Work In Progress

Butterfly Necklace

My butterfly necklace is starting to take shape. 

See the sketch for this necklace in one of my older posts.

I decided to make this focal piece two-sided, which quite a challenge, I have to admit. 

The picture above shows the faux cloisonne black side of the butterfly, and there will be a red and orange side created with foil and inks like in these pendants.

I still need to shape all the connections and put the wings and the body of the butterfly together.  It all looks good so far, but there are too many points at which things can go wrong.  I think, this is the most challenging piece I ever made. 

Work in Progress

Butterfly Necklace

Here is the sketch for the necklace I am working on right now. 

This is the focal part.  It will be 5.5" at the widest point, made of polymer clay and resin.  There will be lots of wire details, both on the surface and outside of the wings.  I have not decided about the rest of the necklace yet.  It has to be bold to match the size of the focal part, yet kind of discrete, because the butterfly has to be the center of attention.  I think, I will have to make the butterfly first, and then figure out about the rest of the necklace.

New Steampunk Butterflies:

Lilac

I just finished two new butterflies. Both are in purple and lilac colors. In fact, I used the same cane for the “mechanic” wings on both of them.

Their design is very similar to the one described in my Steampunk Butterfly Tutorial, except this time I used a stamp made out of filigree parts I used earlier.

Featured at Artbeads.com!

My Steampunk butterfly necklace was featured in the Customer Gallery of Designs at Artbeads.com:

http://blog.artbeads.com/2010/01/elegant-steampunk-necklace

I buy a lot of supplies from this company.  They have reasonable prices and offer free shipping within US.  I like that!

Unbelievable Story

or How the Inspiration Works

A while ago I've got this picture through Etsy conversations.

This is a picture of a cake from somebody's blog, which was inspired (get this!) by my steampunk butterflies!

Too bad I do not have the link to the blog itself. If anybody knows where this picture came from, please let me know, OK?

...And More Student Work!

I've got another picture from Donna (I wrote about her work earlier this month).

This time, Donna followed my Steampunk Butterfly Tutorial, and this is the pendant she made. She says, the she showed this pendant on her www.mosaicandstainedglass.org mosaic site, facebook, and flickr, and was very pleasantly surprised by the amount of comments that she received. Donna was kind enough to provide a link to my tutorial, and I really appreciate it.

On a side note: my kids are back after spending two months with their grandparents, and while I missed them a lot, I have to admit that now the amount of my free time dropped down catastrophically...

Treasury 05-20-09

My red steampunk butterfly necklace is in the treasury that Linda Riopel from NKDesigns.etsy.com put together. Cool name and cool company. Thank you, Linda!

Etsy Treasury

My polymer clay Steampunk butterfly necklace, "Dwellers of the Mechanical Garden, Red"was featured in a treasury!

Thank you, amandamonkey!

New Steampunk

Butterfly Necklace

Here is my new steampunk butterfly necklace in Dwellers of a Mechanical Garden series. Very appropriately for upcoming Valentine's Day, it is made in red and burgundy colors.


The necklace is listed in my Etsy shop.

Steampunk Twist

I am having so much fun playing with the old watches! It 's like a treasure hunt – all these little parts somehow have been put together in some complicated and beautiful pattern, and discovering them is amazingly exciting. I re-arrange them to make pendants like the one pictured here. I've seen quite a few necklaces, earrings, and rings with the whole watch movements. My pendants are different, because they show off separate parts and those parts are covered with multiple layers of resin to make the whole pendant smooth like glass.

I have a couple more pendants in my Etsy shop, and I am working on a tutorial, which I am hoping to finish within a week or two.