Friday, February 15, 2013

Pendants~ | Go to post ➜

Hello ♥

Chinese New Year was last weekend and it was terribly hectic, and school is heating up too OTL so I'm sorry, this is a spam post of everything I've been up to for the last few weeks. Warning: pic heavy post coming up!

So I made these two pendants (one red jade, the other with Swarovskis). No detail or making shots because I'm not particularly fond of either and they were so frustrating. Although - I really, really love the colours in the yellow one. I found this colour of Swarovski called 'sunflower' - I have never fallen in love with a colour that fast in my life, it's so lovely ♥♥♥ (it's the bright yellow diamond shaped drops.) Bonus shot of my pretty jewel box :) I bought a tumbler so I put all of them in for a spin and they come out so lovely and bright ♥

And then the next pendant - Nausikaa. I wanted to try out mini bezels (the small round one is 8mm) and it was tricky to solder and set, but I really love this piece! Especially since it's the first one to benefit from the new tumbler so you can really see the smooth chocolaty colour of oxidised copper ♥ Oh, and I used balled wire ends for the first time. It's really frustrating trying to get them equal so the piece will be symmetrical. OTL

And below is the making of. I realise most of my process shots start off with the base frame.. actually by that time, hours and hours could have gone into making just the frame alone OTL. This stone has such lovely flash, only it has a black mark in the centre so it's not so perfect. I think it looks cute though, like a beauty mark ;)

And the next one, Laodike. Super challenging, reversible pendant. Because I really love the flash on the back of the stone too much, it's blue and gold ♥ And also, experimenting with hammered+textured wire. Not sure if I like this look or the round wire with balled ends like the necklace above, hmm.

And here is the making of - not so detailed because I was grumpy and also got so caught up making it I forgot to take pics. But if you notice, the stone looks really different from the top right to the closeup pic. Cough. It was a smooth cab originally, but with small pits in the surface. And after I tossed it in the tumbler the cracks and pits got worse, so I gave up trying to polish it smooth and sanded it down to a matte texture instead. I was in a really bad mood the whole day making this because everything was going wrong and wronger, but suddenly I fell in love with the stone after I'd sanded it. OTL Matte/rough stones have a totally different look from polished ones, they seem like they're glowing and look so touchable okay I admit I spent way longer holding the stone than was necessary - it's an unhealthy obsession. And I feel so bad for thinking such things, but I want more roughed up stones like this so some of the nice ones shall be sacrificed soon...

Whew~ Okay that's  all the new stuff for now, but here are some last shots of things - sketches of new designs (I want to make medallions, been thinking and thinking of how - because I'm utterly terrible at symmetry, I think having to make 4-6 identical little things is absolute torture.) And also, some pretty packaging for stuff I'm sending out tomorrow. I'm still in love with paper doilies + chiffon ribbon ♥

Til next time! :)

♥Jasmyn

Labels: handmade, labradorite, making of, packaging, pendant, sodacrush, wire wrapped

10:34 AM