Twist & Fold Summer Beaded Necklace

Several months ago, I started playing with making twisted and folded beads. I start with a striped stack, cut a slice, wrap it around a thin tube of clay, and twist and fold. To get the stripes and folds as uniform and close as possible takes a lot of concentration, which I find I enjoy. Here are two snapshots of the necklace I made. It seems very appropriate for summertiime.

Butterflies Around Your Neck

I love the summer flowers, and the butterflies they attract. The colors and their grace as they flit from flower to flower is lovely. I've often thought they should have been called flutter-bys, but I wasn't consulted when they were first named. :) Here are a couple of polymer butterfly pendants. I put eyepins in the wing tips to attach the chain so the pieces lie flat and don't twist as they might with a single bail. A fun way to carry a butterfly with you all day long.

New Silver/Brass Bracelet

Bracelets are always popular, especially as summer rolls around and arms are bare once again. so I was especially pleased to find some new silver and brass bracelets that are adjustable. Making bracelets fit is always a challenge. These have silver wire sides, so they can be bent to fit. The decoration behind the flower is silver bonded to brass. I have been experimenting with ways to attach polymer flowers to them, and have just taken my first piece from the oven. That's it in the photo at the left. i really like the way it turned out. it will be interesting to see "public" reaction. I'll be sure to post photos of a couple more when I get them done.

Early Greens

Wow! Somehow February just sped by! I did spend quite a bit of time putting together some pieces for a Mokume gane display at the Westerly gallery. However, I I forgot to take photos... So, here are some pieces that speak to the beginning glimpses of spring in new green near the streams. The oval pendant makes me think of the first touches of greens coming up in rows in a planting bed. The earrings do, too. Then of course, there are the cattails - one of my favorites that grow wild here along the ponds. As you can see, I'm thinkig spring and green!!

Spectrum Upcoming Show

Since I'm on the topic of show themes, I thought I'd show you a couple of pieces I made for the upcoming show at the Spectrum Art Gallery in Centerbrook. The theme is "Life in the City." The picture to the left is one I'm calling "City Nights." To add a night time effect, I used gold leaf on the moon and in the window areas of the buildings. The stars are AB crystals. The photo below shows a scene I think looks like city buildings in a heavy rain.

More 3-D Jewelry

Just wanted to share a few more pieces based on Jana Roberts Benzon's techniques. Instead of using a traditional polymer design cane, I made a design stack along the lines of those developed by Carol Blackburn. Since these were not canes that could be covered around the edges, the design shows everywhere, giving these pieces a different look. The rectangular shape of the stack also inspired me to decorate a brass cuff. Fun!!

3-D Jewelry a la Jana Roberts Benzon

Once again, I had the chance to spend a wonderful day learning from Jana Roberts Benzon. As I have said before, she is really amazing. This time, the class was on dimensional pieces formed from canes of varying complexity. We made a variety of canes from complex kaleidoscopes to stripes, bulls' eyes and all sorts of options in between. Jana guided us through the process of assembling slices from the various canes into pendants and earrings. There are just so many possibilities, and the work the participants have posted on our group site have been amazing. Above is my first pendant and below, a pair of earrings to harmonize.

New Pieces for Spectrum

Once again, it's holiday show time, and I've been putting together some jewelry for the show at Spectrum Gallery in Essex. Below are several pieces. I'm loading them in as small images. You can just click on any you'd like to see more closely. I've been having fun with mica powders and iridescent shift paints, so you'll see those looks in many of the pieces.

Fall Leaf Jewelry

It's getting close to that time of year. The leaves are all still green, but it's a deeper green than in early summer. The mornings are cooler, the air is dryer, and there's a feeling that autumn is just around the corner. This, of course, means it's time to make some jewelry using leaves before they fall, curl, and turn brittle.

I picked some of the smallest leaves off the trees in our yard to act as "stamps", and used mica powders to create the pendants shown here. Fun, doesn't take a lot of clay or equipment, and lets you enjoy the leaves long after they've left the trees.

The Woodland Floor

Now that the weather is growing warmer, we've been spending more time outdoors, and taking walks in the woods with our dogs. Our girls love the sights and smells, and always come home happy. While the ferns and undergrowth are just beginning to pop, the fungi on the trees is also growing more visible. Here are a couple of pieces I made, inspired by some of the "little things".

More Faded Tapestry

I've been playing around some more with the faded tapestry technique. I figured I'd share some of the color-ways I used since I'd only shown one example before. So here are some earrings and a couple of pendants. I particularly like the dark earrings - the design really looks faded in person, and somehow the colors are more intense. The last photo has nothing to do with the faded tapestry technique. They're just some muted matte-finished, striped earrings in spring-to-summer colors that I think are kind of fun.

New Adjustable Bracelets

Bracelets are fun to make - and wear. The biggest problem with making them for sale is sizing. Wrists are so variable, and it's hard to have every item in every size. Usually, I just use brass bangle and cuff forms. I was really pleased to find some new adjustable bracelet bands. These are available in metal in various finishes, and in many colors of cording. Because of the sliding stop-bead, they can be enlarged to go over almost anyone's hand, tnen the stop-bead slides up so the bracelet sits securely around the wrist. As you can see in the photos, I made several different styles of bracelets including flowers and translucent layers, in both flat and bead formats. I'll be interested in seeing the response to these new pieces. The bracelets above left all have cording bands. The bracelets below have metal bands.

This last photo shows some translucent dimensional beads. Two are on adjustable cording bands, and the blue piece is on a metal band decorated with turquoise crystals.

23K Gold in Mokume Gane

Ah, the luster of real gold! There are several different metal leaf products available for use with polymer and other art mediums. I enjoy using them, and usually use the composite products. But once in a while, I splurge and get the "real thing." The pendant to the left and earrings below were made using 23K gold leaf in a mokume gane stack. You can tell immediately when real gold leaf is being used compared to the composite versions. The composite versions crackle and split when rolled and pressed in polymer. Actual gold leaf stays intact. It almost looks like the gold melted and flowed while the piece was curing. I love the look. The pendant and a pair of earrings shown here were both made from the same mokume gane stack. Compare this look to the red pendant I posted on March 27th, and you can see the difference. Do you see why I really like the 23K gold?

Late March Frosting

Yesterday the temperature reached 60 degrees. This morning, we woke to a sprinkling of snow. Ah, March! Nothing was on the driveway or lawn, but the leaves in our woods were all dusted with bits of white. The scene made me think of a set I made late last year when the first frosts were hitting all the fallen leaves. This seems like the perfect time to share a couple of photos.

Sparkle & Shine Long Pendants

Every once in a while, I find a special charm or other item that "begs" to be added to a piece of jewelry. I found these lovely little partial star-burst charm drops with a CZ in the center on Etsy, and couldn't resist. So here are 2 thin and longish pendants using this golden embellishment. The aqua blue pendant has a thick coating of iridescent glitter under a resin coating. The red, white and gold pendant is from a mokume gane sheet with composite gold leaf, again sealed with resin. :) The blue one, especially, makes me think of a beautiful early spring sunrise on a crystal clear day.

More Dots & Lines

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, I have recently started experimenting with some of the uses of Sculpey liquid polymer. Although I've only used white and black, this product now comes in many colors.  It has a density that allows it to hold a certain amount of dimension when baked.





 Here are a few more pieces I've made in the dots and lines motif.  I used the flat (non-blade) edge of a tissue blade to make the lines, and a narrow head pin for the dots. The lines and dots feel raised when a finger is drawn across the surface.

Dots & Lines

It's amazing how easy it is to fill one's time, even when you're in the "stay safe, stay home" group.  I start off the day with a list of things I plan to do, and somehow don't seem to make it all the way through. One of the things I keep planning on doing is getting more polymer work done, and sharing the results here.  So today, I'm going to show you my first two pieces using a technique that Lynn Yuhr shared on Polymer Clay Daily during 2019.  I've used pan pastels to create blended colors on the bases, then, used liquid polymer for the dots and lines.  These two pieces are pins, though they could have been pendants, too.  I also used the liquid polymer to color, smooth and finish the edges all the way around.  This is a lot of fun, especially since the dots and lines are not completely under your control, and I like the slight raised effect the liquid polymer makes.  I'll be making some more pieces soon, so stay tuned!

Lace and Metal Leaf Mokume Gane

How did it get to be March?  We've had an unusually warm month so far, which has been helpful as we help our puppy adapt to a different toileting regime.  She had a wonderful time visiting with the folks at our February workshop and can't wait to see them all again.
At that workshop, we experimented with using thick lace pieces to impress a design into the clay.  We used the type of lace that makes lovely trim, rather than flat lace that is often used for sleeves or as an overlay on another fabric.  We also incorporated composite metal leaf as the top layer of our thin clay stacks.  This meant that, after impressing the lace design, we skimmed off parts of the metal leaf and the design of the lace came through.

Here are photos of sections of two sheets I made. The polymer sheets are eventually rolled out on a #3 or #4 on an Atlas machine, so you end up with a very flexible sheet with the metal leaf imbedded into the clay.  Adding a good backing would allow one to make lovely jewelry pieces.  However, I also think these sheets would be great as a cover for small paper mache' or cardboard boxes, or other items you would like to cover.  It was a fun and interesting process, and the sheets people made in class were simply lovely.

Silk Screening

Recently, I held a class on silk screening polymer clay.  We used Lumiere acrylic paints and small silk screens on raw polymer.  Most of the students chose to make Skinner blends of two or three colors with their polymer before laying down the silk screen and applying the paint.  The results were simply lovely, and quite varied. Since I had the materials gathered, I made a few more sheets at home. Here are some of the pieces I made from the silk screening. I covered the pieces with Magic Gloss to help protect the paint.  Although the paint bakes into the polymer, and I have left silk screened pieces with a matte look, I do like the extra depth the Magic Gloss and other resins add to the polymer pieces.