Dia de los Muertos Mixed Media Art Necklace

After finishing my fiber-inspired Boho Tribal Collar Necklace I knew I wanted to try my hand at more thread-wrapped jewelry. I had been mulling over an idea for awhile that paired a wire-wrapped focal element surrounded by some sort of dimensional flowers. So, I decided to try my hand at some thread-and-rope flower components to pair with the wire focal element and go for a bold, artsy, mixed media creation full of big and bright color. And with Dia de los Muertos quickly arriving, I knew just the theme to choose.

I didn't know much about the holiday until I spent three years living in New Mexico, and I can't honestly say I know a lot more now. I am more familiar with the iconography now though and I love the colors and the artistic elements that abound with the holiday, so I used them as my inspiration.

I decided that a "sugar skull" (or calavera) would be my primary focal element, so I created a colorful wire component from a free-form sketch (no wire jig with this piece), then embellished it with some beautiful beads in shades of turquoise, pink, and purple and accented with silver.

The skull features howlite, agate, quartzite, tourmaline, lepidolite, crystal, and silver plated beads and the frame is created from and wrapped with German style copper wire.

Once I had the skull finished I created several fiber flowers using various sizes of cotton and cotton/polyester rope, wire, and brightly colored embroidery floss.

Around the back of the necklace I used a single strand of wire-wrapped faceted glass beads and silver plated beads on either side, and closed the necklace with a handmade wire-wrapped toggle clasp embellished with crystal, nebula glass and silver luster glass beads and created from silver tone German style wire.

  

To add the finishing touch I added some silver luster glass dangles to each flower and to the sugar skull, and then connected all of the elements together into one giant necklace.

I love how colorful and vibrant this necklace is! And these flowers were definitely a work of love, folks. So many layers and pieces and delicate details to each one.

 

 

 And just for scale (this necklace is huge), here's the necklace on:

Yep, it's big. And bold. And bright. And definitely artsy. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it--it's too 'theme'-y to be worn regularly, and I'm not really a Big Artsy Jewelry wearer. But it was a fun experiment and it definitely pushed the boundaries of my creative inventiveness.

Do you wear holiday-themed jewelry? Would you wear something this big and bold? Have you created mixed media and/or fiber jewelry? I'd love to know.

Sarah



Possibly linking up with:

Fabulous Party at Lou Lou Girls
Show and Tell Link Party at Flamingo Toes
Your Whims Wednesday at My Girlish Whims
Link Party Palooza at Tatertots and Jello

Marimekko-Inspired Necklace: July Pretty Palette Challenge

I confess: when I saw the inspiration for Halcraft's July Pretty Palette Challenge, I was a little unsure where to go with it. The inspiration for the challenge was this fabric designed by Marimekko, and the coordinating color palette is shown below.

If you've followed my blog for any length of time then you probably know that I LOVE COLOR. Bold colors do not scare me at all. However, this bold palette was not a group of colors that I would generally gravitate toward, nor think to put together in one one piece (at least not in these particular hues). And to be honest, I'm not a huge Marimekko fan. Don't get me wrong, as a former design student and art historian I can certainly appreciate the hallmarks of the Marimekko design house: bold colors, simple lines, repeating patterns, and two-dimensionality. But when it comes down to it, sometimes I just prefer a little more depth to the design.

That said, I relish assignments like these: to translate a concept or design style into a physical piece of jewelry (blame it on my architecture/art history nerd brain), so I knew I still wanted to give it a shot. And I'm so glad I did! I ended up creating a piece that I never would have dreamed up before, and I really love how it came together.

When the July challenge was posted I had already begun work on another idea, and coincidentally it involved flowers. I had been wanting to create some dimensional flowers as earrings, then decided instead to make a necklace, and already had all of the wires cut to create the flower frames. I hemmed and hawed about how I could rework the design and eventually came up with something that somewhat fit the Marimekko inspiration.

Now I know that these 'flowers', being 3-D and having scroll-y, ornate edges, are pretty much the opposite of what I just listed above as being typical of Marimekko. But hey, I did have the 'bold color scheme' going on. So I figured I would also try to focus on the 'flatness' and 'simplicity of design' qualities instead and refrained from any of my usual ombre or plethora-of-colors within each flower, and the only sparkle in the entire piece is from the crystal beads in the centers of the flowers.

[Note: you can click on the 'Tutorials' tab above for links to how I create my wire frames and embellish them with beads.]

In similar fashion I tried to keep the side connectors and toggle clasp as simple as I could (but you know I couldn't leave them completely devoid of color, so there are some tiny agate and bamboo coral beads). All of the wire focal elements, side connectors, chain, and toggle clasp are completely handmade using German style wire.

The flowers feature aventurine, bamboo coral, quartzite, jade, and crystal beads. The color palette we were given didn't include white, but the original inspiration fabric had sprays of white dotted flowers scattered throughout and I really wanted to include that detail, so I created the fringes made of glass pearls and more quartzite. For the blue of the color palette I used some beautiful (reconstituted) lapis beads around the sides of the necklace. All of the beads except the agate beads on the toggle, the tiny green crystals (around the outer edges of the green flower), and the glass pearls are Halcraft beads from Michaels.

  

This necklace may not embody the whole spirit of Marimekko, but I'd like to think it's a nice tribute to the inspiration fabric if nothing else. I also think it would be really fabulous recreated as a bridal necklace with pearls and fancy crystals (and maybe some pyrite for the slightly edgier bride? Or a few colorful accents in the bride's wedding colors...?). Hmmm, maybe my next project?

What do you like about Marimekko designs? Would you pair these colors all together in one piece of jewelry? Any interest in seeing a bridal version? I'd love to know.



Possibly linking up with:

Fabulous Party at Lou Lou Girls
Show and Tell Link Party at Flamingo Toes
Your Whims Wednesday at My Girlish Whims
Link Party Palooza at Tatertots and Jello

Jean Schlumberger-Inspired Collar Neckace

I am often inspired by photos I come across of classic jewelry, namely ancient styles seen in Roman and Greek pieces. With this piece however, I was inspired by a photo I found (thank you Google) of a beautiful gold floral collar-like necklace by the great french jewelry artist Jean Schlumberger, who was known for his many designs for Tiffany's in the 50's and the following two decades.

Jean Schlumberger's Tulip necklace for Tiffany's. [Image found via Google.]

My necklace is quite obviously nowhere near as glorious as the inspiration necklace, but it was fun taking that inspiration and trying to turn it into something that fit within my design style. I confess: it didn't work. This necklace was a total failure. By that I mean this piece did not turn out anything like my original vision for it and I was really disappointed with the final outcome. That being said, failures are teachers too, and in trying to create this piece I learned things I wouldn't have if I hadn't attempted it. And while I'm happy to have learned a thing or two, this necklace will definitely go into the 'upcycle' pile to be taken apart and remade into something new. But before that happens I figured it was worth sharing here, even if it falls into the 'failure' category.

I began by creating some organic leaf forms out of heavy 16-gauge copper wire. I just used my pliers and fingers for these; no wire jig or pattern.

I then wire wrapped the leaves to a wire choker form, wrapping the entire choker wire for uniformity.

I knew I wanted to add beads to fill in the spaces between the leaves, but hadn't exactly figured out how to link them to the choker in a way in which they'd stay in place rather than sliding around between each leaf. So for the next step, which I didn't photograph as it ended up being a spontaneous solution, was to use jump rings to attach a length of chain all around the underside of the wire choker form from the first leaf to the last. You can see the chain in the photo below.

I had first planned to use only citrine and pyrite beads to keep a golden feel to the necklace, but soon realized I didn't have enough of them to fill in the necklace properly. I found some carnelian and dyed jade beads to the mix to keep a sunrise palette and strung them all onto ball headpins along with gold floral bead caps to give each bead a flowery feel.

I then attached all of the beads to the chain that ran along the underside of the choker, which had the result of the wire leaves laying on top of the beads, rather than the beads being the main focus.

I still wanted a bit more organic movement to imitate the way the inspiration necklace's tulips seems to fall down the collar and almost seem to be moving, so I added short lengths of gold chain along the necklace to hang down among the beads.

All in all I suppose this piece came together (physically) somewhat okay considering that I had little idea how to create what I wanted when I first started. If I attempt to remake this at some point I will invest in more citrine and pyrite beads and keep the color palette strictly golden, rather than reusing the carnelian and dyed jade (red) beads. I will also not use a pre-made wire choker form (I'm generally not a fan of chokers, and I don't like how close this piece sits to the throat), and I'm already exploring a way to make a flexible chain of wire leaves instead. So check back down the road if you're interested in seeing the 2.0 version. In the meantime, here are a few more photos of the 'failed' version:

 

What do you think, yay or nay? How would you make this necklace better/different? I'd love to know.


Possibly linking up with:

Fabulous Party at Lou Lou Girls
Show and Tell Link Party at Flamingo Toes
Your Whims Wednesday at My Girlish Whims
Link Party Palooza at Tatertots and Jello