To antique or not to antique... part 6

Clicking on the picture will take you to the picture

and story of these little mice.

Lone from Flowermouse Designs http://flowermouse.blogspot.com/ has a wonderful blog and attitude, I like her. Her work is joyful and brilliant in design and color. The girl works in rainbows a lot and I adore that. She usually also has a sweet little parable that goes with each picture and post to tie the two together, Lone's words of wisdom. Eye and mind candy.

Clicking on this picture will take you to the story of this necklace

and a larger picture

The reason I am talking about her now is to show you how she has antiqued, washed, or painted her pieces to great effect. Have a visit to the lovely Lone, you will enjoy it.

Tinting Granite

Tinting Granite... sounds like a new band name!!

Granite Cernit is wonderful color of clay and it can be tinted to so many different colors. All of the Nature colors are fabulous dahling, but Granite is sublime.

Here is the Basalt and because it is green, it is naturally a favorite of mine.

Cernit is a wonderful clay to make silverware with because of the hard and dense surface after baking. I also used Black Ne-opaque acrylic paint as an "antiquing medium" for the top handle in granite and Brown for the handles in Basalt color.

Rubber stamps courtesy of http://www.rubberstampplantation.com/ Thanks Deb!!!

And for what is so cool about the color Granite...

One clay, oh so many choices!!! There are just 7 here. The possibilities are infinite. This formulation is 1 part Granite and 1/4 part color Cernit of choice. These colors remind me of that wonderful 50's floor tile.

Because of the nature of the Nature colors, they are better for this type of application. For caning, layered stacks, mokume gane, and millefiori techniques you are better off starting with the Opaque white and mixing in embossing powders for that. Anytime you are cutting cross sections of the clay, the fibers and particles in the Nature colors will load up on the blade and sometimes drag across the surface or face of the image. Opaque white Cernit with black, gray, and gold embossing powder will give you a similar look. Some places even have Granite embossing powder with a varied mix of powders sold as the color. You can tint that too!!! OMG!!! I love oven-bake polymer clay!

Do you have some crummy silverware that needs a face lift? Wouldn't this make a wonderful gift? Bought my silverware at Smart and Final.

Red

Red is a color I am just getting to know. I did not vibrate with it when I was younger. I find that I am playing with it a lot more these days. This is an example of the Neo-Opaque Red on Cernit, black, gold and copper. I love the way it looks. It makes a beautiful antiquing medium for clay. The color is thick and rich, it works on cloth, leather, air dry clay and many other surfaces. I apply to the baked textured disks and let dry a bit, then rub off with a damp old towel. Sometimes it takes a bit of rubbing.

You can also bake the clay pieces again at about 200 degrees F. for about 10 minutes to set paint.

Check out some of the other great Ne-Opaque colors we carry at the Clay Factory it says it is the Lumiere paint page but do not pay attention to that, Howard is trying to trick you.