Tuesday Jewelry Camp

Today was a busy day at camp! First thing this morning, we used a material called Celluclay (a versatile paper mache pulp that is mixed with water to create a clay-like consistency) to create bangle bracelets. After mixing the clay, we rolled it into long coils and molded it around soda cans to the desired thickness and shape... We left them out to dry for a few days...

Next I taught the girls how to make beads using oven-baking Sculpey polymer clay. Sculpey is so much fun to use and I have made many, many creations with it before! To create beads, I taught the girls how to make "canes"- long logs of clay with designs on the inside- and how to slice them and attach them to the body of the beads. They were REALLY into this material and made tons of cool pieces with it.

Here, some beads are drying on toothpicks after they were brushed with a glossy topcoat:

Lastly, this afternoon campers designed warm glass pendants. The girls chose their base glass color and I cut the shape they wanted for them. Then, they created designs on the pieces using glass shapes/stringers and powdered glass frit, added a loop of high-temperature wire and the kiln did the rest of the work overnight! (Learn more about warm glass fusing in my previous post about 8th grade) Here are the pieces in the kiln, and the fused pendants post firing:

Wednesday Jewelry Camp

This morning I taught the girls how to make some cool abstract beads using old magazines- I used to do this as a middle schooler too! You start with a triangle template that's 1 1/2" at the base. Then, you trace the template on and cut the shape from an interesting colored or lettered magazine page, roll the triangle around a toothpick and glue the end. Pull the toothpick out, and you have a unique handmade bead:

Our afternoon projects involved using Twisteez Wire to create colorful bracelets and using 22 gauge colored wire and beads to make these fun rings:

Thursday Jewelry Camp

This morning the girls decoupaged jewelry boxes using acrylic paint, decorative papers, stuff cut out of magazines, jewels, etc. Now they have a place to keep all their bling-bling!

Meanwhile, I taught them how to apply powdered enamel onto copper disks using sifters after cleaning them with steel wool. A parent donated a small enamel kiln to me in the school year, so it's pretty cool that the girls got to experience working with this jewelry material that dates back to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks!

After being sifted onto the copper, the powdered enamel is fused to the metal in a 1450 degree kiln for 1-3 minutes, leaving a hard, shiny glass-like surface (I forgot to take pictures of some of the finished pieces!):

This afternoon, the girls painted their dried paper mache bracelets (made Tuesday) and coated them with Modge Podge to make them shiny:

Friday Jewelry Camp

The last day of camp today :-( This morning we used the fun shrinkable plastic film of my youth- Shrinky Dinks!- to create unique earrings (or pendants and pins for those non-pierced lobes). The girls created designs, traced them on the film in fine-point Sharpie marker, colored the pieces with Prismacolor pencils, cut them out and punched holes in them before watching them shrink to a third of their size and 9 times in thickness in the toaster oven. Then I taught the girls how to attach them to earring backs with wire using a traditional jeweler's technique: We spent the afternoon stringing our various projects together - putting the bisque pieces, enamel pendants, Sculpey beads, etc. on cords and wires along with other beads. Here are some of the girls showing off their bling, followed by a photo of all of us (note: the girls were jealous of the themed days that the little kid camps had, so they decided today was "dress crazy day", hence the outfits in the last picture):

HAPPY SUMMER!!!

Wishing everyone a safe, fun and CREATIVE summer! Can't wait to see my students again in September! For those of you who follow this blog, stay tuned for exciting projects and pictures from Summer Art Camp for LSers and Jewelry Camp for MSers happening in a few weeks. And, I will be sure to post pictures of my Garrett Grant trip to Greece later this summer. Take Care!

Third Time's A Charm

The third and final round of 6th grade "pop portraits" of the year- enjoy!