DIY Jewellery | Silver Letter Necklace

Fri-yay!
Today, I have the final DIY from my Metal Clay series - a little more freestyle and the necklace I made after feeling a little more comfortable using the clay: An initial pendant.

As with the triangle necklace, I created my own template to use as a guide:

I tried to draw the template as I would ideally like the clay to follow, but with the understanding it would be thicker and maybe a little less 'fine' than my writing! Bear this in mind when creating your template, allowing the design to cater for thicker lines [or even draw with a thick pen to make sure].

To start, create a thin sausage of the clay that will allow you to easily trace the lines of the template:

Unsure of how easily I could mould and shape the clay, I made this a little thicker than I would if I could make it again - though you can see, some cracks did appear where curves were made and the thickness doubled where the clay crossed over:

Once I had created my shape, I started to attach the clay where it crossed over and flatten the overall appearance. I found the side of a toothpick did this job easily, with a little water to smooth the clay:

This, out of all the pendants, felt much more substantial.
When dried, it had a real weight to it, though in my confidence with using the clay I don't think I 'finished' the clay in the same way as the earlier DIYs. The clay wasn't as smooth as others and I think, a little too dry when shaping.
I've got my excuses in early, as this is what happened after drying fully with the hairdryer and starting to sand the clay:

Nightmare.
Using the same technique as the triangle necklace, I made a clay paste that I could use as glue to fix the two halves together. As this pendant was much more substantial, it did take a little longer to fix and I applied several coats to the clay just to make sure:

Once happy I had firmly fixed the initial back together, I dried further with the hairdryer and then fired and sanded the finished initial:

Buffing and polishing the clay to reveal the silver underneath, the pendant was complete!
I left the finish slightly more matt than the previous designed, finishing my polish with a light sanding, which also created a lighter silver colour to the pendant: