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Well, sadly I am very behind in posting lots of things... but for right now it is just my ring for the day which was also the etsymetal project runway "heart" challenge for this week. I really didn't want to do a heart anything, but I decided to suck it up and just do something quickly that I would wear and quit whining about it! So here it is! A little organic vine heart ring w/ patina that fits me. The heart is very subtle - camouflaged in the vines you might say! ha ha!
I was too busy last week to get anything together, though I hope to go back and make it up.
I was quite happy with how this week's turned out. It was kind of weird, I had an idea and it worked out almost just like I had imagined. That doesn't happen too often with me! I made two layers of organic vine "sheet" and sandwiched a piece of burlap in between and then stitched it all together with green thread. It was fun to actually work with a needle and thread for a project runway challenge, as much as my usual torch and hammer!
Next week's details haven't been finalized yet, so stay tuned!
Last week's challenge was adapted to incorporate "5" - which I have some ideas about.... we'll see if I can do it this coming week in addition to the new one!
Running just a little behind... again! And I kind of feel like I cheated this week... just kind of. These were a custom order for a friend that I've been needing to make for a long time. And I finally made them this week. But I felt that everything about the challenge fit w/ these earrings. They pushed me very much outside of my comfort zone. Though to glance at them you might not think so. They are made from fused 14k palladium white gold. With the cost of gold the way it is, risking on fusing these little puppies was quite stressful. In fact, the first pair I made didn't turn out, so I made them in to a different pair of earrings. In addition - these were her diamonds, and the largest diamonds I've set to date. So yeah, overall, a scary pair of earrings to make, scarier than if I had just made them for fun! So all of that put together makes me think they are A. definitely bling, and B. something out of my comfort zone, annnd C. they fit in w/ the theme of all my other project runway pieces!! Oh and these are the earrings I made from the pair that didn't turn out. They are 14k palladium white gold and 22k yellow gold, all fused.
This week's challenge was a fun one and something that is closely related to ideas of what I've been wanting to do for awhile now. Create a story that includes special jewelry pieces and then create the pieces to go with the story. I wanted to do something a little over the top this week and I think I might have succeeded. Enjoy!
The Story:
Ara spread out her hands, stretching and contracting them. She’d been sitting at her computer too long and her hands were going numb. Out of the corner of her eye she saw it again, the web, but knew if she tried to look at it, it would be gone again. So instead she just looked past the screen out the window at the city lights. How something could be so dark and lit up at the same time she would never understand and didn’t want to. New York City. It was not her city and it never would be. She’d been here a year, living in the cubicle called an apartment (which thankfully had a nice view) and she still didn’t know her way around. She doubted she ever would.
The buildings made her sense of direction completely off, cut off more like it. Cut off from nature, the trees, the sky, the sun even.
But being in The City, that was the dream wasn’t it? Every 20-something wanting to make it big. She’d been writing free-lance for the past 6 months and as glamorous as she liked to make it sound, the $400 a month it earned her was barely a drop in the bucket.
This latest article was for the blog World Wide Weavers - Spiders of the Interwebs. Lynyphiidae - Sheetweb Weaver Spiders brought in a whopping $50. The sad thing was that she had spent the last 3 hours staring at the computer screen or out the window and hadn’t written more than four words. At this rate she calculated, she would probably be earning less than minimum wage by the time she finished it. She sat staring out the window so long that the screen went its hibernation blackness, maybe it was time for her to go to sleep as well. It was 2:00 am after all and she had to be up in three hours for her morning barista shift.
The wonderful comfy rolling chair made it easy to glide over to bed, fall sideways, and just ease right in to sleep, she was practically there anyway.
Almost as soon as her eyes closed they opened again. Staring up at the ceiling as the Spider twirled down from its web towards her face. She’d named it Charlotte for fun, it seemed more magical and less frightening, except there was no talking pig here.
Ara kept her eyes opened and watched as Charlotte climbed back up the thread and continued her construction. Or destruction as Ara knew it to be. Spiders were the first defenders of nature. A corner sat untouched for too long quickly becomes inhabited by a spider, especially a corner in her home. She tried vacuuming a couple times a week and it didn’t seem to do any good. The fact that she wasn’t sure which ones were ‘real’ and which ones ‘imaginary’ didn’t help matters either. They were simply drawn to her. She was their queen.
The sound of her alarm soothed her awake, it was ‘jungle noises’ this morning. A harsh contrast from the city noises. Even the early morning city noises of the “concrete jungle” were a far cry from soothing.
A quick shower and light make-up was all she needed. She left her clothes at work, Ara couldn’t stand the smell of coffee permeating her home as well. Her rumpled clothes she fell asleep in would do just fine for the quick subway ride to work. She figured she looked better than the average homeless person, so that was probably good enough. No need to look in the mirror. What she saw wasn’t what the rest of the world saw, so it seemed kind of pointless. Every once in awhile she still caught a glimpse. Her friends had thought it strange to not have a mirror in a bathroom, so she put up a small one. The hardened web that formed the crown on her head was the most striking and borderline silly aspect of her ‘otherness’. She was glad no one could see it. Finding a job was hard enough and she doubted it would earn any extra tips from the groggy caffeine deprived patrons.
And also glad that she couldn’t actually feel it. The last time she had was about 30 seconds after she had stepped through the Door. So much felt like a distant memory or a hallucination. She knew it was safer to just stay on this side.
I'm pretty happy with this week, although, I kind of wish I'd started on it earlier. This was my original idea and I kept procrastinating as I didn't feel it was very creative. I played around w/ some other things trying to get a different idea and when at the last minute, nothing - I went back to this one! My favorite part about it is the view from the back - how you can see the silhouetted tendrils through the paper. 
From Vic on the Etsymetal blog: "OK designers! WOW, this weeks challenge is the most straight forward one yet! I am adding one element to this one, pre-printed book pages can be used as well for this one. So all we need to do is incorporate some newspaper in a piece of jewelry and voila! Can't wait to see all your crazy creative creations! Now, "Carry On!"
I'm actually way more excited about this one than I was last week. I don't really have any particular ideas yet, but its something I haven't done before, incorporate newspaper in to jewelry. Since we don't have to use ONLY newspaper for our challenge, I don't think it will be too difficult at all! We'll see though...
wait didn't i just have this title last week?
yet again though - this week is a tough one for me.
you can read about the challenge on the etsymetal blog - but my 3 parameters are RING, ALUMINUM, VICTORIAN/BYZANTINE. I have an idea that is brewing though and I think it will be okay. hopefully it will be fabulous!
we were able to have a 'redraw' of one of the elements. at first i though, no.... I'll just stick w/ it and figure something out. and then I decided, why not try for something else. I couldn't decide whether to redraw on material or 'era/style' and went w/ material. and got leather/faux fur. which to me, doing a victorian ring w/ faux fur or leather was even more of a disaster, so I went back to my original aluminum idea. I'm going to work on it today so look for the finished project tomorrow when you will either say "what was she thinking" or "wow, great job" isn't that usually how it is?
and again - feel free to play along too!
This piece was so fun to make. Again, I had a general idea but wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do. I really love big fan coral - they are like the trees of the sea! I also had kelp in mind. I was making earrings at first and then realized it needed to be a little bigger and as a necklace. The coral bits can be taken off as well if you prefer just the metal look. I put a light liver of sulfur patina in yellow and orange hues, w/ some deeper colors towards the bottom. I didn't want the straight up black, but it also wasn't quite right without the patina. 
The chain is segments of fused argentium sterling as well that look like little sticks of coral, (or just sticks!). Minus the coral and it looks rather like branches! Make sure to check later today for the entry on the EtsyMetal blog - our members have been really inspired and created some amazing pieces!
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