Relaxed Simple Boho Hippie Style (& a little polymer jewelry tip)

Life has simply been hectic in the last couple months. It's generally no surprise for me to feel scattered this time of year... when the earth is awakening to it's fruitful seasons, life finds me  busy with garden chores and prepping the house for summer. But this spring, one of my dearest family members has been struggling with a combination of health issues. So with a few hospital stays, many doctors' visits and devoting more time to my beloved one, my crafting time is miniscule.

This month my guild's theme is Retro. This could be any design, color, pattern, etc. representing trends of by-gone decades. At first I had intended to do something 1950s, I've always love the 50s style and I have this cool pair of candlesticks that have a retro feel. But, as the clock ticked  and calendar pages fell away, I was left with just 2 days to complete a project. I knew I'd never have enough time to experiment with the candlesticks, so I decided to do something simple and quick.

For inspiration, I pulled from the 1960's Hippie style. Perhaps something Boho and definitely relaxed. Boy, do I need relaxed! ;)

I decided to do a macrame bracelet with polymer focal and accents. I hadn't made a macrame bracelet since my high school days, and I'd never tried one that had a wavy edge or pattern, so the non-polymer part of my project was the most challenging part of this project for me. I basically followed a tutorial that I found online which I altered a tiny bit to come up with the results above. I knew I wanted a natural bracelet and really wanted the polymer to be shades of white, blue and orange. This image (that I found via google) is the feel I was going for, both with the boho look of the bracelet and with the subtle orange and blue hues paired with natural beige:

I really wanted to play with the polymer to make a faux tie-dye pattern, but had to limit my time to an hour for the polymer part, and so didn't get the look I had originally intended. It's more of a faux lamp work/swirled feel, but I liked it enough and really didn't have time to experiment for anything else. I sandwiched the bracelet between the focal top and added a bottom to the underside of the bracelet, so the focal bead is baked right onto the macrame.

You can see the back side of the focal here in the distance of this image of the button closure:

For the button closure, I simply used a regular acrylic button and attached it to the bracelet, then I coated the button top with bonding agent and covered it with a slice of the polymer left over from my focal... that's my little polymer jewelry tip! I did the same thing with the 2 smaller accent beads, they are simple little acrylic buttons that were sewn onto the bracelet, coated with bonding agent and then covered with a sheet of the polymer. This little trick is great for applications such as this bracelet, but I've also used it to make these rings:

The blue base on the ring with the swirl is actually an acrylic button. The other ring has a clear button under the black polymer circle. This allows me to make a ring base from wire, feed the ends through the button holes and simply cover the wire ends with a decorative polymer piece. Simple, Easy ring base!

Because the macrame on this piece is sub-par, since it's my first one in a great long while and the first in this style, this bracelet won't be for sale, but I do hope to make similar pieces in the future for selling and gifting. I think it looks pretty happy (hippie) on my wrist! ;)

Let me know what you think in the comments! I'll try to remember to post a reminder when voting is open, as I'm sure you'll not want to miss all the great entries by my fellow guild mates! Voting is open on June 1st and will run through to June 7th at midnight!

Cloudy with a mix of Tyvek®

**If you are looking for my bead soup reveal post please go here

Mixed media.  That's the challenge for my guild (PCAGOE) for the month of July.  Summer is always a time when I don't spend a lot of time in my studio.  From garden cutivation and cooking up the bounty, to daily walks in the park and about town, to staying up late watching double feature movies and just simply enjoying life... the time in my studio comes in short bursts.  When I contemplated this challenge, I knew I wanted to create something simple.  I've actually been in the mood to go minimal.  Perhaps it's the simplification of my life in summer that also makes me want to lead my art in that same direction, whatever the reason, it's where I'm at at this moment. I'm yearning for clean, simple design. 

The idea that birthed this piece was entirely different from how it finished.  I first created the half moon shapes by cutting out circles in gradations of premo blue pearl mixed with white.   I draped these circles in half over a skewer and baked them.  After baking, I played around with the pieces and realized that my initial idea would not work with these shapes and pieces... so, I kept playing until something that I liked came together, because frankly I was almost out of time, for the challenge deadline was within a day away.  Next, I cut out pieces of a Tyvek® mailing envelope which I then connected together and dyed a blue color to match the polymer hues.  I then assembled the central focal by connecting the Tyvek® piece to the largest polymer cluster.  I also added a silver line detail around each polymer piece with a gel pen, and the edges of the Tyvek® are brushed with silver as well.

I strung the pieces on a length of upcycled silk sari material, and played some more to come up with the idea of various ways to wear this necklace according to how one arranges the pieces on the length of silk.   One can wear the piece with just the focal in the front and the two smaller beads hanging as a pendulum down the back for a dramatic look:

(pardon my freckled back.. I need a younger, unblemished model!)

The second option for wearing is to move the small beads directly next to the focal and tie the sari ribbon at the nape of the neck at preferred length.

And the third option for wear is to slide those small beads up a little on the necklace, again tying the sari ribbon at the nape of the neck. 

I really like the versatility of this piece.  But I still have that original idea stuck in my head and it's much more minimalist than this piece turned out... I need to make time to get that one brought to life before it slides into the recesses of the creative ideas pit!  So, what do you think of this new necklace design? Have you tried to create something in a minimal style?  Leave me some comments and tell me your thoughts and experiences!

A Play Break to Repurpose

I've been busily reorganizing my studio spaces over the past week.  I'm not yet finished, but the end is in sight, only a day or two more....  I took a break from my organization project to create a piece for my guild challenge.  The PCAGOE (Polymer Clay Guild of Etsy) challenge theme for the month of February 2014 is wall hangings.  I had a completely different idea in mind for this challenge, but the presence of something that needed to be used sparked this project.

I had been asked by a friend to make another one of my turtle island pieces, which I began a few months ago.  I had stretched the canvas on my frame and coated it with liquid polymer, but when I cured that layer the center caved in and there was a lot of slack in the canvas, which for a "quilled" polymer look would not work.  The quilled project really needs to start with a taut canvas surface, because of how many layers of clay are concentrated in one layer creating a lot of weight.  Here's a photo of what went wrong with the canvas:

I've been so busy with my studio reorganize that I had pushed myself to the last day before the challenge deadline and realized that my original plan for this challenge would not have enough time to come together (I'll have to revisit that particular idea another time).  About a year or more ago, I had an idea to try a two layer sandwich of polymer then make certain shape partial cuts to fold back and allow the folds and the color contrast to create the design, so I decided to try this on my saggy  canvas.  At first I was going to cut away the canvas, but quickly realized that I could incorporate it into the design, thus giving more stability to my project.  So I covered the canvas again with liquid polymer, but this time I mixed it with some gold mica.  I made a swirl pattern radiating out from the center.  Some gold glitter scattered on top of the lpc layer added just a bit of shimmer.  I then made two large sheets of polymer (the circle is about 12" to 14" in diameter); one was a skinner blend that radiated from gold in the center to bronze on the outer areas and the top sheet was a blend of blue granite (has silver glitter flecks) mixed with blue pearl, cobalt blue and translucent.

After cutting the shapes and mounting the large polymer sheets to the canvas, I was ready to make the folds to reveal the design.  Some bonding agent, with the help of a few embossed dots as design elements, helped to secure the sheets to the canvas.  Here are some side view shots of the piece, so you can see the folded over elements:

And here are some close up shots:

While I'm fairly happy with my idea becoming a reality in this piece, this project was simply too rushed for me.  I think this design idea has some great potential and I do plan to revisit this idea another day when I can devote more time and effort to the construction.  Plus, (as always seems to happen) I have a whole other tangent of new ideas to implement in the next, or perhaps the 3rd iteration! ;) Please take a moment and let me know what you think about this piece in the comments!

Voting for this challenge will begin on February 1st and will run through February 7th (midnight EST).  I'll try to remember to repost a voting reminder at that time.  A post with my new studio changes is coming soon! 

A Challenge for Charity... Last day to vote!

Today is the last day to vote for the August PCAGOE challenge. 

About the Challenge:  (Copied from the PCAGOE blog)

For our annual "Charity Challenge" we chose The Global Genes Project, 7000 Bracelets for Hope, which provides bracelets for the rare and genetic disease community. Bracelets needed to be blue, in keeping with the project's color theme. 

Entries for this challenge were sent directly to the organization and will not be in the artists' shops. But, if something that you see in the entries is of interest, you might contact that shop to inquire about creation of a similar item :) 

Here are the entries:

Please go to the PCAGOE blog and vote for your three favorite entries by midnight EST August 7th 2012.

And check out the Global Genes Project to read more about this great charity and how you can contribute.

It's been a crazy month of harvesting, cooking and preserving lots of veggies and fruits, but I did manage to whip up an entry for this month's challenge.  The design of this piece was inspired by the beautiful upcycled T-shirt band bracelets designed by fellow PCAGOE member Marcia Palmer.

Here is a larger image of my entry:

You can view other shots of this bracelet (and lots of my other work) on my Flickr photostream.