Tag: throwback

Throwback Thursday: beaded daisy sculpture

On By CarynIn Craft, throwback

Back in June of 2012 I was still making jewelry to enter into the Fire Mountain Gem contest. I was just starting to put my head toward marketing and using purchased elements rather than components made from scratch. The contest really is to motivate buyers to purchase from the company, so the designs that win need to have a wow factor and inspire makers to buy. Custom sculpted elements aren’t usually in the standard beaders repertoire.

I fell short of the mark on this design. I love it, but it did not make the short list in the contest. I used a purchased wire knit chain and braided it, used purchased ribbon ends and clasp, and built a daisy pin using plated button and pin findings, crystal petals, crystal beads, and seed beads.

Photo description: daisy pin necklace with Viking knit chain and crystal beaded pin
Photo description: closeup of the daisy pin center
Photo description: side view of the pin, showing a peek of the base elements

I certainly had a long list of purchased elements, but maybe my color scheme didn’t fit what the judges were looking for, or I used difficult to decipher techniques. Hard to tell. I was getting better taking project photos, though.

Throwback Thursday: glass buttons

On By CarynIn Craft, throwback

In March 2012 I had a custom order for glass clay buttons for the Kansas State Button Society. I designed the button with input from my grandmother’s button group, made a silicone mold into which I pressed the glass clay, hand built the button shank, hand painted each button, and fired them in batches in my kiln.

Photo description: multiple colors of flower and fan glass clay buttons
Photo description: close up of the buttons with a ruler showing each button about an inch and three quarters
Photo description: one button mounted on the card that was given out during the Spring 2012 meeting

Making larger batches is a completely different animal than designing a single component. The glass clay was fun to play with, but was brittle, so the buttons were decorative more than functional.

Throwback Thursday: button necklace

On By CarynIn Craft, throwback

In September 2011 I was experimenting with ways to make jewelry from buttons without destroying the button. One of Grandma’s pet peeves was when buttons had been glued or cut to “upcycle” them (she was a button collector).

I came up with a wire wrap that utilized a four hole button, making it into a link component.

Photo description: first step of a button spiral cluster using two pieces of 20 gauge sterling silver wire threaded though hand made wire coils, then the button holes, then interlocked
Photo description: step 2 begins making each leg of wire into a spiral
Photo description: close up of finished spiral cluster securing a button nondestructively
Photo description: full necklace with identical buttons wire wrapped in silver

I actually took production photos for this necklace, for which I am now very thankful.

Throwback Thursday: Copper Squirrel

On By CarynIn Craft, throwback

In March of 2011 I was experimenting with copper clay, which is fine particles of copper suspended in a fireable media that shapes like clay. When heated in a kiln, the organics burn away and the copper remains. I made this squirrel for my Dad, and after firing it measures about a half inch tall.

Photo description: copper squirrel sculpture with acorn side view

What I liked about this sculpture is the way I treated the tail. From the side it looks like a full fluffy tail, but the back shows that it is spoon shaped, which reduces the bulk and I feel was a nice design choice.

Photo description: back of the sculpture’s tail showing a spoon shape and lines indicating fur direction

Throwback Thursday: Terrarium build

On By CarynIn Craft, throwback

In January 2011 my husband and I designed a terrarium in a 25 gallon tank. I painted a faux stained glass mural with special plastic lead and translucent glass paint on the outside of the tank. We built a clear acrylic planter with a pass through for water circulation and covered the pump with a hand sculpted and water safe painted rock formation made of styrofoam. The bottom section was for fish and two red bellied newts, who would presumably also venture onto the land. The newts had the best story, because they would somehow escape the enclosure and roam the house. We are pretty sure a cat found one, but the other crawled onto my husband’s foot one morning startling him and sending the newt flying. Newt-imer survived the flight and my husband returned him to his enclosure where he lived until 2015. We had to re-home him after a house fire when we all had to find new accommodations for a while.

Photo description: hand painted terrarium tank with custom clear acrylic structures
Photo description: same tank filled with rock and dirt with faux rock pump cover and skull decoration

While the designing process was interesting, and there were lessons learned, the cleaning and maintaining of a fish tank is not something either of us want to bother with again.