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Cabochons

April 2nd, 2010 WendyLee

I have opened a new store on etsy to sell my cabochons. This is alot easier to manage and gets alot more traffic then maintaining a website.

After closing my website I was still getting emails asking for my cabochons si I decided Etsy was the way to go.

Here is the link : CabochonsGalore

Fused art Glass cabochon

I will only be listing occasionally on this shop as the focus still is the jewellery. I will not be taking any custom orders for cabochons. What is in the shop is what I have available.

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Gaffa Glass Cabochons

December 30th, 2009 WendyLee

I have been playing with the new Gaffa Glass Chalcedony to see if I can some interesting reactions with the glass fusing it as opposed to lampworking with it.

The results were interesting and I got some great colour reactions with the glass. The ones pictured above are my my favourite images and cabochons from the experiments I did.

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Tina Holden’s Sea Urchin Cabochons

June 26th, 2009 WendyLee

Check out these gorgeous cabochons from Tina Holden.

Tina Holden – Artfire Shop

Tina Holden – Blog

Tina has made these cabochons from her handmade moulds of sea urchins. These cabochons have such lovely texture and the colours are simply divine.

I couldn’t help myself when i first saw these and I picked up a couple of her moulds as well. I know it looks liek I was greedy and purchased them all but I did leave some for everyone else..LOL..

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These are commercial glass decals that you can purchase at most glass supply places. They are available in 22k gold and platinum. They are as easy to use as the other decals but these ones are a low fire decal. Meaning they are to be fired at a lower temperature.

I always use these just on the surface of a cabochon or a pendant, I havn’t tried fusing these between layers of glass being a low fire decal I doubt they would survive so I have never tried it.

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Sepia Waterslide Decals

May 3rd, 2009 WendyLee

Sepia coloured waterslide Decals for glass have also been released in a variety of different patterns. These are ideal if you do not have access to a printer that can print waterslide transfers for you.

I purchased a couple of different patterns and had a play with them to see the depth in the colour and once again if distortion occurred if fused between 2 layers of glass.

Both pieces were fired on bullseye white. The first one was also capped with clear glass so that it was fused between 2 layers. The colour was a rich intense rusty red. I think by having the piece capped it added to the intensity of the colour. It could also have been because the kiln was fired at a much higher temperature to fuse the layers together that made the colour more intense.
The second piece was just fired on white bullseye sheet glass with no capping. The colour that came out was more a brown colour and was not as rich as if it had been capped.

For a full range of commercially available Sepia waterslide decals checkout this website : Sepia Slides

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Cabochons – Precious Metal Clay

May 20th, 2008 WendyLee

Another technique that you can use with cabochons is Precious Metal Clay (PMC) or Art Silver Clay.

Metal clay is clay hich has fine silver particles mixed with a binding agent, Once the piece is fire the binding burns off leaving you with a fine Silver piece.
Metal Clays are a wonderful way to make silver jewellery with limited tools. You work with the clay like you would any other clay and then you fire your piece. There are a number of ways to fire metal clays but the best way to fire if you are also combining with glass cabohcons is a kiln as you can control the tempereature more accurately without breaking the glass.
Dichroic Glass cabochons and art glass cabochons are great for metal clays as you can fire them in the kiln and withstand the heat necessary to cook the metal clay.
Make sure when you are using cabochons to clean them properly before you fire them in the kiln. If there is any silver residue on the cabochon it can discolour the cabochon, sometimes this can look good but if if its not the look you are going for it can look pretty yuck!
Below are a couple of samples of Metal clay with dichroic glass cabochons made by Donna Fox of Sympatica

PMC Pendant with dichroic glass cabochon

PMC Ring with dichroic glass cabochon

If you are interested in leaning to work with metal clays, look for your local accreditated teacher. You can find them through PMC guilds and Art Silver Clay Guilds in your country.

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Cabochons – Bead Embroidery, Seed Beading

May 15th, 2008 WendyLee

The next post in the series of “what do I do with a cabochon” cover Seed beading or bead embroidery.
This method of using cabochons is a little more intricate and fiddly then just glueing findings on, but the results are well worth the effort. The idea behind it is that you are creating the bezel for the cabochon out of seedbeads.

First take your cabochon and glue it to a backing such as Leather, suede, laceys stiff stuff. There are so many different products on the market that can be used and it all comes down to personal preference as to which one you decide to go with.

Once the glue has dried now you start seed beading around the cabochon. This can be done one of 2 ways if you are going to bead up the side of the cabochon creating a bezel then you do a row of backtitch around the base of the cabochon. Once you have your foundation row of beads you then can use peyote stitch to bead up the walls of the cabochon going around and around until you are happy with the height of the walls.

The other way is if you wish to just frame the cabochon by seed beading around and around starting each backstich row next to each other rather then on top of the row you just completed.

When you are happy with the number of rows you have you need to cut the excess foundation material off and attach a nice backing to hide all the ugly stitching. I like to use Ultra seude in a shade of colour similar to the cabochon or the seed beads used to finish it of all nicely.

There are so many variations that you can use with this techique and a hundreds of ways to finish of the piece. I am not going to go into them all just provide the basics for you. These instructions are only a guide and I suggest if you want to look into this technique further find a teacher in your area or there are some great books on the market that are very detailed and full of some amazing Jewellery.

The Art of Bead Embroidery, Heidi Kummli & Sherry Serafini
Beaded Jewelry with Found Objects, Carole Rodgers
Beading with Cabochons, Jamie Cloud Eakin

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What is a cabochon and where are the holes?

May 13th, 2008 WendyLee

One of the most common questions I get asked at shows when they pick up a cabochon is “where are the holes”. I explain to them that its a cabochon and it doesn’t have holes. The response usually is then “what do I do with it?”
I thought I would write series of posts on cabochons and the various techniques you can use with cabochons.

So what is a cabochon?
The definition of cabochon is a convex hemispherical or oval form, polished but not cut into facets.

What can you do with them?
I think the question should be what Can’t you do with them, the possibilities are absoloutely endless.

Glue On Findings
This would have to the simplest most easiet way of using cabochons, great if you want to wear them straight away.
Many types of findings are available for glueing onto cabochons. There are bails, pinbacks, bracelet blanks, combination brooch pendant backing, belt buckle blanks.
Simply us an adhesive such E6000 to glue these findings onto the backs of the cabochons. Araldite or even superglue can work well with these findings.

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