First attempt at Kumihimo braiding

I received my beginners Kumihimo braiding kit the other day and have created my first braid, in a surprisingly quick amount of time. Once you start braiding it's actually pretty easy and quick to do. It might take a while before I can make pieces like the one in my previous post, but I can't wait to try it with beads and some nicer colours. The colours of threads in the starter kit weren't really to my liking!

Here is the foam disk with the thread set up for braiding. A cord, or group of cords placed in a notch on the braiding board is called a warp. This project was for an 8 warp braid.

This is part way through. It reminds me of French Knitting:

 

On completion it looked like this, before fixing the ends:

The kit included some end caps, a toggle and jump rings, as well as some strong glue. You have to tie some thread around the ends before trimming them. Then you can glue them into the end cap:

Now it's just ready for a pendant to be attached:

Kumihimo

I'm currently toying with the idea of buying this Kumihimo starter kit: http://www.beadsdirect.co.uk/beadsmith-kumihimo-starter-kit/ST121/

Kumihimo is a Japanese form of braiding and looks like it has so many possibilities. Just take a look at some of these gorgeous bracelets I found that were made using this technique:


http://www.teenytbg.bigcartel.com/product/kumihimo-rainbow-promise-bracelet-kit-beads-only

http://magpiesroughnuggets.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/kumihimo-magatama-bead-bracelet-11-0051.html
 
I was considering having a go at Shamballa jewellery but it's everywhere at the moment and I want to do something really different. They look amazing, so I think I'm going to go for it and buy the kit!

More starry stuff!

I recently had a go at making these earrings, based on a project in Linda Jones' 'Making beautiful bead and wire jewellery'. The tutorial used different types of beads from the ones I have used here, but the effect is very similar. The hardest bit is getting the hoops to stay round. I still haven't worked this one out but I think maybe they need hammering to make them harder. I suppose not being perfectly round gives them a more handmade look!

Starry stuff

My lovely husband went to Hobbycraft yesterday and bought me some interesting beads, including little plastic stars. I've mixed them with pearl beads to create some starry earrings:

Some more bracelets

Had a fun weekend watching Avengers at the cinema and then a day out to Battersea Park followed by a sausage bap with some Pimms. Yum!  Managed to fit in some beading using some charms I ordered from http://www.beadsunlimited.co.uk/.

I made this first bracelet by threading elastic through a chain. It's based on the following project: http://www.beadsunlimited.co.uk/projects/tweeting-birds-bracelet/151
I'm pleased with how it turned out, although my first go at making the elastic chain didn't work so well as it snapped when I tried to tie it together.

The second one has a musical theme:

Beadtastic

Here are a couple of things I made on Sunday. I plan to make the dragonfly into a brooch for my Grandma (It's from a design by Linda Jones in 'Making Beautiful Bead and Wire Jewelry). The other one is a wire wrapping experimentation on one of my resin pieces.

Resin shapes

So today I learnt lesson number three...use mold release or Vaseline before you pour the mixture into the molds. It was pretty difficult getting the shapes out, but here they are:

Now I have to buy a file to sand the edges and some findings or a pillar drill to make them into jewellery. Or I could put that off and just keep making lots and lots of shapes!

First attempt at resin

Today I had my first attempt at creating resin shapes at home, using EasyCast resin and PearlEx colour pigments. 

First lesson learnt - buy a plastic sheet. If you have a spillage it's not going to be absorbed by paper and cloths very easily!! Nearly ended up with a bright blue kitchen table.

Second lesson learnt -make sure the bottles of resin and hardner are warm. It turns out if they're not the mixture becomes very cloudy and full of bubbles. This happened with my pink heart shapes.

Here are my shapes. Fingers crossed they'll pop out of the molds when they're hardened.

Making resin jewellery

I spent this weekend learning how to make resin jewellery at the London Jewellery school: http://www.londonjewelleryschool.co.uk/resin-and-perspex/resin-jewellery/
The tutor was  Michael Milloy, a catwalk jewellery designer who has worked with Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs! http://www.econe.co.uk/designers/michael-milloy.html?limit=all
He was really helpful and informative and helped me finish some pieces off when I was struggling. I would definitely recommend the course.

The first thing we learnt was how to mix the resin with the hardner. We used something called Chemfast, which you mix with hardener at two parts to one. You pour the mixture into a plastic cup and stir with a wooden stick for 4 minutes so that it's thoroughly combined. Then you can add coloured dye if you want or just use a clear resin. There are special molds for making resin jewellery pieces, but you can pour it into other items, such as an ice cube tray or make your own mold from perspex. It's advisable to line the mold with vaseline to make sure the pieces pop out easily. If you mix too much resin it gets really hot, so it's also best not to make too much at once.

There are different types of dyes - liquid and powder. With the liquid dye you only need a drop to create a strong colour.

You can embed all sorts of objects into your resin. Some of the things we had to use in the class were feathers, buttons, sweets, glitter, sequins, paper pictures, plastic models. Michael also suggested you could use items from a dolls house such as little plates and teacups.

The first thing I did was mix up some clear resin for 4 minutes and add then stir in some coloured glitter pieces. I poured this into a mold of nine squares and left it to cure. I then mixed up another lot of resin and added some blue powder dye. The powder dyes give a more shimmery effect than the liquid ones. I poured a little bit into a mold consisting of various shapes (the molds were a bit like ice cube trays), added a button to each shape and poured a bit more in. You can pour up to half way if you want and then once it's set you can add another backing colour. I also added some coloured pieces of glass to one mold and had a go at dropping two coloured resin mixes into a cameo together to make a swirly pattern.

If bubbles appear in your shapes, you can poke them with a cocktail stick, use a blow torch on them or a hairdryer.

We were also shown how to make a mold for a bangle from perspex. You cut two strips of perspex to the required length, sellotape each one into a cylinder, one slightly larger than the other, so that the resin can be poured in between the two. We used a glue gun to make sure the cylinders were in place on a further sheet of perspex. You have to be careful to really seal around the bottom of the mold, or the resin can leak out, as I found later on! You can pour in a colour, wait for it to cure a bit and pour another colour on top, to create stripes, or you could pour lots of colours in at once from different sides.

The pieces were left to cure overnight and the next day we sanded and polished them and then made them into jewellery. This was quite time consuming and difficult, especially as I hadn't used any machinery like this since school CDT lessons. We sanded the edges of our shapes using a stick with sandpaper around it (you must use a face mask when sanding resin). Then, we used a machine that polishes the edges, and finally put them into a cleaning machine - the same affect can be achieved by putting your jewellery into some boiling water with fairy liquid and leaving it to soak.

The bangle was much harder to make, because firstly it was difficult getting it out of the perspex mold and had lots of rough edges and secondly you have to sand over the whole object. I used one of those sanding wheels (I'm sure there is a technical name for them), a file and the polisher. I don't think I could make one of these at home.

At the end we used a special glue (I need to check the name) to attach the findings to the resin pieces. I also made a bracelet which involved drilling holes through some of my pieces. This was quite tricky and the tutor ended up finishing the holes for me! I think it's the best piece I made though!


Here are my finished pieces (excuse the picture quality):

Button cufflinks

Button rings

Multicoloured elastic bracelet (1)

Multicoloured elastic bracelet (2)

Pendant with coloured glass

Gold leaf pendant

Button pendant

Drop dye pendant

Lastly, the most difficult piece!:

Bangle (1)

Bangle (2)

Bangle (3)

Dragonfly

Here's something I made earlier, inspired by a project in a new book Toby bought for me (Making Beautiful Bead & Wire Jewelry by Linda Jones). It could be used for a hairgrip, brooch, or necklace.