Sun + Flower = Sunflower

A necklace born out of a sight of sunflower in a vase with a ray of sunlight trickling in through an open window.  Hence sun + flower and sunflower :).  madness....

I like to write the story of every piece I make to add interest.  I myself can read it later and smile.  Smile:)

Making of the lotus pond.

This popped up in my mind when I was thinking of making something totally different than usual.  In fact, I was thinking of sky blue back ground with pink lotus and green leaves(it would have looked all very dramatic :) ). But when I sat down to work on it.  It turned out to be totally different.  But I like the result very much.  This always happens to me when I sit down with clay.  I will have something else in the mind when I start and end up with nothing or something amazing.  I learn new thing about it daily. Life is like that, you learn new things daily.

Once the pendent was ready I had to think of the beads to go with it.  It took some time for me to make the right beads for the pendent.

Those are called bi cone beads.  I found making it manually was much fun than the bead-maker.  Here goes the pictures.

I thought the pendent will not attract attention with these beads, so I had to think of something else to go immediately after the pendent.  I made 2 folded beads with antique gold.  I think they look gorgeous.

The pendent

The finished necklace

The earring

Stripes...

Simple necklace on organza ribbon.

Inspiration - Peacock

Everyone gets inspired by this grand bird - paintings, motifs on saris, jewelry,  and even on aircraft.  This is what I made from the inspiration drawn from the beauty of the peacock.

I have made a cushion cover with silk and  have painted peacock feather motifs on it.  you can check it out here. This piece was sold out even before i took a proper photo of the necklace, i am feeling bad about it.

Inspired............but original.

This is my second piece.  I made this around 6 months ago.  The first set of beads I made for this charred.  So I had do all over again (without losing my heart).  I did not take photographs of the beads separately.  The beads are made out of a simple jelly roll cane I made of antique gold and maroon color clay.  I think it looks like animal print.

This design is inspired by what I saw around the internet.  This is my own design, though you might find similar once on the net.  

First Piece of Jewelry

These beads were made from the technique called makume gane technique which is originally a Japanese metal work technique, probably the metals are layered because the polymer clay technique is done by layering the clay sheets and then pressing down a pattern randomly or you can plan a pattern.  The effect will be clear if the layered sheets are in contrasting colors. here is the first piece I made.

It was made into pendent and beads.

My Experience With Polymer Clay

I had not researched about the brands at first.  I bought some from a store.  They had only 2 colors.  I went ahead and made some beads out of it.  They looked great.  I am a person already madly in love with beads.  So when I could make it myself, my joy was boundless. The picture above is the first ones I made.  Then I searched for clay on net.  I got some clay from a lady online.  No-brand clay, just wrapped in plastic.  I baked it as per her instructions.  I came out fairly good.  But with time they changed color or crumbled. I was upset.  The raw ones are OK, once you bake it, it changes color.  Then I searched for branded ones online.  I searched for the the whole day on  net.  Then I found one and  it turned out to be one close to my house.  I could walk to the store and pick up the ones I like.  I was so happy.  Now I get the supply from this place http://www.skillsupplies.com/.  I got inspired by the jewelries made out of this and tried my hand at it.

But I will show the ones met with a disastrous end.  I have to show those pieces because I made it with so much care and passion.  I made these out of the non branded clay. I think the baking instruction was wrong.

All the above are pictures taken before the bake, raw.  Most of them crumbled like cookies when I was attempting to make jewelry out of it.  some charred  beyond recognition sniff.......   Forget it.  I will post more of my attempt to make jewelry in the next post.

My First Polymer Clay Beads

Add caption

I was so mesmerized by this medium, I wanted to try my hand on this.  This was like using colors but in a 3D form.  This was an year ago.  This is not very popular in India.  It is catching up now.  I did a lot of research on internet.  It gives you lot of opportunity to experiment with this.  You can create anything out of your imagination, like a painting,  with this medium.  you can combine colors to get new ones like how you do with paint.  About polymer clay, the techniques, the color wheel, there are so many really good blogs and youtube information you can get.  Here are some of them I regularly visit for inspiration.  Cindy's Polymer Clay Tutor, Olga Petrichencko, AnnaOriona, Teresa Pandora Salgado.