Happy Summer Flowers

I've been busy making new pieces for the upcoming art shows and local galleries.  I am really into making flowers a lot lately as they make me happy.  Dave says it is because of all the colors but he really likes my flowers and is always asking me to make more.  So here are a few scarf pins in my new designs.

Behind the Scenes

Someone had requested I show how I do the backs on the scarf pins and so it got me thinking about sharing with you how I attach things without using glue.  I do not like using glue with my clay pieces and try to avoid it whenever possible as most glues tend to break down over time.  Embedding your finding in clay is a much better way to go.

Sometimes it is easier to bake the front of your piece first and then attach your findings on the back after.  This way your design does not get squished or messed up in the process.  Use a tiny bit (not too much or it will be slippery) of liquid clay (Kato, Fimo, Sculpey, etc.) to bond the raw clay and embedded finding to the baked clay piece and then bake again.  Just be sure that you have enough clay touching clay for a good hold.

For my scarf pins I like to attach a floating type clay bail in the back. The most difficult part of engineering the pin backs was making the space large enough to insert the scarf ends and yet not too large so it will stay in place.  We wanted to be sure the bail piece was strong so I embedded a metal strip between two layers of clay before attaching it to the back.