Painted Maple Leaf Pendant and Earrings, originally uploaded by fmirela.
Next experiment is the slip, the paste form of PMC.
For this I was looking around in the back yard, for the perfect leaf. As I read, the leaf that is suited for painting on is one that has an interesting skeleton design and it is not waxy.
It is pretty hard to find such I leaf in Florida, most of them have wax on, to protect them from the sun.
As I was looking around in the grass, a neighbor called my name, and when I looked up, I saw it! I found my perfect leaf for the pendant I had in mind, and even more! The little maple tree in the backyard was sprouting new branches, so it had little little brand new baby leaves! Perfect for the pendant and for the earrings. So thanks to Alin and the tree I had something to paint on. The little earring leaves had been taken from sister branches, so they are not quite identical but as unique as nature made them.
A trick I had tried and worked is to place the leaves onto scotch tape, to prevent them from rolling. This kept them nice and flat.
Countless repeated layers of thin paste PMC+ have been painted on the leaves. About 10-12 layers is recommended, and the pieces need to be at least 1mm thick for strength. After each layer dries, apply another.
A little hole has been manually drilled into the PMC pieces, and a sterling silver loop of 4mm is now passing though.
The cord is satin, the cord ends are sterling silver as are the frosted beads and ear wires.
These reminds me of autumn but I think they can be worn everyday with a casual outfit. I can even see a guy wearing the pendant.
March 25, 2007 at 2:24 am
I love the idea of working with nature can you do the same thing with a flower like a rose, daisy,or some of the other small flowers made into a nice chain all around and button earrings. Please let me know if you do any thing like that.
March 26, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I am still looking for the perfect flowers for this, a rose would be too bulky…the technique is to paint over it, and all the edges should be in touch so that they fuse together when firing…so it has to be something flatter. Or it might be possible to dip the rose into a thinner paste multiple times…but maybe too much material would go into it… I have to find a flower that is little and strong enough, and I’m wondering what to do where the petals meet… I was thinking of little orchids…I’ll keep searching and will post when I finally find something like that.
Roses can also be modeled into shape, my grandfather used to make them out of porcelain and thought me, maybe I’ll give that a try…
March 27, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Please let me know what you come up with
May 9, 2007 at 10:16 pm
clever clasp
clever clasp
September 29, 2009 at 10:50 am
Your Maple leaf jewellery is lovely. I’m very new to PMC but I did recently make a small Dog Rose flower pendant by taking the flower apart and painting each petal with PMC, then reassembling them with paste and forming tiny clay stamens in the centre. I added a curly stem to hang it from. It turned out OK, I was please with it anyway, for a first attempt. The hardest part was brushing & burnishing in the little crevices! I’ll look forward to seeing which flowers you choose to make.
March 14, 2011 at 12:45 pm
I love the maple leaf set, do you make them for yourself, or to sell? I am getting married in the fall of 2012 and think these would be great accessories for the ladies. Please let me know.
Thanks!
March 14, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Congratulations Debbie!
I made these myself from PMC (Precious Metal Clay that turns into fine silver).