precious metals

i've been hearing quite a bit about precious metal clay (developed in japan..japan envy!) and all the cool things you can do with it..it's basically clay that you can buy and work with to form whatever piece of jewelry would be conducive to the properties of clay..you can flatten it out, stamp images into it, put holes through it, etc. i had bought a small package of silver metal clay which was pretty pricey. i think for a piece of clay that's less than 2 inches wide and a couple centimeters thick it was a little over $12. silver and bronze are the most popular although you can get gold...it's just harder to come by. so i didn't open my precious little package until a few months after purchasing it and it was completely dried out! i was a little irritated, but like with most things i got over it in two minutes. i decided to experiment with the broken pieces (it was so dried out, i broke it into three pieces.) oh and that's another thing..after you work with it and get it to your desired look you must leave it out to completely dry because any moisture in the clay will cause your piece to pretty much explode. 

here's a video of me firing up the broken piece(s) and the piece almost liquifying into silver. it was so cool!

*note: this video may have some trouble loading and i apologize. if you really can't continue living without seeing it, let me know and i'll send it to your email address. ;)