When is a daffodil not a daffodil?

Tags

chiyogami, daffodil, fabric, spoonflower, yellow palette

The Spoonflower competitions this month are floral inspired. Given the time of year, I couldn’t resist doing something with daffodils. I used the colours from my Yellow Palette.

The first theme is “Paper-Cut Florals” so I tried to keep the shapes simple and graphic. I didn’t think the cut-out look was coming across in the preview, so I did another design using elements of the daffodil design as texture. The idea is that the flowers are cut out from ornamental Japanese paper (chiyogami).

Again some of the detail is lost in the preview, but it retains the cut-out look. If you like it please vote (open until 11 April 2017).

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Goodbye yellow

Tags

art beads, beads, Cate van Alphen, daffodil, handmade beads, necklace, yellow

Today is the last day of Yellow. I’ve been a bit more organised this time and I have listed most of the components in my bead shop.

Earring pair by Cate van Alphen

Tassel pendant and buckle by Cate van Alphen

Yellow tracery beads by Cate van Alphen

I’ve kept a few components aside because I know how I want to string them to make a necklace. No doubt they will make it to my Etsy shop with finished pieces of jewellery like my Daffodil necklace eventually.

Daffodil necklace by Cate van Alphen

Goodbye (for now) yellow, it’s been fun!

Polymer clay challenge week 11 – toggle

Tags

2015PCchallenge, buckle, button, Cate van Alphen, daffodil, handmade bead, jewellery component, polymer clay, yellow

I’m so excited, I had an actual sunbeam this morning for taking photographs! I started this week off by making some buttons. They may look familiar from a couple of weeks ago when they were cabochons.

Polymer clay shank buttons by Cate van Alphen

But now they’ve got their shanks on baby 😉

Polymer clay shank buttons by Cate van Alphen

Next I made some bar buckles using the mokume gane sheet from last week. I also made a new sheet of mokume gane for the oval buckle using the offcuts which were still on my board.

Polymer clay buckles by Cate van Alphen

I whipped up a bracelet using some old green ribbon and some of last week’s beads to test that the buckle actually worked.

Polymer clay and ribbon bracelet by Cate an Alphen

It worked well until I took my jumper off and the whole bracelet came off too. The buckles hold quite well while the ribbon is horizontal, but when the buckles are lifted up they lose all tension and the ribbon just slips through. Maybe they would be better able to grip thicker (or rougher) fabric?

Daffodil bracelet by Cate van Alphen

Perhaps the buckles should only used decoratively, or just to adjust the length rather than as a closure. I think they make interesting focals and I like the big hole button look of the round one. I’m sure they’d look great with sari silk, but I haven’t got any to test with. Or a band of macrame, but that will have to wait.