Elemental challenges

As I write this, I'm enjoying a slow, steady, rainy day.  Perfect for thinking about a challenge whose theme is the elements!  Actually, I'm quite late in writing about this due to many other challenges at home with getting the house and garden prepared for summer, picking strawberries, picking strawberries, picking strawberries (did I mention picking strawberries?!?)...  and finally, the loss of a beloved pet.  I've been so busy and so heartbroken over losing my sweet kitty that I hadn't considered posting about the challenge here until the last minute.  As of this writing, there is less than a day left for voting.  If you catch this on this day (June 7, 2013), you have until midnight tonight to cast your vote!  Please take the time to go vote for your 3 favorite entries at http://www.polymerclayartists.blogspot.com/   And remember that if you do take the time to vote you may have the opportunity to win a prize!  Three random voters are selected each month to win a prize of their choosing.

Here are a few photos of my entry piece:

For this month, our guild members were asked to create a piece that reflected any, or all, of the elements (earth, air, fire, water).  I had originally intended to create a piece with all of the elements.  Throughout the last month, I worked on creating portions that would eventually be combined which signified each element.  Then on the 2nd to last day before the challenge deadline, I spent the day assembling, disassembling and reassembling the piece to no avail.  Each time I put it together, no matter how I changed the necklace layout, it just was not cohesive.  As a last ditch resort, I decided to pair it down to simply the one element which struck me as the best conceived piece.  From the 4 choices, fire was the one which I felt was best represented.  I called this piece Flaming Embers Necklace.  The pendant was created with translucent polymer and alcohol inks, the embers shooting out of the top of the flame were created with necklace cable wire and liquid polymer.   The asymmetrical necklace design is created with clear glass seed beads interspersed with orange and red beads to carry the theme of flying embers of a flame.  

And here are all of the participating artists' entries for this month:

Surely a tough decision once again, to choose just 3 favorites, as all are well conceived and well executed ideas!  So please head over to the guild blog and vote for your favorites!