the coolest thing ever - enameling!!

ever since i was a kid, i've wanted to learn about enameling. i used to read all of these 70s craft books that i found at thrift stores and garage sales and wish that i could make the amazing enameled pieces. i always thought that you needed a kiln, which is sooo not in my budget.

but you don't!! you can do amazing enamel with a torch! who knew?
(apparently lots of people, that was a rhetorical comment...)


yesterday i took an incredible enameling class with the artist Richard Salley. (go look at his website, his work is AMAZING!)

the class was organized by my friend Megan at the Upstart Crow in Ladner, who also facilitates Michael DeMeng's classes every year, and Trish Baldwin Seggebruch's encaustics classes last fall. (i skipped Michael's classes this year because it was the same weekend as the sewing and craft show in Abbotsford - i was so sad to miss them and now i just saw the upcoming classes that he's teaching at Collage in Portland in june....omg so tempting....)



almost everyone else in the class had way more knowledge of jewelery making than me, so i was totally out of my league, but i had a blast anyway!

look at all of the amazing pieces that our group made - in only 6 and a half hours!











in a lovely the world is so small sort of coincidence, one of the other workshop participants is a good friend of my mom's. mom and i realized this on thursday night, but brendalee didn't know. half way through the day she came up and asked me my (legal) last name and told me that i look so much like my mom that she recognized me (which is funny, cause i look like my dad's side, it's my sister who's the spitting image of my mom and my mom's aunt.... we all look too much alike!) anyway, the two hearts and the necklace below them were brendalee's pieces - super cool!



and here are some of the pieces i made... i don't have all the fancy skills, but i DO have an awesome heavy duty punch, so i made lots of stuff with holes in them! luckily, that's more my style anyway. ;)






richard's actually doing three days of classes this weekend, but i knew my body wouldn't be able to handle three days in a row, i've been flaring a lot lately, so i skipped today's class, and will be back out there tomorrow to make the sacred heart pendant... i'm so excited!!