Embellished Stone Donut

 I was really taken with something we posted on facebook last week - a pair of earrings made with broken porcelain, and the edges were "finished" with epoxy clay and set with stones. The rhinestones were selected to match the colour of the pattern and took the pattern off the edges - which I thought was quite clever.

I had the epoxy clay out the other night - for another project, and, as usual - had a bit left over - so I went looking for something to do with it. I had pulled this Matte Onyx Donut from the latest shipment as being substandard in quality - can't sell that! So I thought that a little reinforcing around the outside might help with the potential lack of structural integrity, and there I was, with clay in my hands, and the broken porcelain idea fresh in my brain.

I rolled the clay into a sausage - measured it against the stone, got it right the first time, amazing! - put the stone on a piece of plastic (a discarded baggy - because you can peel the highly adhesive epoxy clay off the plastic easily) - and started setting stones.

I just whacked them on randomly - using the Crystal Katana. The Crystal Katana actually has rather too large a tip for this size stone (these are from our chaton mixes and are really tiny). I had to "point up" the tip and touch very lightly - because the stones did not want to stay behind on the clay. That is not a fault of the tool, btw - I was, as usual, pushing the envelope of what it was intended to do. Which is something I do, all the time.

The clay I was using was actually brown - because that is all I could find at that moment - you really have no idea how incredibly messy my workspace is - but when I had run out of room to put on more crystals - I dumped some of our metalFX powder on it. I could lay my hands on a number of colours - I was going to use gold - but then I saw I had black - and I thought - that might be cool! So black it was!

And then left it to harden overnight. 

I'm quite pleased with the overall effect. Next - I think I might put a plug of clay in the centre and bling that up. Maybe using the clay to attach it to a round disk? Or a filigree? Or maybe make a "river" of stones across the face of the donut, using the clay and rhinestones.

Not sure yet.