Friday 29 March 2013

Resin bauble slider reveal

Welcome! Today is the day to see what a group of designers inspired by Lorelei Eurto’s Michael’s find could all come up with.  No surprise, she finds the coolest stuff. I knew I wanted in as soon as I saw her photo and thought “what the?”  Girl on a mission, I was happy to find both colours.

First a false start…

purple slider

She wants to be a butterfly, but we had words over what her wings would look like and I stripped them back off.  So she will languish in the vicinity of the work table for the perfect inspiration another day.

I switched to working with the blue ones.  I made a joke about not showing you bugs on fire when I was talking about my initial inspiration – I guess I couldn’t get that idea out of my head since I bring you a bug made of bugs or, well, bug products.
 slider necklace

I used brass wire to create  a bunch of teardrop shapes that I hammered. Two of these I turned into integral parts of polymer components.  The large blue circles you see are the ends of a silk worm cocoon that I created a polymer bezel for, so they are hollow.  The center portion of the cocoon I cut and twisted to become the “tail” of my bug focal.  The body is a polymer base with a natural gold silk overlay (this is a cocoon that has been eaten through).

cord detail

This picture gives a better sense of the height of the silk and polymer element.  Below you can see the the silk I included on the bottom side and have a better idea the size of the holes.  Isn’t it amazing that that gold is natural?

focal firefly

This necklace clasps on the side and I created it by twisting one teardrop and covering the other in polymer.

clasp detail

Just a glimpse of the chain which I had hanging around the studio salvaged from a thrift store find once upon a time.  Literally the only goldy tone chain I had on hand but I like how the circle links echo the resin baubles.  I wasn’t going to include this last photo since it is so washed out but it lets you see where that clasp sits on the upper right.

bug on

Many thanks to Lorelei for tossing the challenge out there, I would have never found these on my own and they did present a very interesting design challenge.  Lorelei’s blog will have the full list of participants and I will update here too. Can’t wait to see what everyone came up with!


Lola

Denise McCabe

Mustard Bead

A Polymer Penchant

Pearl and Pebble

Peacock Fairy

Beads for Busy Gals

Dawn Williams

Shirley Moore

B Street Studios

Sally Russick

Pamela770

Erin Prais-Hintz

Heather Powers

MirandAck

Lily

Karen Firnberg

Tanya

Mary

Rosebud101

Ann

Toltec Jewels

Micha

Terri

17 comments:

  1. woah. you make me want to go back to michaels to buy more to play around with them again! this is just so creative!!! I love the wire links you made! Perfect in every way!

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  2. Awesome, yours is definitely one of my favorite creations of this blog hop. Love how you pick up the colors with your own elements. Now tell Michael's to open up stores in Germany please so that I can play along too? <3

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  3. I love what you've done here. I must say, I was not totally sure about these sliders when I saw them posted as a challenge......but you've made something striking, pretty, feminine and sophisticated from them. Shows they just needed to be in the right hands! Lovely job.

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  4. What a wonderfully creative use of the components! Bravo!

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  5. Wow...that is amazing! I love the colors.

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  6. Ah! Now I see! I was wondering which challenge you were using these in when I was reading the thread the other day on fb about the pods. You are such a creative genius! My absolute favorite part is that awesome clasp! This is so very pretty, I can't stop looking at it! High five!

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  7. So inventive and organic! I love it!

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  8. What a great design-love it! Very modern and unique. Well done Emma!

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  9. What a great necklace. I love the blue circles you created -- the compliment the sliders so well. I am just amazed at the cocoon and silk and the clasp is awesome.

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  10. Very cool wire work and design - unique and fun - I love it!

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  11. How fun! that is such a cool use for those sliders!

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  12. Love it!
    I hope you can "finish" the purple butterfly.
    Interesting how you conected the sliders together.

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  13. Wow! What a statement! So unique and creative!

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  14. How cool! I love your wire work and I really love how you incorporated the silk and polymer. Beautiful:)

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  15. Very impressive wirework. Really like the big u loops to connect the sliders - such a great way to use them.

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  16. Wow! Your silk and polymer components complement the sliders so well. So may cool and creative things you can do with polymer.

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  17. That is so inventive! I love the long lengths of wire to make the connectors. This one really tells a beautiful story! Enjoy the day. Erin

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I'd love to hear what you think, thanks for taking the time to join in the conversation