As well as the jewellery I make for Deviant Panda I also take on commissions. My latest commission was a charm bracelet for a Christmas present. The brief was to create a charm bracelet with a Chinese influence incorporating the Chinese Zodiac symbol of the monkey.
I started by painting wooden beads with a black base with red Chinese lettering on top representing the words Happy, Joy, Love, Luck, Money and 'Have Fun'. I painted two more wooden beads with a black base followed by small flowers on one and gold and red trellis on the other. I varnished them all with a glossy varnish and threaded them onto silver wire finishing with red glass cubes and jade effect beads.
Then I upcycled some charms I had from an old bracelet I was given years ago and created a new charm from a Chinese coin I obtained from a trip to China earlier this year.
The last task was create a jade effect monkey charm so using a mixture of greens, white, black and translucent polymer clay I set to work creating jade. This was something I have never tried before but I loosely followed the instructions given in Donna Kato's The Art of Polymer Clay until I managed to get a consistency I was happy with. I flattened the blob of clay and started to carve out the basic shape of the monkey, continuing to sculpt the finer details. Once I was happy with the monkey I added some detailing, said a quick prayer and popped it in the oven. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome which goes to show that following a recipe seems to pay off! :) I varnished the monkey once it had cooled, attached all the charms to the bracelet and proudly presented it to my very happy customer.
I'm always happy to take on commissions so if you have something in mind just get in touch either via folksy, facebook or twitter (the links to my sites are all around the page) or leave a comment for me on this blog. I hoped you liked the pictures of the bracelet as much as I enjoyed creating it! :)
Til next time,
DP
that's a brilliant bracelet, love it :)
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