Almost 5 years ago I took some jewelry classes upon a whim. I decided that I wanted to learn how to fuse glass (I'll talk about that in another post) and I wanted to learn about Precious Metal Clay (PMC).
According to Wikipedia, "Metal clay is a crafting medium consisting of very small particles of metal such as silver, gold, bronze, or copper mixed with an organic binder and water for use in making jewelry, beads and small sculptures." Basically, it's like working with any other form of clay except that when you fire it in a kiln, it turns into metal.
PMC is just one of the types of metal clay out there and it has two varieties, silver and gold clays. BRONZClay and COPPRClay are two more products from the same company. Art Clay is another brand with a few varieties. Hadar Jacobson also has her own type of clay called Hadar's Clay. According to her website, "Hadar's Clay™ is available in copper (Quick-Fire and Traditional/Flex), bronze (Quick-Fire and Traditional/Flex), steel, Pearl Grey™ Steel
(Traditional and XT), White Bronze, and Rose Bronze." I learned about PMC and took my classes from PMC Connection.
According to Wikipedia, "Metal clay is a crafting medium consisting of very small particles of metal such as silver, gold, bronze, or copper mixed with an organic binder and water for use in making jewelry, beads and small sculptures." Basically, it's like working with any other form of clay except that when you fire it in a kiln, it turns into metal.
PMC is just one of the types of metal clay out there and it has two varieties, silver and gold clays. BRONZClay and COPPRClay are two more products from the same company. Art Clay is another brand with a few varieties. Hadar Jacobson also has her own type of clay called Hadar's Clay. According to her website, "Hadar's Clay™ is available in copper (Quick-Fire and Traditional/Flex), bronze (Quick-Fire and Traditional/Flex), steel, Pearl Grey™ Steel
(Traditional and XT), White Bronze, and Rose Bronze." I learned about PMC and took my classes from PMC Connection.
Picture of the variety of Hadar's Clay
I don't even remember what prompted these decisions but they were some of the best of my life. I became a certified PMC artisan with an incredible teacher. Unfortunately, it appears that she's no longer teaching. I went to her gorgeous house in Loveland for the 2 day class and spent the night at La Quinta.
During the course of the class we learned about PMC and created 4 different projects. We made items with a PMC syringe, an amphora, a ring and a necklace. I didn't do very well with the PMC syringe because I have shaky hands so I'm not posting the picture of the Es that I made for my sister. I also made her the amphora necklace with snowflakes on it.
For my youngest sister, I made a ring with a flying pig on it. The pictures for that didn't turn out well so I sadly won't be posting those either.
My favourite thing that I made was the other necklace. I did not create the glass cabochon that I used in the necklace (I hadn't taken my glass class yet) though.
If you have that twitchy crafty feeling and you're unsure of what to do, I highly recommend taking the PMC classes from PMC Connection. Not only do you become a certified PMC artisan, you also get to use the discounted rate for supplies on their website. That discount was incredibly nice when I bought my own kiln.
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