Monday, April 9, 2018

Foldover Bead Necklace with Extrusions

Here is a fun little necklace I just finished.  The polymer beads are simple circles, with a design on one side, solid color on the other, then gently folded so they don't quite meet.  This allows the colors from both sides to show and keeps open a channel for beading wire.
One experiment I tried for the patterned side was to shave slices off an extruded tube, place the strips side-by-side on a backing sheet, and then compress them in the pasta machine.  I really liked the resulting inconsistent striped look.
 Here is a closeup of one bead.

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Extruded "Rounds"

I love extrusions.  I think my favorite part is the fact that while the outside of the extrusion looks so plain as it leaves the extruder, the inside hides wonderful surprises.  I have recently been playing with some thin extruded snakes, using them to create some fun and colorful round beads.  Of course, I couldn't stop at one bead or one color-way, so here are photos of a couple of necklaces I made.  There is also a bracelet also out of extruded snakes, but with a bit more dimension. The orange and purple necklaces have been rolled by hand and smoothed. Separating the beads with spacer beads or pearls helps highlight the dot design.











Notice that the beads in the bracelet have not been smoothed.  Rather they are composed of individual sections of the extruded snake. This adds dimension and depth.