I’m not usually one for getting my work published in magazines – mainly because I’m too disorganised to get myself together for the submission deadlines but,when you get an invite from the beautifully put together Belle Armoire Jewelry, well you have to give it some careful consideration.
So that’s what I was doing around Christmas and today it’s safe to say that I’m just a little bit excited as I make my debut in Belle Armoire with seven pieces featured in a technique based article and a piece in the boutique section. You should have seen me run when the mail dropped this morning!
Metal clay and mixed media necklaces
Bronze clay and art bead earrings and bracelet
Wire macrame and bronze clay earrings
Wire macrame bangle
Fortunately I just about remembered to take some photo’s of the jewellery (apart form one pair of earrings) before I sent it off for consideration…
For this necklace I adapted a wonderful mixed media technique I was taught by by my good friend and AJE colleague Jenny Davies-Reazor at Bead Fest last year…
Each month one of the AJE team creates components for the rest of our team and a number of guests to design a piece of jewellery around. This months components were supplied by Sue Kennedy of Sue beads and I got to work with the cute set of chicklet beads second from the left in this picture…
Because these beads are flat I decided they would work well as bracelet focals but as I’ve made a few strung bracelets recently I wanted to do something different. I’ve always been fond of beaded copper bangles and used to make a lot of them so decided to go that route. These bangles are formed around a core of heavy gauge wire but on this occasion however, instead of wrapping the core with wire I decided to try wire macrame in order to get a flat band effect.
I threaded the beads onto the core with some Czech glass and copper accent beads and used 0.9mm copper wire to ‘tie’ simple square knots around it.
The ends of the core wire are looped with a couple of jump rings and a hand forged hook added to complete the bracelet. I used Liver of Sulphur to oxidise the wire and enhance the textural detail.
A fairly simple design but I really like this type of bangle and I think I may be making a few more.
You can see what everyone else made with their components by clicking on the links below and joining us on our blog hop.
I’m hosting the AJE Earring challenge reveal today and had a great time looking through the designs on out Pinterest board to choose just a few favourites. There is such a variety of designs and it seems like everyone is having fun with this – I certainly hope so! I was really pleased with my own earrings for weeks 5 & 6 – sometimes I’m a bit unsure but happily there were no doubts this time round.
For this first pair I used some 22 gauge oxidised bronze wire to create macrame pina and suspended some beautiful Borosilicate lampwork beads from Brendan Blake from then. A couple of little Czech glass teardrops add a final flourish and voila…
I just haven’t found the time to list these yet and I’m not sure I’m going to either…
My second pair on the other hand have already been snapped up and will winging there way to the USA tomorrow morning. I’ve just bought a whole load of new texture mats and wanted to try them out and these beautiful patinated seahorse charms were the result. They’re quite big and very striking so all I’ve added are some tiny etched handmade beads by Radiant Mind ans some hand forged wires to complete the look…
Pop on over to the AJE blog to see the the other participants entries and don’t forget to join us for reveal 4 on Sunday 3rd March. happy designing folks!
