Using silver paste on a burnable core

[fay144]

Hmm... maybe I should have looked at a tutorial before I tried this! I just assumed you needed to paint both sides of the leaf to get the proper effect. I was doing stupid things like trying to stick the stem to wooden bbq skewers, so I could get at both sides, lol. Wondered why it always turned out rubbish, I thought I was just putting the paste on too thick. Apparently not the paste that was too thick ;-)

So I won't bother offering any advice here!!!

[silken]

Don't worry, practice makes perfect. I've got quite a hefty pile of rejects that didn't quite turn out as planned. I think it's part of the normal process, anyone who says they get everything perfect every time is either a liar or just very lucky

[ps_bond]

...anyone who says they get everything perfect every time is either a liar or just very lucky

Or knows enough tricks to get themselves out of trouble if things start to look less-than-perfect?

[Donna Maria Lynn]

Hello I have just bought some silver paste and would love to paint it onto leaves, twigs, petals...that kind of thing to make little silver replicas. Does anybody know of any tutorials that I can watch, or have any words of wisdom for me? Thank you everso x x x

Hi Neve, add a small amount of paste to a plastic pot, or lid, add a couple of drops of water from your brush, add a thin coat to the BACK of the leaf, set it aside to dry and repeat 5 times. then start to add thick paste from the jar(like iceing a cake) (dry after every coat) do another 5 coats untill its about 2 to 3 mm thick. then kiln fire x do not try on waxy leaves as its like oil on water! xx

[Patstone]

Hi Elaine, I have been reading up old posts to find out if anyone knows how to "silver" the edge of a stalegmite, I want to silver just one edge of it and fix a
ring or something to hold the chain to make it into a pendant, but I dont want to heat it as I fear it would shatter. Does air drying enable it to be highly polished and how long roughly does it take to air dry please.

Hi Neve,

I make leaves using PMC slip. It's quite easy, but takes a long time since I allow to air dry between coats.

There's a tutorial here: http://www.silverclay.co.uk/down.htm called "Instructions on how to make a unique silver pendant or earrings". They use Art Clay Silver, but it's much the same for PMC. I prefer to air dry rather than using a hair dryer after one leaf flew across the room and I also find that artificial heat tends to dry the leaf out faster and sometimes come away from the paste before you've added enough layers.

Here's one of my leaves: Attachment 4359

Let me know if you have any more questions.

[mizgeorge]

Pat, air drying is just done between the layers of slip. It still has to be fired once the layers are all dry.

[MeadMoon]

George beat me to it!