Friday, May 2, 2008

Work in Progress



Here's a sneak peak at what I'm working on right now. I have to admit, I'm very excited by this project. I have a small stash of ceramic cabs and a small stash of ceramic buttons from Earthenwood Studio (the latter is for my knitting). I've been waiting for inspiration to strike with the cabs - I wanted to do something different with them, but I wasn't sure what or how. When I was fiddling with a different project a couple months ago, I piled all of the buttons and cabs together and started playing around with them. Melanie Lukacs, the artist who made all of them, has created some really beautiful designs for her beads and cabs. I discovered that by stacking different patterns and sizes of buttons and cabs together, I could create a design with considerable depth in a single piece.

For this pendant, I already owned both the lovely black and white moon cab and the square checkered button and simply ended up placing a special order for the base cab in a coordinating color (I own a large button of the same design, but it's the wrong color for this project). I set the cabs in PMC with a simple hand pressed design around the rim. I really love the way this looks. Also, as you can see, this is a pendant, but I think it would look stunning as a brooch, as well. (Sharp eyes will notice that I have another moon cab in the banner of my blog - thanks, Melanie!)

Well, I ended up finishing five pieces last night. This is probably a record for me, although, in all fairness, I've had most of the designs floating around in my project book for a while now. After photographing them and writing the blurbs for each piece, I stumbled up to bed - at which point the Short One promptly woke up and stayed up for more or less the remainder of the night. Sigh. Our timing could definitely have been better. I managed to nap with him today, but I woke up feeling achy and unwell. I'm hoping a good night's sleep will fix this, though.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. See you on Monday.

2 comments:

Katie Hacker said...

I forgot a deadline this week, too. When I told a friend about my bad memory since my daughter was born, he said "at least it was for a noble cause." I laughed, but it did make me feel better.

P.S. The reason I started making jewelry in the first place was because I couldn't find any cool clip earrings. I've since gone to the pierced side, but I can still remember exactly what it feels like to have a clip-on pressed between your ear and the telephone!

Melissa J. Lee said...

Hi, Katie! - I love the idea of the sacrifice of a Mommy's memory being for a "noble cause"! That's a great reason to start making jewelry. I wish I'd been as clever, but I just never seem to think about making earrings. Maybe I should get my ears pierced... I always think about it and then never follow through...