the good news...... and the bad news

o.k. the bad news first.  i took the pieces for the 'broken wings..'' pendant out of the kiln, today, and they didn't fit right.  the top part came out fine and the piece for the bottom of the wings was too small.  the bronze clay shrinks in the firing, and there was a little difference in thickness between the top and the bottom, causing the small part to shrink more.  so..... back to the drawing board on that.  today, first thing, i made a new part, thicker, and tried to calculate the shrinkage.  i put it in the kiln, tonite, and we'll see.  i love this one so much, i really want to re-create it.

the good news is, that while i was letting the clay dry on the second try of  'broken wings..'  i cut out a bunch of heart earring components to go with  the heart theme that i seem to be on.  i used several textures, including a piece of embossed paper with a spiderweb design that JM had given me. i also used some new, pronged findings that i can fire right in the clay, which makes adding stones alot simpler and more attractive.  so some serious experimentation was going on, and here, i was successful.  hooray!

more on the progress of 'broken wings'.. as the story unfolds.......