm going to very um generously wet the base piece and I'm just wetting the whole thing you could just concentrate around the edge but I'd rather have more than I need because it's going to be on the inside of the piece it's not going to make anything look messy this is also going to rehydrate the clay a bit if it's been sitting out for a while and the reason I remove my glass to do this is because I don't really want to get all this water on the glass piece I'm going to lay my glass piece down again and now when I go to drape these side pieces I'm just going to make sure that I make some good contact around that outer edge and again be very careful not to press it close around the glass because you don't want it to tighten up around the glass when it's firing you want it to stay fairly loose okay once I have those together I also like to run a little water around the outside edge and next this is where I feel that the design will really come together I will take the smaller size of the same shape and trim the whole piece out and this will give me a very nice tight connection around all the edge and just tighten up the design but you want to anchor it really well and again you use the ultimate clay pick because it's nice and fine tip so you can do this cutting without disturbing your piece again cut away the excess put this away and this is the base piece now this piece it it came up a little on the edge here but that's not a problem I can move that back over and just press it down slightly this piece will be dried and sanded and then I will attach a bail and then it will be done now I'm going to show you how to attach a bail I've already sanded and refined this piece and I have sanded around the edge I like to run my finger along it and make sure it's smooth and also I like it to look seamless and you want to make sure there's no gaps anywhere around so you know that the top piece and the bottom piece are joined really well and you can make any kind of bail you'd like to make for this the kind of bail I like to make I make with a coil of clay so I'm going to take a little bit of clay and you don't need a lot of clay when you're working with coils in fact the mistake a lot of people make when they roll foils is they take too much clay and it becomes too much clay to handle so I'm going to start rolling my coil with my finger and then I'm going to use the cools tool coil roller which I really love it's nice and thick and it's nice and long and you just go back and forth and as you roll the clay will elongate and thin out and make you a nice long coil of clay and I like to taper the ends and the way to taper the ends is just press a little harder on the end and I naturally tend to press on this side so I just flip my foil around and taper both sides if that happens no worries just get it out of the way so here's my finished coil the first thing I want to do with this is wet it and the reason for that is anytime you want to bend your clay you want the surface to be nice and moist otherwise you'll get a lot of surface cracks so by wetting it you're going to keep that cracking from happening now I'm going to bring my piece over and again I'm working on one of these tough cards so that once the coil is attached I can place it in my dryer without disturbing the peace so the way I do this coil is I loop it around the way I do this Bale is I loop it around try to get it centered okay there we go and now I'll come in with my water and I'll brush along where the clay is going to attach to the piece see how I'm really flooding that with water and then I can also wet the ends and I can bring them down along the top or I could curl curl them up if I want and make them decorative I can set as long as I keep wetting the coils I can sort of play with this and make a decorative ending for the coil now this is where the cord will go through and I have basically a finished piece this will go in the dehydrator and after it's dried I'll reinforce where I joined the coil to the piece from the UM from the front and the back with some more water and then I'll do a final sanding and then it will be fired here's the finished piece the embrace setting in metal clay with a fireable stone you can see the front in the back you can see the visual interest from the texture and the cutout on the back you just run a chain through the Bale and you're ready to go visit our Learning Center at wwq tools us for more cool jewelry making videos subscribe to our YouTube channels like us on facebook follow us on twitter and be sure to sign up for the email list to be the first to hear about new videos products contests and other cool stuff from cool tools

Channel: CoolToolsVideos

Views: 119,448

Rating: 4.9125562 out of 5

Keywords: metal, clay, artist, jewelry, how to, silver, template, texture, polymer, pendant, fused glass, dichroic, gemstone

Id: 87KChc-mumE

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 15 2015