#2015 PCChallenge - Week 24

Hello Everyone.

In continuation to my experiments with mirrors on polymer clay jewelry, this time I planned to make few Indian style earrings with mirrors embedded.

These are called as Jhumkas which are dome shaped. Usually, its very difficult to make these dome shapes perfect especially when you have to add textures / other effects as well.

Anyway, I used my own molds to make the jhumka's as I needed a solid support below the clay dome in order to work on the raw clay - sticking mirrors and then, making the additional designs over it.

I wanted to do some twist in the traditional Jhumka's so I decided to make them rustic and rough instead of very smooth look. Also, I wanted to make a very heavy pair in look.

I chose green and blue color as base while putting acrylic colors to give the rustic look.

Here is the first look: You can't see the mirrors very clearly in this pic as I took the pics in shade to avoid the reflection. There are 4 mirrors per Jhumka and covered with designed petals from each side.

The only difficulty I faced was while putting the small beads / balls below the base. I first tried the glue however, was disappointed because they were coming out even with small pressure.

With frustration, I chopped each from the base. Took breath again and put them with liquid clay. That was a task - atleast for me because firstly, I am making Jhumkas first time so everything was trial and second, the small round beads just didn't stop from slipping the base over the liquid clay. It was so fun putting them in slow motion within the oven :).

Well, here is the final outputs where my colleague is wearing them. In the pics you can see the mirror reflection clearly.

I think, this week as well I am going to try the mirror work - Jhumka's OR bangle.

Hope to see good results in them as well!

Till then, Happy Claying.

Regards,
Rashi
19th June 2015

#2015PCChallenge - Week 23

Hi All,

This time, I decided to try at least one of the idea / technique that I have been thinking for long. Trust me I want to try all but had time challenges. But soon I will have lots and lots of time - decided to take break from job and have some healthy breathe :).

Coming back to the challenge, Couple of months back I visited a very famous store for crafts in my area (Itsy Bitsy) and saw very cute small round glass beads / mirrors. I was not sure but an idea came to try them on clay - without even knowing if it can work! And they have been lying in my crafts box since then until 2 days back I decided to do something with them.

I was not sure if mirror will work on polymer jewelry - first, whether it will look good (but somehow had a positive feel about it), was not sure about the challenges during the process - embedding them in clay / baking / shaping the whole piece, how many mirrors will look good etc. etc.

So far, I had seen people using clay as frame for big / hand mirrors but not in jewelry so to be precautionary, I tried googling for jewelry and couldn't find any 'relevant' article. So decided to experiment all myself :)... I am happy I did that (you will see why I am saying that).

Well, I started with a crackled sheet of polymer I made couple of weeks back, few mirrors (small circles, may be 1 cm wide), black clay, acrylics and few selected gilders pastes. I planned to try with a very basic square flat pendant instead of choosing something complicated initially.

Few Challenges I faced:

• Mirrors are 1 cm in diameter so putting more than 3-4 mirrors increase the overall size of pendant. So, if you really want to use lots of mirrors in one piece, get ready for a huge jewel piece :). I am really not sure if smaller pieces are available because that's the standard I saw in majority of places (& cloths). 
• Deciding on the visibility level of mirrors in the jewel... Too much visibility makes the jewelry excessive reflective - Not good if its exactly placed over your neck - think of the situation where people can't even look at you. So, how much surface of mirrors should the clay be covering was a challenge. In this case, I went for broader visibility as the pendant was planned to fall slightly below the chest hence, reflection not major challenge. 
• Placing the mirrors at equal level of clay - that means putting a lower layer bringing the mirror and clay surface smooth and then covering with another layer - trust me it was a task in itself. But managed it somehow. 
• Scared - what if mirror / glass breaks in the oven during baking. But to my luck - nothing happened. So, its very much safe to do all glass/mirror activities before baking and put in oven for recommended time of clay. 

So here is the few pics of the final piece. I will call it 'Following Mirage in Drought'. 

Did I hear why this name? Oh, don't miss the bird on locket over the crackled area flying towards the mirrors / glass (mirage effect). I know, I know what you are thinking but i liked the whole idea of pendant and will stick to the name. 

Very happy to be among the first ones to try this out (I guess so). I am working on few earrings and bracelets on the same concept - will share the pics soon. 

In the meantime, Happy Claying!

Regards,

Rashi
9th June 2015

Little Flaunting of 'Myself' :)

Oh yeah, you must be thinking whats this all about!

I am happy, on clouds, can't explain the blood rush and thoughts running through my brain - all due to my first necklace being posted in a famous blog spot ' Polymer clay planet'.

Well, it brings all goosebumps when you see your necklace published however, it becomes multiple fold when its the one which you made with all your heart & soul.

Anyway, here is the screenshot of the publishing. You can find it on Facebook, Pinterest, twitter and their blogspot, all links below:)

http://polymerclayplanet.blogspot.in/2015/05/patterned-necklace-by-rashi-verma-reddy.html

https://www.facebook.com/PolymerClayPlanet?ref=br_rs

https://twitter.com/PolyClayPlanet



Enjoy the read and Happy claying!

Rashi