Thursday, January 16, 2014

Building the Bangle – Part Two

The last post showed the roughly formed and shaped bangle bracelet blanks using my old worn out scrap clay. After all the sanding and forming, the next step is to design the actual bracelet.

Since you should create your bangle on a form that is smaller than you actually want the finished piece to be, I chose my middle sized form to work with for the final bracelet. I wanted the finished piece to be about the size of my largest bangle, so it made sense to me to work with the middle size. I am looking for chunky and large bracelets, so the larger one will be used for a wild colored finished piece.

This bracelet is not quite complete; it requires an inside finish that I am currently working on adding. I am concerned about the inside piece squeezing the size down smaller than I want for the completed piece, so I am working on really sanding down the center using a very rough grit to chip away at it. I don’t need it now that I have the rest of the bracelet built.

I wanted to work with a faux wood finish for these bracelets, so that is what I created for my veneer. I envisioned a lot of translucent swirls and lines. I think everyone knows that I love to work with ghost effects on my beads. I added three different colors of leaves to the bracelet before adding my latest Indian red flowers with white spots. These little flowers are a bit different than I usually create, which made this bracelet the perfect place to show them off.

I did not think that the finished bracelet needed any other color once I put these little flowers on my veneer.

The bracelet needs more work, but I wanted to share it.

Remember these?

BangleMake4

That one in the center is now this:

Dsc_0029

Dsc_0030 Dsc_0025

Dsc_0026 Dsc_0027 Dsc_0028

As you can see from the photos, the inside is still unfinished.

You can purchase the flower cane here:

My leaf canes are here:

Enjoy!

Julie and Blu