Anamika

I did not know what to name this piece, thus Anamika which translates to a beautiful dasmel with no name or the ring finger in sanskrit but  I will go with the first meaning.  I think it is beautiful but it is for the beholder to decide.

How was this made:  The coming together of the simple little canes I had prepared for other projects :).  Made coordinating beads for the same and wove them on green cotton thread and attatched to adjustable dory.  the pendant is accentuated with lavender colored glass beads.  I gave it a crude look rather than the neatly cut edges to give it slightly antique look ( I am not sure if I have succeded it that).

The pendant is about 2 inches long and the beads part of it is 7 inches long.  since it is adjustable it can be brought down to any lengths desired.

Little Jumbo

This little jumbo was born on my PC work table :).  For me elephants are a facinating magnificient animals, huge but has a cute kind face.  The little ones are such a delight to watch.  They are so naughty. I took a long time to finish this. I think I started it some 6 months ago, could not think of how to finish it.  I was initally thinking of the water color technique and then I did it with my favorite filigree design.

I always tend to relate elephant to kerala which is my native place and also relate it to manjadikuru(called circassian seeds).  I quite cannot pinpoint why.  May be some story I have read or heard when I was young or may be they both are related to Lord Krishna's temple.  

The pendant and beads are made of polymer clay.  The pendant is about 4 inches long.  The adjustable necklace itself is 16 inches long.  The cluster of 3 beads midway is adjustable.  You can bring it all the way down towards the pendant or anywhere you want to.  It is strung on burgandy colored leather cord.  

The red seeds in the photo are the ones I was talking about - circassian seeds.  

Ceramic-Like

With the Sun Lord playing hide and seek, no he is missing in action.  It has been around 10 days without him.  Missing him :/ it is raining day in and day out.  I cannot do any new photo session of my jewellry.  These are some old photos which I had made long back when I was just new to claying around an year ago.

I tried out some ceramic effect with clay and chalk pastel.  The blue earring in the left bottom end of the collage came out well.   But the red one did not turn out to be as expected and I decided to keep it to myself.  I had not come out with any beads to accompany it and it lay there for a long time waiting.  Now I have strung it to the blue organza and cotton thread to match it up with my indigo dye dress.  It goes very well with it :)

Perfecting Jhumka making

Somehow I find the jhumka making process a bit difficult.  I keep thinking of how to get the piece out of the mould in a perfect cup shape.  ok finally get it out perfect, but how will I make designs on it, there goes the shape when I try to get texture on it.
This is the first ever jhumki I made.

Other pictures of the jhumki of the "peacock inspiration set"

The second one I made was blue one but with a clay which was of not a good quality, I use that for experiment usually.

I did not complete this piece.  It cracked when I tried to take it off the mould. As a mould, I used a glass bead of this size to hold the shape while it baked.  It works well. Remember to put a thin wire through the eye of the bead and lock it before puttin the raw jhumka on it. so when it is baked carefully run the wire around to take it out of the bead.  oh, I did not take the picture of it.

With is unsuccessful jhumki, i tried carving after baking.  It looks good and it is easy to do.  Use any tool which is not too very sharp or too blunt to do this.  I used my pinvise with 0.5 drill pin in it.

The third attempt was with a jhumka with beads around the edges.  Now I was facing a new requirement.  Some kind of gum to stick the beads to the jhuka ends.  All these while I did not use any adhesive to stick PC pieces.  I found "Bake and Bond" from sculpey.  I resist the use of this otherwise.  I use it only when it is needed badly. take a look at the piece

Next one was a made-to-order teeny-weeny jhumka for my niece for her school function.

And I do not see any improvement I have made from the first one.  I think the first one is the best.

The Swan

Ummm, is it goose, whatever.  The idea was originally from my painting “black and white”, it has 2 swans.  I had drawn out 2 swans, and cut out the card. One would be golden and the other black, but 2 of them looked too bulky for a pendent.  Then it was cut short to one.  I wanted the texture to be feathery, and it turned out to be looking embroidered, anyway I like it.

This pendent was sold, I would say, as quickly as it was out of the oven.  My parents were visiting, so I had brought the piece down from my workshop for them to see.  My dad is a good critic.  He loved it.  He told me it looks like a painting, I was elated.  Someone who was visiting happened to see this lying on the table, she instantly loved it.  She picked it up for her daughter as and how it was, just the pendent.  The beads for this are all done but yet to be baked. 

So I put it on to a readymade jewellery cord, finished the piece with some semiprecious gem stones and had to photograph it in a hurry.  Finding a bright sunny spot during the rainy season is a tough job. I have a favourite spot where I can take a snap with bright sunlight, but I should catch him (sun lord) at around 9:00 to 9:30 am.   I like the glitz of the beads when exposed to the sunlight.  But I had to make do with whatever was available today.  Photographed it outside, that is it. 

The pendent is about 3 inches long and wide.  The beads are blue onyx, and magenta red agate bead. Instruction for care:  Please handle her gently, because the designs are from my soul. It will not break otherwise.

No earrings for this set.

Just Antique

This is actually an old piece of pendent which I was toying with wondering how it would turn out to be.  I thought it looked dull and I was not able to come up with the beads to go with it.  Finally, I decided to finish it and i thought I looked like an antique piece of jewellery.  Polymer clay beads are used in this like folded beads and beads made of cane bits.  The necklace is 8 inches long including the pendent which is about 2 inches.  The beads on the pendent and wire wrapped.

Made a pair of jhumkas which i am really not good at.  I am never happy with the jhumka I make. The jhumkas were made with the opposite cane of translucent white and gold and accnetuated with amber beads.

Sunset hue

This pendent was inspired by the colors of sunset.  Nowadays I keep an eye on everything and see if I can convert that to something with my latest craze.  The sunset I am talking about is the one I witnessed while travelling back from Chennai last month (it was my first visit to Chennai). :)  very hot!!

An earring to go with the set.

Leaf and dew drop

A new design inspired by the dew drop on the leaf.  The leaf which inspired me is the colocasia leaf in my backyard. When I say colocasia leaf inspired me with dew drops on it, it is not true.  They do not hold water on the leaf surface. I have always enjoyed the way water doplets roll off their waxy leaves.

The necklace design is just a leaf shape.  I have added beads to represent the dew drops on it.  The other wire wrapped beads represent water droplets.  Here is the necklace.

It has green jaipuri beads and white glass pearl beads added to the look.

Blue Beauty

A simple earring with filigree design and semiprecious beads.  The red one is coral red beads and peridot green semiprecious beads.

Since this is my polymer clay journal, I would like to put all the pictures I have made of the piece I created.  Here are few more pictures of the earring.

Lovely lavender

A lovely color which I liked once I mixed dark purlpe and lots of white.  I had saved the clay to make when an appropriate design came to my imagination.  This is what I made out of it.  I gave embroidary technique to both the beads and added some crystal and Jaipuri beads.

Here is some more pictures of the earring.

Peacock quills

This is a design inspired by peacock feathers. Tried to incorporate the colors of peacock into the beads too.  I think it looks beautiful.

And the earrings to go with the necklace. I wanted to make it more beautiful, i love to add beads and crystals to the earring, but this i made without proper planning.

Mica Shift earring

This is an earring with mica shift effect on a magenta, gold and green Skinner bled technique sheet. accentuated with loreal beads and pearl beads.  There is still room for decoration :).

Leather Effect Pendent

A purple pendent with filigree or embroidery design.  It can be made to be a pendent or an accessory for a handbag.

It looks quite thick but is super lite ( that is polymer clay).

Double stranded necklace

This necklace set is also made-to-order set for my friend.

This is a double stranded necklace made only of polymer clay beads around 19 cm in length.

The earring to go with the necklace. 

Made-to-Order

These are some earrings I made for my dear friend.  I am happy she believed me to give me the freedom of design.  She was also kind enough to say that they were all good:).

This pair is a turquoise blue (actually :)) earring with filigree work on it with crystal beads and polymer clay beads to enhance it.  This is done for a grand kalamkari material of the same color combination.

This is my best one.  I liked it so much.  A gold back ground with brick red tree like design with garnet beads to embellish it.  

This is a lemon yellow small stud with a dangle of semiprecious yellow bead called citrine.  This was made for her dress which is lemon yellow chiffon with self colored chikenkari work on it.

These are a pair of red and black earring with gold frame. this made for a red dress with black embroidery on it.

These are a geometrical tri-colored pair accentuated with lo-real beads and semiprecious aventurine.  The bead looked so dull otherwise, i was hesitant to add it to the piece.  I wrapped the bead with gold plated wire and made a dangle with the lo-real beads and it looked really good. the photo does not do justice though ( 'cause I am the photographer :)).

A pair of earring I tried to replicate a Indian tribal art for a silk dress. the earring is around 4.5 cms long.  the beads are polymer clay and glass.

I have two more orders at hand.  I will update as soon I finish. :)

Fantasy flower

This is a flower I made to make a necklace for my little niece for her Christmas party where she wore a red dress(red and white was the theme).  This looks like poppy flower but not exactly that is why the name fantasy flower.  The white is part of truculent and white clay cane.  Later, I found here a beautiful tutorial by Olga on Youtube.  This version is really beautiful.

A little sunflower stud

A small earring to go with the sunflower necklace.  I forgot to post this earlier.

Sun + Flower = Sunflower

A necklace born out of a sight of sunflower in a vase with a ray of sunlight trickling in through an open window.  Hence sun + flower and sunflower :).  madness....

I like to write the story of every piece I make to add interest.  I myself can read it later and smile.  Smile:)

Making of the lotus pond.

This popped up in my mind when I was thinking of making something totally different than usual.  In fact, I was thinking of sky blue back ground with pink lotus and green leaves(it would have looked all very dramatic :) ). But when I sat down to work on it.  It turned out to be totally different.  But I like the result very much.  This always happens to me when I sit down with clay.  I will have something else in the mind when I start and end up with nothing or something amazing.  I learn new thing about it daily. Life is like that, you learn new things daily.

Once the pendent was ready I had to think of the beads to go with it.  It took some time for me to make the right beads for the pendent.

Those are called bi cone beads.  I found making it manually was much fun than the bead-maker.  Here goes the pictures.

I thought the pendent will not attract attention with these beads, so I had to think of something else to go immediately after the pendent.  I made 2 folded beads with antique gold.  I think they look gorgeous.

The pendent

The finished necklace

The earring

Stripes...

Simple necklace on organza ribbon.

Inspiration - Peacock

Everyone gets inspired by this grand bird - paintings, motifs on saris, jewelry,  and even on aircraft.  This is what I made from the inspiration drawn from the beauty of the peacock.

I have made a cushion cover with silk and  have painted peacock feather motifs on it.  you can check it out here. This piece was sold out even before i took a proper photo of the necklace, i am feeling bad about it.