Freeform Jewelry from Broken China

by Jean Beebe

Products mentioned in this lesson ( EZ structure and EZ Incising Flux can be ordered from Jean through her catalog on our PPIO website. Go to the homepage to the catalog dropdown menu and click on Jean's catalog.)

You can use something you have painted or a commercial piece of china....Or take that china that didn't turn out to be the masterpiece you envisioned and recycle it into freeform jewelry.

Remove the paint with Whink (hydrofluoric acid) and use either the front or the back of the china as your decorating surface. To remove heavy or a great deal of paint from china, lay a tissue over the painted surface and saturate it with Whink. Allow it to sit until dry, then wad up the tissue and use it as a scrubber.

If you run hot water over the china as you scrub, the paint will come off easier.

Be sure not to breathe the fumes, and of course always protect your hands with rubber gloves.

Place china in plastic bag, set on cement floor and tap with a rock or hammer. Be careful when handling because the edges will be razor sharp.

Select pieces that you feel will make a pleasing design and file the sharp edges on a piece of coarse sandpaper or emery cloth. I use all-purpose 60 grit. Lay the sandpaper on a work surface and run the china back and forth over it. You just want to blunt the knife like edges so that you won't get cut while working with them.

If you are making jewelry that will use more than one piece, bone or very thin china is best, as thicker china tends to be too chunky. To fuse two pieces together, place the bottom piece on the back of a tile, spread a generous layer of soft E-Z Structure Powder (note from marci: Available from Jean through her catalog on our PPIO website ) that has been mixed with milk over the area that will make contact with the second piece of china.

Immediately set the second piece onto the structure and place in the kiln, undisturbed until fired.

The top may need a little support under any part that extends over the bottom piece of china in order for it to make solid contact. A bit of the broken china makes a good support. It may also need a weight over the contact area. I use a small piece of kiln furniture, such as a 2" post.

Don't let it touch the structure or it will bond to the weight.

Fire to at least 017.

Mix up more structure with milk and using the palette knife ,spread it over all of the broken edges. Be generous with the structure. Again fire as above.

There may be some some exposed edges on the china because the structure will crack and shrink in the firing. Apply more structure and fire once more.

You may also want to begin your design on the same fire.

You can do penwork, add structure, cover with luster or begin painting. If you use luster and it gets on the unfired structure it will turn the structure a color. If you don't like the color you can cover it with gold on a later fire.

Three pieces shown were done with E-Z Structure, lusters and fire on jewels. The bird pin has an incised border (blue luster area) done with E-Z Incising Flux, then trimmed with structure.

CLICK HERE to go back to the ON-LINE LESSONS PAGE

CLICK HERE to go back to the PPIO HOME PAGE

*on-line lessons and lesson pages are the property of PPIO and the contributing artists and may not be reproduced for distribution without permission from PPIO