Fiery Eye Necklace Top
Halloween Slide Bottom
I'm keeping things cheap since my skills are still novice as far as the construction and technique go. I can't imagine what it takes to be a real artisan jewelry maker - far more patience than I'll have.
My process started with acquiring old and beat up vintage jewelry, still an addiction of sorts. In fact, I'll be putting up some batches of jewelry that I've given up on because I either have too much of it or don't have the skill set to alter them properly.
The first efforts I made were to alter the old pieces by removing the ruined paint and stones, usually rhinestones. As much as I love rhinestone jewelry though, I find them extremely difficult to work with the small ones, especially matching size and shapes and colors, then trying to place and glue. Even more difficult is working with pronged stones. I did finally finish a couple pieces by simply painting with gleaming and glittering nail polishes, then finishing. Here's one that I've put up for sale on Etsy:
I think the glittery paint gives the impression of rhinestones and I love that shade of midnight blue. I plan to put up another one in a few days after I've done some pictures. It is a Halloween Elf, although it started life as something else altogether - I'm not sure what. It is an elf though, riding on a large swan.
My favorite piece incorporates what I've done up to the point of starting to work with polymer clay. This necklace has hand-rolled paper beads (another addictive activity) and glass beads taken from a vintage necklace I bought years ago. The smaller beads are a mishmash of plastic and glass spacer beads.
I put off starting with polymer clay all summer because I knew it would claim a lot of my focus and attention. I wanted to "just" make plain color beads, round or square, of various sizes to include in necklaces like the ones above. Crafting polymer clay properly takes dedicated space and tools plus knowledge that I am slowly acquiring. I've got a lot of beads (using the word loosely) that will go into the trash but I've learned something. Like don't use Modge Podge to coat them after baking, leaves a terrible sticky finish.
I marched out of the library a few days ago with a pile of books on Polymer technique and then purchased a pasta machine, which elevates me to a serious student. There is no end of doodads to purchase for manipulating clay although I find that a lot of kitchen gadgets work quite well.
Now that Halloween is upon us (at least those of us in online retail), I have to focus on making more themed jewelry and other items. The "other items" is really one particular project that I'm super excited about but haven't attempted to make yet. Components have been assembled though so maybe some pictures will surface soon. Not going to promise exactly when though.
