I took this class at Workshop in Redfern - a large workshop space (as the name suggests) that offers a variety of different workshops - crafty and otherwise. I wear a necklace every day so love the idea of being able to make my own, in colours that match items in my wardrobe.
The class was really fun, and ran over three hours which is just long enough to get the basics covered. The class taught by Therese Lyons who runs Ena + Albert, an online treasure trove of all things polymer. Therese was a very lovely, patient teacher and seem genuinely impressed by some of the stuff we were turning out.
sample beads + finished necklaces by our teacher |
the tray of baked beads from my table - so pretty! |
When I got home I decided that my necklace didn't look quite right, so I removed the big chunky bead from the middle and the two oblong beads towards the top...and now I LOVE it! I've worn it three times already, and in fact I'm wearing it at work today.
I've made one attempt since the class at making my own beads at home and I have to say I found it really hard to narrow down an idea of what to make as the possibilities are literally endless!
In the end I decided to "borrow" an idea from our teacher -- natural colours mixed with a translucent clay and microbeads. So...this is where years of practice obviously come in handy...a few of my beads cracked (I didn't let them cool before playing around with them), my microbeads all fell off and every bead is a different shape even when I intended quite a few to be the same. All that aside, it still looks quite good but it's a bit heavy for me (Iris Apfel I am not) so it's been gifted to a colleague who seems happy with it.
I love the idea of being able to make beads to match things I am sewing. I have a black and white dress in the pipelines so I'm also thinking of jewellery ideas to go with it...something with red maybe?
No comments:
Post a Comment