Thursday, July 3, 2014

June AJE Component of the Month

This month our component comes from our team member,  Linda Landig.  We are so proud of Linda over at AJE...she has just started playing with clay and look at all the gorgeous pieces she is cranking out!  She is a natural!



I had a hard time choosing one, so I asked her to surprise me.  I received one of the little pink squares with a blue flower.  It yelled "Summer!!!!" to me loudly as I unwrapped it, so I set out to create this summer of love, peace and flowers, leather and ceramic, hippie necklace!


I really wanted to keep this piece as simple as possible, so I started by looking through my leather stash and found this length of natural, tan leather that I thought would be perfect.  For accent beads, I decided to torch-fire some bisque beads I had in stock...not only did I have the perfect shades of transparent enamel to match the pendant, the beads have really big holes and worked perfectly with the leather!  It took me several attempts to get the necklace the way I wanted it...I really didn't want a whole necklace of beads, and I knew I didn't want to include any metal components, so I incorporated adjustable, sliding knots to finish it.



Originally, the pendant was tied on to the leather with the beads knotted up the length  a little more sporadically, but to me, even though I didn't want to add any other components, I felt it needed a bit more oomph.

After searching on Pinterest for designs with leather cording, I found some plain cord necklaces that incorporated knots...one in particular caught my eye.  A Celtic heart knot.  There are several tutorials out there, but I found the easiest one on You Tube.


After  playing with it, I realized my leather cord wasn't thick enough to make it look like this and it was sort of unstable...every time I knotted a bead on, or messed with it, the shape went wonky!  I also realized that even though I like the idea of a knot, I didn't want it to be really heart shaped.  I played with it and reshaped it into more of a triangle, exaggerating the bottom point more so that I could use a jump ring to hand the pendant.

I think it works!


There you have it!  Last night as I was finishing it up (for about the 3rd time), my hubs was watching a documentary on Jimi Hendrix, and I thought, "yes...this hippie necklace was meant to be!"

Thanks Linda, for the wonderful pieces.  Make more!  Now off to see what our design team and guests came up with...you know they rocked!



AJE Members

12 comments:

  1. Beautiful! Love your choice of leather and accent beads. the decorative knot is a great touch and I love how you adapted it to perfectly suit your design.

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  2. That knot is SO cool! Perfect pairing with the earthy stoneware. Thanks for the tutorial links, I am intrigued!

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  3. I love the design especially the knot. The beads and colors are perfect too.

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  4. You've got everything I love in one design, knotted leather, Celtic knots and ceramics! It's perfect!

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  5. Hi Melissa,
    You and I got similar pendants, but our designs are so different. I love the simplicity of your necklace and letting the beauty of the pendant stand on it's own. I also love the knot and you are right it just gives the necklaces a little extra something.
    Therese

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  6. Hi Melissa,
    When you said the component yelled Summer, I had envisioned the Kool-Aid guy saying "Hey Summer" lol but you are soo right, it is very summery and I love the necklace you made. The colors are just perfect. Have a great weekend.

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  7. I love your hippie necklace! That knotting technique looks fantastic and is the perfect thing to set off the pendant.

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  8. Anonymous7:24 PM

    Thank you for sharing your process and your experiments with us! I love how it turned out. Now I want to try a celtic knot too. Thanks for the YouTube link. I love how you modified it to make it fit your vision. And your enameled beads - Perfect! You've done my little clay piece proud. Thank you!

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  9. What a unique design! The leather knot is a great feature--kind of a second focal, yet it doesn't take away from Linda's pendant. Your round ceramic beads are PERFECT with it. I can just see a tanned hippie girl in her batik maxi dress sporting your sweet necklace!

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  10. Love this Melissa - it's the sort of necklace I put on when summer starts and keep going back to until it ends.

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  11. I just love this necklace. It is so perfect for the summer.

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  12. Hi! i'm Anna, from Italy. I'd like your bijoux:-)
    If you can , come ti visit may blog
    Have a good week end!

    http://bijouxgioieearte.blogspot.it/

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I love reading your comments!!!

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