Happy New Year!!

Hi all! Wish you  a Very Happy New Year!! 

I had made this necklace for my previous post at BeadsnFashion.. It was about the variety of jewellery making kits that are on offer on their website.. Pls do check them out here in case you are interested..

Here are other beautiful sets from the same post:

Drooling over them, right? Me too ;-)

Wire wrapped Kolam Jewellery

Hi all!! Hope you had a great Diwali! I made these wire wrapped ornaments for my next post at BeadsnFashion. Head over to http://blog.beadsnfashion.com/2015/11/15/wire-wrapped-handmade-jewellery/ to learn about the technique and tips to make your own jewellery findings.

Here are more pieces that I made:

Do you like them?

An announcement :-)

Hi all! It has become my habit to disappear completely for a long time and then to flood you with posts suddenly.. :-) Am unashamedly doing that again now.. There have been major changes going on  particularly on my professional front and it is taking time for me to cope with everything.. but life is much more beautiful with these changes now.. will keep you posted when the right time arrives.. Until then, I want to share a happy update.. I have been selected to be the first design team member of BeadsnFashion, a one-stop destination for all things related to jewellery making!!!

Here is the link to my first post with them. You MUST visit it, especially if you like making jewellery and are very creative about it. Bcoz there is a contest that you can participate in and win exciting prizes!

And be prepared to receive a deluge of new posts from my feed now :-)

Wire-form earrings

Hi all.. I made these wire-formed earrings for my sister. This is the first proper wire-forming that I have ever done. I have tried coarse wire-wrapping earlier though. You might have seen my wire-wrapped faux-jade necklace.. Am yet to make the bracelet I had told then... Lazy me :-)

The main challenge in making these earrings was in replicating the shape.. You might notice that they are not exactly similar. And there are tool marks on the second one too.. Hmmm.. I need more practice! And next time I think I should use a light hammer to flatten out the shape properly.. Here I had used just the handle of my pliers to flatten :-)

 But I like the way they've turned out.. Much better than what I expected. The design is like the traditional kolam/rangoli we draw at home, right? Do you like them?

Fibre-tissue paper earrings

Remember my rice paper earrings? This one was made the same way... From a piece of a new kind of violet-colored paper I found in a bouquet wrapper... It looks like tissue paper but is more fibrous and difficult to tear. Do you happen to know what it is called?

I have used a handmade wire loop of 22 gauge wire, pearl metallic acrylic colors and kundan stones. I have tried to give a rustic look by dabbing the paint rather than applying it smoothly. Have not sealed it yet but hope to do it tomorrow night (read as after my son sleeps.. :))

How is it?

Kraft Korner - Return Gifts for Valaikaappu :)

Hi All! In case you were wondering if I have really gone into hibernation, here I am :-) I've just migrated to warmer climes (read parents' house :)) on maternity leave... Winding up work, preparing the house for my long absence, last minute check-ups and packing had taken a lot of time and energy but this entire phase is just so beautiful and I'm enjoying every moment of it.

Kraft Korner - Faux Jade Necklace

Hey all! Winter is around the corner.. days are bound to get a bit sluggish (yeah, I like to just keep hibernating inside my rajaai :)) So I want to make the best use of the few days left before the cold overtakes my energy!

 It has been a while since I made jewellery.. I have been wanting to try out wire-wrapping for quite some time now. I did try out a couple of wire-wrapped earrings but they were quickly made and swiftly gifted away to dear friends before I had the patience to click them for memory's sake...

Kraft Korner - Polymer Clay Jewellery Tutorial

 

Polymer clay is a (group of) modelling compounds based on PolyVinyl Chloride...Chemistry apart, the fun and understandable part of this material is it is easy to shape, retains the shape and colour after baking, the colours are easily 'mix'able i. e. they can be blended to form new colours just like you do with your paints... What more, it can be painted upon, engraved, embossed, clay-modelled, punched, moulded into just anything that your imagination makes it out to be! I was super-excited when I came across this material and have been playing around with it for a while now.. So, when Itsy Bitsy (craft supplies store) announced their SizzixTutorial Challenge this month, I thought what better than to add a Polymer Clay Jewellery Tutorial?

Kraft Korner - Earrings for my cousins

Childhood holds special memories for each of us.. And I can say that a mix of the words- cousins, summer holidays and grandparents' home- would bring a rush of nostalgia to most of us. Ah, the simple games, the mingling with the village kids, farm-work gazing, bountiful supply of desi mangoes, playing on mounds of unhusked grain, the story sessions at the regular power-out hours, tender-coconut drinking competitions, buying a variety of 10-paise candies with money 'earned' from grandpa, trips to the local water spots, playing with the groundnut- shelling cranker on the terrace, hide and seek in the granary, hmmm... endless list.

Kraft Korner - Pristine Sparkle Earrings 3 - Foam Kundan Earrings

3. Foam - Kundan Earrings

As the name suggests, this is a very simple yet elegant pair made out of foam dots and kundan stones and sealed.

Kraft Korner - Pristine Sparkle Earrings 2 - Quilled Earrings

2. Quilled Earrings

I learnt a few new quilling techniques recently and I thought I'd put them to good use and get practice as well. The top portion is a jhumka made using white 4mm strip, painted in pearl-metallic silver acrylic paint. The middle portion is again a white strip fashioned thus using an old comb, painted similarly. The lowermost portion is white beads, as u can see. The quilled portions have been coated with clear nail polish to give it sturdiness (believe me, the piece becomes very strong after coating.. try it) and to make it water-proof.For those who do not prefer long danglers (like me), i guess just the two quilled parts would make a fabulous piece too.. what say?

Kraft Korner - Pristine Sparkle Earrings 1 - Rice Paper Earrings

White is as complex as simple it seems to be... Both scientifically and artistically too :) It lends itself to any background,it is essential to impart light and effect in paintings, it provides contrast to an otherwise dull work and so on... But a work with only white?  Phew, it is quite challenging!

The challenge this month at Itsy Bitsy dared us to create something using only white(s)... Thankfully, silver can be used too, for bling. Here is the link/inspiration image to the challenge:

Beautiful though the image is, it made me (and i'm sure, other contestents too) rack my brains a bit to come up with something befiiting it.. I love challenges and this one was quite up to its name! I have tried to use different media since I wanted to experiment and learn as much as I could in the process.. And I can vouch that it was unalloyed fun the whole way through :) Well, here are my entries:

Kraft Korner - Baby steps in Beaded Jewellery Making

 

It all started when we happened to visit the Strand Bookstore in New York... While V was busy browsing through the non-fiction, logic, math sections, I was drawn to the cooking and crafting sections as you might have guessed :) There were umpteen number of books that I wanted to take back but there's only so much that one can buy and carry! Three books were on my shortlist and one of them was Carol Grape's "Handmade Jewellery".

Kraft Korner - Quilled Paper Jewellery - Towers of Hanoi

When I began reading and knowing about crafts, I found paper quilling to be very intriguing. How a simple strip of paper is entirely transformed to so many different shapes and patterns! My very mindset about paper started to change.. Though I kept browsing and reading more about quilling, it is only very recently that I mustered courage and got myself my first set of quilling strips and a simple slotted quilling tool. To start with, I just made a simple tight coil out of a sky blue strip and sealed the ends. When I wondered what I could do with it, my recently acquired another interest - jewellery making- inspired me to try out a pair of earrings. I made another blue coil, two pink ones and strung them into this: