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Happy Holidays from the Metal Clay Academy!
Greetings!
I can hardly believe we're almost at the end of the year - where did it go?
Since our launch in July, we've grown to almost 200 pages of information, tutorials and links and the visitor stats continue to grow. And that's thanks to you so a very big thankyou for your support during 2008.
As this year draws to a close, I'd like to wish you all a very happy festive season and all the very best in 2009.
Best wishes,
Julia |
Pam East's wonderful Christmas baubles would
look great on any tree! | |
| What's New...?
The What's New page has become a huge part of my life over the past few months. When I set it up I anticipated adding something to it every couple of days. But with all the great resources, suppliers and teachers out there, I'm updating it every day!
Do keep sending me your feedback about using the Academy website. And let me know if you want me to list something that's not yet there. Please contact me to let me know your thoughts. |
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Your Emails...
I never thought when I started the Metal Clay Academy that I would get so much email from users of the site.
 I am heartened by many of the emails I get from people just starting out with metal clay. The beginners page has been so well received by those who don't want to spend lots of money on tools and equipment. Hearing their delight at being able to work with metal clay using things found around the house is great. I wrote the article specifically to make metal clay more accessible for everyone so it's good to hear it's working.
I value all your emails, many of which suggest great sites to add to the suppliers and teachers pages. I'm always glad to hear about someone I haven't listed.
And if you want me to list you, please do contact me. It's OK to promote yourself! I'm particularly looking for great project tutorials - video, web page based or PDF's. Contact me and tell me about the great stuff you do. |
| Calling all Suppliers....and Teachers!
I often get emails from people asking if I know of suppliers based in specific towns or states - people still do want to browse in a real shop! So now I've begun to list people who have retail stores, even if they don't offer internet shopping. If you supply any of the items listed on the Suppliers pages, please contact me and I'll link to your website, even if you don't have an online buying facility.
And this also applies to teachers. I get lots of emails asking me for teachers based in specific areas. Check out the training pages and let me know if you're offering training in any of the subjects listed. I'll list you for free. |
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Masters Registry - My First Evaluations
I've been working on the Masters Registry projects since signing up in August. In November I submitted my first 10 projects for Level 1 and this week I had them returned with the evaluations.
 I'm happy to say I passed seven of the 10 projects - just three to resubmit! Well, I didn't really expect them all to fly through - have you seen the standard???
One of my projects passed with full marks though and I'm so pleased - so here it is. It's project number E1, the votive figure.
I love Ancient Egypt so I chose Heket, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth. She appears as a frog so here is my interpretation of Heket.
I'd love to hear from anyone else doing the Masters Registry. |
| Support the Metal Clay Academy
The Metal Clay Academy is a not for profit resource and relies on sponsorship and advertising to deliver its mission. You can support the Academy in a number of ways. Simply by putting a link to our site on your website, blog, Facebook or My Space site etc helps to drive traffic to us and increase our exposure.
Sponsorship of the site is available and provides stable exposure to the MCA target audience - people interested in metal clay and jewellery making. Your sponsor ad appears on every page of the website in the left hand column. Sign up is quick and easy through Paypal. To find out more about becoming a sponsor, click here.
Advertising on the site is organised through Project Wonderful. These ads appear on the right hand side of every page on the website. Advertising is cheap and easy with Project Wonderful. Our Shops!
We now have two shops selling metal clay themed merchandise. One is based in the US, the other in the UK.
Visit our shops page to access both of these stores.
Stuffed with t-shirts and sweatshirts with fun metal clay slogans, this is the place to find a great gift for the metal clay maniac in your life! |
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Search Engine Optimisation for non-techies
In the 21st Century, if you want people to find you - whether you're selling your metal clay work or teaching metal clay - you have to have a website. Setting up the website is only part of the equation though. What's the point of having a website if no one can find it?
This guide introduces some of the key things you need to do to make sure people can find your website. The main ways people find websites is through the search engines - Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask etc - so making sure these search engines can find you and categorise you is essential. This is called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.
This PDF document is a very brief introduction to Search Engine Optimisation for the non-technical. It relates directly to metal clay websites. Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO is a huge subject and there are many resources on the internet about it. There are also lots of companies offering to get you listed on search engines for a fee. This article talks about FREE ways of getting yourself noticed on the internet and how to structure your website to be search engine friendly.
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Project Tutorials
It seemed to me that if you were looking for a project, it would be very useful to see the outcome before going to the website. The feedback I've had about this change has been fantastic.
Building a website is a funny business! I'm not an expert by any means but I've learned so much while building the Metal Clay Academy and I continue to look at the site and find things to improve its usability.
You can expect to see changes happening all over the site in 2009 as I discover better ways of catagorising information and displaying things.
If you think a change would make the site easier to navigate or use, please let me know.
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