I love going to op shops to see what glass they have. I often find single coloured glasses and small bowls, and over the years I have built up a little collection of glass objects. For my exhibition at The Adelaide Remakery I selected 5 pieces that were different colours and made flower jewellery that look a bit like this:
Years ago I made some beads from a broken window, and I had kind of forgotten about that as a source of recycled glass until I was planning my work for The Adelaide Remakery.
I thought a broken window would suit the theme of the exhibition really well.
I tried some new techniques to make the beads for these pieces. The necklace is super interesting, with lots of movement and interesting colours.
I thought about design a LOT while I was away. Often what I share with the world is a finished and polished product that is ready to purchase. What you don’t always get to see are the sketches, the prototypes, the changes of direction, the tweaking that goes on behind the scenes. Things that might turn an idea for a pair of earrings into a necklace, things that might mean it’s back to the drawing board, things that might mean I put the piece aside for a bit longer.
I made these beads before I went away and today I had a chance to think about the possibilities in all of them. Drawing board? Necklace? Put aside? You will have to wait and see!
Beads made from a Bethany Winery chardonnay bottle.
I love how this necklace turned out! Made from a Bethany Winery wine bottle, the beads are subtly decorated with gold and silver pixie dust, making them look super pretty.
They match with these earrings. Would you wear them together?
I am so pleased with how these square hoop earrings turned out!
I used a wine bottle from Bethany Winery, and decorated the beads with silver and gold pixie dust while they were still hot. As I was placing the beads in the kiln I was hopeful that they would come out super pretty, so I was really pleased when they actually did!
This style of earrings is really eye catching.
I have started working on some new exhibition pieces for my “Glassblumengarten” exhibition that will be at Bethany Wines for the SALA Festival in August. [Note: “Glassblumengarten” is German for Glass Flower Garden].
I hope to fill a cabinet with all sorts of flower jewellery, I’m excited about some of the new pieces that I am drawing, and I can’t wait to make them.
This is one of the first pieces that I have finished. I wanted to reflect the colours of the grapes in this pair of earrings, so I chose purple and green to decorate the flower beads (made from a Bethany Wines wine bottle).
I love the subtle contrast in this bracelet, featuring beads made from wine and gin bottles.
I made a pair of earrings similar to this the other day, with niobium hooks, but today I had some disk beads with pixie dust on them and I thought I would see what it looked like with that little addition. Hmm…quite liked it! I like how the two silver beads are different and still work so nicely together.
The beads in these earrings were made from a Hendricks Gin bottle.
I am loving the colours in these earrings. The luscious reds, browns and purples all work together so nicely. All of the beads were made from a wine bottle, decorated with coloured glass, which I have melted in, to get the colour into the beads.
I’m not loving the cold weather here. I don’t really enjoy winter, I kind of endure it! It’s a season I have to get through to get to the warmer weather. I just try to keep busy, keep making, keep going.
I have been enjoying making beads with the cooler colour themes though and you’ll see some more of them as part of my Colour Play series of work.
But for now, I will share with you a pair of earrings that I made from a Banrock Station wine bottle, decorated with assorted colours of frit. I love how these beads look together. So pretty!
