Clay Jewellery

When my sister visited us last year, she gave me a terracotta chain and as usual I've locked it inside and never bothered to wear it. During my recent trip to my hometown for Diwali, I wore this and everyone (including myself) liked it very much. Aah..such a piece of beauty made from clay. On the way back from home, I've spend the 5 hour drive doing some R&D on clay jewellery making. The journey felt like a very short one this time, other wise I used to feel the journey was very tiresome and long :) Even kids supported me and they had a good nap..Like Pualo Coelho says - "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it". The most important piece seems to be the baking phase for which I don't have a kiln or a conventional over. Never mind..I wanted to give a try with no-bake-air-dry clay.

                              On Friday, after coming back from work, gone to a nearby bookshop for the materials. There is just variety of air dry clay..so, job made easier..no need to study all available varieties to find the one that best suits me..And picked some acrylic colors (keeping in mind the recent saris that were added to my ward robe). Started my work at 10:00 pm and have drawn some patterns in a book, borrowed my kids coloring kit and painted these patterns. You can see the mess here :-

                                 

Then, prepared two pendants and handful of beads. It took almost 30 minutes for them to get dried, after which I started painting the pendants. I could have waited for one color to dry completely, but in a hurry to finish the project, I've painted the pendants in various colors and clicked pic and send across to my sis for feedback and then off to bed.

It was a peaceful Saturday. Of-course lot of other stuff to do. But, can't wait to finish off my first clay chain, painted the beads in three colors and let them dry for an hour, after which I started assembling the piece and realized that these beads were sufficient only for one chain. Anyways, finished it and showed it off my first critic - my m-i-l and she liked it and then clicked pics and send them across. Can't wait till Monday to show them off to my friends :)

Spend rest of the day in preparing beads for two more chains and another pendant, sufficient enough for the 3  new saris :)

     

Same piece with a different pattern at the back of the pendant..

Pretty pink flowers against a bright moon sky

I had this project in mind since one year..It was the sight of the bright November Moon amidst the coconut leaves that triggered this idea. It is my favorite month of the year coz I had my birthday and wedding anniversary in this month. Not just me, many of my family members and my dear friends were born in November and I had some sweet childhood memories of this month. Me and my sister along with my Mother and grand mother used to go to temple on auspicious karthika pournami (full moon day in November).

Back to business, last November I wanted to make them for our anniversary. But the flowers I quilled for this project were used for something else and it was down in the queue. It's  November again and yeah..this time it is our 10th wedding anniversary and I gotta do this at any cost.

                Quilling elongated petals was always a puzzle to me..Tight coils would give round and at most oval petals. One fine night, I had made few attempts and after I could understand the technique behind this, I was overwhelmed with joy and decided to use these flowers for my moon project.

And for the first time, I'm using a proper crepe paper for leaves and am glad that this was much better than any leaves that I've made so far. 

A closer shot of my paper mate..

The background was hand painted by me. It was a weekend effort and my son too made his hands dirty with water colors to paint some bright and night skies. It was a very good weekend..Me and both my kids were sitting in our guest bed room painting , painting and nothing else.

 And this is my messy room :)

Couple of other back grounds that I've tried for this project..

Cherry Blossom branch against bright blue sky

Here is another attempt to do a cherry blossom branch, but it's all quilling this time. Even the branches are coiled strips..Flowers are made from 1.5 mm hand cut strips. Just for variation, I selected two shades.one in red and other in orange..Flowers are made in two sizes and the stamen is a simple white bead..The back ground is something which took considerable amount of time..I'm pretty poor when it comes to the matter of colouring..I had done couple of attempts and this is the final out come..blue sky + green landscape + few clouds...As usual, to bring in some life, I've put one quilled butterfly...

 

A closer look at my paper buddy...

A closer look at the tiny flowers :)

Hand painted background...

Gerberas in a frame

It’s all Gerberas around and I must share the pic from shutterstock that inspired me to do this project. 

Flowers in pretty colors against a black background..I simply loved it when I came across it and have been trying to find some time to create a quilling project with this theme. Finally, I could achieve this now.

I’ve added some butterflies to my project, otherwise I get some static feeling and project seem to be missing life

This is now ready to go beyond the glass and I’ll share pics once the final frame is ready..

And both of them in same pic...

 

Couple of other arrangements that I've tried before arriving at final one..

Blue butterfly

It’s been really really long since I quilled a butterfly. This is to complete one of my previous frames which has got light blue flowers on a white back ground. I was lazy to quill the black strip around the butter fly eyes and later used a black marker.. Laziness is clearly seen in the outcome. If I compare this with my earlier butter fly, I didn’t quite like it. Anyways, I’m going to use it on the frame…