Sunday, May 31, 2009

Fishing tackle earrings...

Hi All,

I really enjoyed the April 2009 version of Polymer Cafe. You saw my attempt at the diagonal skinner blend flowers here, which was one of the articles.

One of the other things I wanted to try was using the blank spinner blades for jewelrey which was a technique for a necklace shown by Lee Ann Armstrong in the same issue, whose work you can see here.

While Lee Ann has been showing necklaces, for me it's all about earrings. So I was pleasantly pleased when I was at our Dollarama and they had packages of the spinner blades, three pairs for a dollar, in a perfect teardrop shape. At our store they come in silver and gold.


One other thing that I recently purchased was a slab of Dichro Slide transfer paper in the blue/gold shifts to green. I've had to cut it into small pieces since a bunch of us got together at Morrisburg and have ordered the whole set of colours (which should be in very shortly) so I don't have a lot to play with.

This is one of my attempts at a pair of earrings. They looked really nice until I decided to go fancy. I used a regular hole punch to cut out the dichro slide paper. I had discovered at Morrisburg that the dichro slide paper when placed on clay and stamped will take the stamp and keep the shape. I do have another piece to show of that later.

However, the shape (in this case a nice bit of flower) doesn't keep when you place it on a bed of uncured liquid clay. So all I got was a bit of rippleyness that would have been better if I had left it flat. But if you didn't know you might think that it's supposed to be that way. So these are almost good.

I'll wear them.

I took two different angle shots so you can see the dichro effect.

And once the other sheets come in I'm sure there are a lot of opportunities.

I'll post more as I experiment.

That's it for today.

Thanks so much Lee Ann for giving me an idea I never would have thought of without you!

Cheers,

Sandy

3 comments:

Beadcomber said...

Very cool earrings Sandy! Really like the dichro effect.
I still have a whole bunch of 'French spoons' (that's what my sport fisherman hubby calls them). I used them about 18 years ago for claying, so its nice to see a resurgence of their use in jewelry. Maybe I should put some up on etsy, lol. I have some oblongs in gold and spoon shape in nickel. If you check the sportfishing section at Walmart etc...you should be able to buy them without the wire bit too.

Lee Ann Armstrong said...

Sandy, I'm glad you enjoyed the article and gave it a try. Love the ear rings. Easy, eh? btw, those spinners come in so many sizes that you can even make large pendants too.

Cindy Lietz, Polymer Clay Tutor said...

Yeah I think your earrings look very cool too Sandy! Lee Ann was clever in figuring those out. It's a fantastic idea!