[The Wild Inside] Sun drenched

[The Wild Inside]

One of the first bangles I've made since last summer .. this one is sort of medium weight. The focal beads are African trade beads, from one of those ancient old strands that come strung on a raffia type rope .. these are a nice tidy little size. The last time I used one or two was on a strung bracelet about five or six years ago. They're a lovely sunny golden color with dark brick touches .. they just fit on the heavier gauge wire!

I thought I had more of those twisted wire segments from the time I made a delicate bracelet called "Gaia" .. turns out I did, but the bracelet mandrel for Gaia is a much lighter gauge wire, and they wouldn't fit. So ... I hauled out 142" of 20 gauge wire, twisted it, wrapped it around a copper piece of wire of the same gauge as the bracelet above, and got about 9" of twisted wire. I then cut the three segments I used and set everything up in a row before assembling. I wrapped just a single piece of wire for the other three segments .. but it totalled about 15" of wire after all three were done (it goes fast!). The dark brick and silver wheels are ceramic (the silver ones are actually coated with real silver) .. the other spacers are fat Bali silver beads with large holes.

The bracelet's not really done yet, as I want to add a charm. I made the little sun charms included in this photo, but haven't cleaned them up or fired them yet. The other item is the logo charm I usually add to bangles .. but I thought the "sun" theme worked a little better with this one. They should shrink down to about the size of the sun (just a little bigger than the logo charm) when they come out of the kiln.

But .. I've got a few clasps and some earrings to make before I run the kiln. I'll post the completed bracelet once I've added the charm!

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Posted By The Wild Inside to The Wild Inside at 4/17/2009 03:13:00 PM