Tool Talk Jewelry Challenge--The New Monthly Challenge!

Here at Beads-of-Clay, we have been dying to get started on a series of monthly challenges.  We will begin and end our challenges mid-month. And make challenge announcements, show off our prizes and show off your work on Mondays! Our challenges will attempt to stretch your creative muscles and help all of us develop new skills to bring back to our work.

Mary Harding came up with our first challenge theme--

Mary--Since I am so fond of tools for jewelry making, I thought I would offer up a Challenge to our readers.  Here it is  Make a piece of jewelry using a non beading tool.  By beading tool I mean round nose or chain nose pliers.  Any other tool would count  i.e.  including just using your hands.  So that would mean macrame would count, kumihimo, pearl knotter,bailing pliers.. see what I mean. The only other requirement would be that the piece contain at least one handmade ceramic bead, pendant, or clasp.

The necklace photographed above was made using only t-pins and a beading board --as an example of making a piece without jewelry pliers.

Check out the pair of earrings I, (Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay), made using 2 different non-jewelry tools.

Tool #1 is a pill bottle.  I used the bottle to shape bronze wire into some fun hoop earrings.
Tool #2 is some textured fabric.  I used the same fabric in two ways.  I used the fabric to make a texture in wet clay when I formed the ceramic beads.  The second way I used the fabric was to texturize and flatten the bronze wire of the hoops.

What different kinds of tools do you like to use?  We'd love to see what you come up with!

Challenge talk around Beads-of-Clay has largely concluded that--- Challenges are great to plant a creative seed.......BUT, Great prizes get those seeds harvested before the deadline!

We have been working on getting some really great prizes lined up for our challenges!  and there is more-- We will be holding random giveaway posts every month and by making an entry for our challenge,  you will be automatically entered to win those prizes as well!

Here are the details on how to enter--

This will be part of our new series we are calling the Beads-of-Clay Mid Month Challenge.  Each month we will come up with a challenge and a set of prizes.  And each month the challenge will be different.  We hope that you will join us.  We will be asking you to list your entry in the Beads-of-Clay Flickr! Group. You may also enter your work in the challenge by blogging about your entry and leaving a link to your post in the comment section below.    During the month that the challenge goes on, we will be having some random giveaways and participants in the challenge will have access to these just by having submitted a piece to the contest.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!