Brand New Textures from Helen Breil

I was so excited to receive my first shipment of Helen Briel textures and they are now exculsively on sale in our on-line shop.

Helen Breil is a Canadian polymer clay artist whose work I admire greatly. She designed this range of rubber textures and they are breathtakingly beautiful. I'm proud to say that these textures are only available in the UK from Silver Clay Creations.

Here are a few examples of the texture designs. I do love them all as they produce some incredible results and they are so different to the run-of-the-mill textures that everyone else seems to be using. So if you want your work to have an exclusive look, these are definitely the textures to invest in. The price for each texture mat is £12.99. This represents excellent value for money as you can see just how many designs are included within each rubber texture mat. They are ideal for using in polymer clay and silver clay as they have a very good depth and the clarity of the design is perfect.

I wanted to share some examples of pieces I've made using these textures and also some pieces
from Helen Breil's beautiful collection of polymer clay designs. You can find out more about Helen Breil and see the full gallery of her work by visiting her website http://helenbreil.com/Slideshow.php

The range of textures are now on sale at Silver Clay Creations on-line shop please click here to see the designs and prices.

My New Book - Silver Clay with Style

I'm very proud to announce that my new book Silver Clay with Style will be on sale from 10th January 2012!

I spent many months in 2011 planning, designing, making and writing this book. It's been a huge task but one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things I've ever done. I wanted to create something that I know wasn't already on the market, a book that was bang up-to-date and packed with information, advice and tips about how to work with the different silver clay products to produce some stunning results.

I decided to call the book 'Silver Clay with Style' because every single project within it is something that not only looks beautiful, but is also very wearable and stylish. Wearbility is a very important aspect of jewellery making for me. Jewellery should be proudly on display, worn and loved and I hope that all my designs fit the bill perfectly.

As well as teaching lots of techniques, I hope these projects inspire you to add your own unique twist and to improve upon my designs. There are 22 designs in the book and I explain in detail each step in the process of making them. The projects are accompanied by full colour photographs expertly captured by the very talented David Airey. So, even if you don't make jewellery with silver clay this is beautiful coffee table book to look through and enjoy.

*The book is now available at a special advance order price of £14.99 including postage
(Normal retail price £16.99 plus postage)

To pre-order your copy please click here and place your order through our on-line shop. The book will be despatched to you on 10th January 2012.

If you would like to order the book as a Christmas gift, please let me know by e-mailing me at info@silverclaycreations.co.uk and I will send you a special gift card
to give to the recipient in anticipation of receiving their gift in the New Year.

Best Wishes,

Natalia x

Natalia's Silver Clay Secrets Tour...1st Stop Dorset!

Having been fired up by my trip to the World Metal Clay Conference in Chicago and learning so many brand new techniques, I've decided to put a new workshop together and go on tour!

Silver Clay Secrets is my brand new one-day workshop where I'll be giving you 20 grams of Art Clay Silver and showing you how to turn it into some beautiful, fine silver jewellery.

People often tell me how much they want to learn about making silver clay jewellery, but that it's too far for them to travel to me in Huddersfield. So, I've decided to bring my silver clay secrets to you.

My first stop will be the beautiful village of Poundsbury in Dorchester, Dorset on Saturday 17th September. Due to popular demand, I have also added a second date here on the following Saturday 24th September. Our venue will be the fabulous village hall, Brownsword Hall (see picture above...isn't it stunning!)

For further information about this workshop and other workshop dates around the country to be announced soon, please e-mail me at info@silverclaycreations.co.uk

I look forward to meeting you all very soon!

World Metal Clay Conference

Hello again everyone! Well I'm back from a whirlwind visit to the windy city of Chicago and my first World Metal Clay Conference.

It was a wonderful event during which I learnt so much, I made so many new friends from all over the world and had great fun which was the best part of all! It reminded me how we all have so much advice and information to share, yet jewellery making, or indeed anything creative tends to be so solitary. It was very important to me to have this opportunity to spend time with other people, learning, making things and generally chatting about what we all love most.

Here are some beautiful images of pieces made by some of the amazing presenters who gave workshops and seminars. I learned about Keum Boo, the ancient art of adding gold leaf to metal clay with a new twist from Lorren Baum-Davis (see photo of her work above).

I was thrilled to find out all about enamelling onto silver clay from the inspirational Joy Funnell. (See her beautiful and very detailed designs below. She made it all look very easy which is the mark of a truly talented artist! To find out more about Joy visit her website at www.joyfunnell.co.uk)











I also had a lot of problems solved by hearing the genius that is Lisa Barth talking about how to set large stones after firing. That has been one of the things that I'd love to do but have found most tricky so I'm now going to attempt it with renewed confidence and enthusiasm, I'm hoping to post my results up here very soon! (See Lisa's beautiful flower pendant and her expert stone setting...one day mine will be so perfect too!)

Sheffield Workshops

Jewellery making is becoming so popular and I see a real appetite from people to learn as many new techniques as possible.

So, in conjunction with metal clay artist and jewellery designer Linda Krelle and the Bank Street Arts Centre in Sheffield City Centre, I'll be running some workshops and taster sessions. We'll be working with Silver Clay but also other jewellery making methods such as beading, shrink plastic, wire wrapping and how to make your own earing wires and jewellery findings in sterling silver.

If you are interested in coming along to one of these sessions then check the Bank Street Art Centre website for further details or contact me on 07775 932782 or by e-mail at info@silverclaycreations.co.uk.

Jewellery Maker TV

Apologies for the shameful lack of blogging lately everyone. I want to assure you that I have been busy behind the scenes and am delighted to announce that I will be joining Jewellery Maker TV as Guest Designer from the end of May. It's a great opportunity and I'm really looking forward to it.

I'll be appearing once a month with a 3 hour show covering lots of different silver clay techiques. We've been working on the content for the shows between now and the end of the year and none of the techniques or projects that I'll be demonstrating have been included in either of my DVDs so you will be seeing some brand new material!

I'll also be running Silver Clay workshops each month, so if you fancy coming along to an Introduction to Silver Clay with me and getting a tour of the Jewellery Maker and Gems TV studios in Redditch, watch Jewellery Maker TV for further details. I'll post the dates of the shows that are coming up very soon!

Ellen's Jewellery