Back to life with making memories

Can't believe its been months since the last post.  Well, yesterday Pat Evans invited me to a challenge to write one blog a week till Chrstimas.  Here's to accepting the challenge to keep it up till then and hopefully by then it becomes a habit!.

Last one year I spent learning, figuring out what my passions are (because they change you know) and what it is I want to do for the next few years.  I realized that I like making memories especially with children, whether it is doing science experiments with them or making jewelry.  So, I am now making "mom and child" fingerprint jewelry or "imprinting childrens artwork" and loving it.   But my passion seems to be into enameling, an awesome art of adding color.

I made a few "mom and child" pendants in the last few weeks.  I especially love making these pendants because it is such an uplifting experience every single time.  Meeting mom and child, making them part of the experience.  I usually start by setting up everything while talking to them,  make the child comfortable with me, if possible give her a crayon or something to hold and play etc.  While talking to them, I let them pick the shape, talk a little about the process and explain that it might take more than one attempt to get the fingerprints.  We talk about if they want birthstone CZs in the pendant, where I might place them although sometimes, I get better inspiration for placement after the fingerprints are taken (like the one in the picture below...).  Then I roll the clay in front of the child like its playdough and getting their fingerprints... I almost always put a shallow texture underneath to get a nice reversible pendant.    Of course if the fingerprints doesnt work the first time, we try and try again.  I have had to do it multiple times sometimes to get the prints clear and nice.

It always warms my heart to fire up the piece in the kiln, patina the fingerprints and polish the pendant one more time and give it in person.  I am doing the fingerprint jewelry only in bay area for now as I really like to offer this as a wholesome experience and not just a piece of jewelry.  I do carry a fingerprint inkless pad and paper now in case I cant get the fingerprints at all but I try a few times directly on clay before  using the backup.  Besides, getting the prints directly on the clay is more secure too right..

Here's the latest one I worked on....with birthstone CZs for both mom and child.  Along with making the jewelry, I am learning how to take better pictures of jewelry too.  Although for fingerprint jewelry I want to make sure the fingerprints kinda look fuzzy in the pictures...