Pendants

I have been thinking of making my own charms and pendants as I am a very small person. Most pendants in Australia are a little big for me. I finally made these pendants from air-dry clay. I am very happy with the results. I loved the little girl's face the most. I made it from the memory of a cookie in David Jones. Both the house and the donut are based on children jewelery hand-made by the two glass jewelery artists I have seen in Kirribilli market in Sydney. The finger print is Ellie's - read too many finger prints jewellery ads in the Adelaide Child magazine. For no reason, Ellie has been saying that the finger print pendant is very important as it is "part" of her. How cute!

Back to how I made them, I made the shape and the details out of air-dry clay first. Then, I pained it with water colour and acrylic paint. I found the acrylic paint so much better to paint as the clay is a little porous. With water colour, I had to paint it a few times to get the tone right. The silver colour is acrylic paint as I really wanted to fake "silver". Since I tend to paint on all sides, it takes at least 2 days to paint as I need to wait for one side to dry first. After the paint is dry, I sprayed it with varnish for decoupage. This also takes at least 2 days as the whole charms are meant to be "water proof".  When the charms are ready, I glued some attachments at the back so I can put on jump rings.  I haven't been able to go to a bead shop to buy the right attachments.  I kind of improvised a bit from the leather clamps from Spotlight.  When I make some more in the future, I should improve the techniques to make things easier and faster.  I do want to make some more.  Just never have enough time!!!