"I must have been out of my frakkin' mind... But I made these for our wedding and there were all kinds of issues with the materials (mostly due to my own ignorance, but hey). Precious metal clay is awesome stuff to work with, but be prepared to bake any larger pieces in a kiln for longer than the instructions tell you and at a higher temperature. Also, be sure to brace anything that might slump, as the high temperatures will soften the metal as it's firing- I had to gently tap the Kani dragon with a raw-hide mallet on a mangrel (think "anvil") to put his tail back in place 'cuz it fell over in the kiln. This stuff is meant for smaller items, but no, I had to be ambitious and make something absolutely frakkin' GINORMOUS OUT OF IT.

When one of them broke after firing, I FREAKED. I raged at myself, I stomped around, I growled about how much I frakkin' SUCKED... Then I went and sulked in the dog-park nearby to calm down and think... When I came back about ten minues later, much calmer (more likely numb with despair), the guys had a suggestion for me that turned out to be all kinds of awesome and became our own little in-joke: here I was, spinning in place, whimpering to myself "How do I fix this?! How do I FIX THIS?! BLAAAAARGH!!!" and they come back with: "With a LASER!" Whut?

"Yeah, there's this jeweler down the road who can stitch your piece back together with a laser..."

Ok, that's just frakkin' COOL.

The ultimate in geek chic: an item that looks like it was made a thousand years ago, being repaired by a laser. How cool is THAT?

Anyway, here they are, in one piece, wearable and bloody gorgeous. Murrah and KaniS, in gold-plate and silver. Yes, that's a sapphire in Murrah's wee little eye, and a hematite in Kani's. You can just see our wedding bands in the back, there- those pretty braids of silver. I literally braided the clay to get that effect, and used a cool idea I flashed on when I was working: you can make an "eternal braid" by being careful when you join the ends so the braid never really ends... Much like my frustration with my art, dagnabbit. *chuckle*"

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