Nicolette’s Design Diary

It’s official! In July, I had announced that one of my Paper Bead bracelets was chosen to be included in The Art of Jewelry: Paper Jewelry, one of Lark Books newest publications. Tonight I went down to the bookstore and bought a copy. I’m supposed to get a complimentary copy from Lark, but I want to give a copy to James’ grandmother. And now that I think about it…I’ll need to get a copy for my mom too…

Anyway, if you want to check out a copy for yourself, you’ll find The Art of Jewelry: Paper Jewelry at Barnes & Noble, Borders, and of course Amazon.com. Be sure to check out page 29, that’s where you’ll find a picture of Untitled #1…my bracelet!

My own excitement about being published aside…this is a really nice book. The projects are fabulous. If you enjoy making your own unique jewelry, there are projects in here that are not only easy to make but are guaranteed to start a conversation. And the designs from the other jewelry artists are really awesome. My current favorite pieces are Someone Else’s Vacation by K. Dana Kagrise (page 135) and Untitled, 2005 by Yoko Shimizu (page 141). K. Dana Kagrise’s piece is a bracelet made out of manila envelopes, cotton thread, and vintage slides. The manila envelopes are assembled and shaped to resemble a slide carousel with vintage slides inserted into each envelope…so cool! And you would hardly believe that Yoko Shimizu’s piece is made out of rice paper and resin. This artist had shaped rice paper into translucent leaf-like shapes that resembles stained glass and layered each leaf into a truly beautiful piece.

And just by glancing through the book again, I’ve found another favorite, Untitled, 2005 by Rachel N. Mills (page 75). This neckpiece that resembles a thin knitted scarf is made out telephone book pages, copper wire and pearls. Amazing!

If you get the chance, check it out…

Technorati Tags: jewelry, Lark Books, paper jewelry

It’s been a long while since I’ve written in my design diary. A lot of time and a lot of changes have taken place between now and then. Including a brand new lines of jewelry, two brand new retailers and and a schedule of retail shows.

In late March and early April, I’ve acquired two new retailers, Crossings at Carnegie in Zumbrota, Minnesota and woodbloom in Portland, Oregon. These two retailers are particularly exciting for me because up until now, most of my retailers have been located on the East Coast. With these new retailers located in the Midwest and West Coast, I have the opportunity to introduce my work in these areas. Much thanks to Marie Marvin of Crossings and Ken Kane of woodbloom for this opportunity!

I’ve also created a new line of jewelry and expanded the Ojos Series. The new line of jewelry, tentatively called the Beaded Chain Series is a line of bracelets, anklets, necklaces, and earrings of handmade beaded chain. Beads in the chains encompass a variety of materials, wood, Czech glass, Swarovski

The 1990’s seemed to be the height of the faux finish craze in my town, especially that “crackled paint” finish.

The above set was my “homage” to crackle paint finishes. After making my first set painted paper beads, I decided to try using faux finish on my beads. Again using scrap paper for the beads, (this set was made out of an old term paper), I first painted a base coat on each bead. After that dried, I applied a layer of “crackle” paint to each bead. Finally, I added the top coat to the “crackle” layer. As expected, the top coat crackled quite nicely and I let that top coat dry before doing a final coat of clear acrylic to make the bead shinier.

This turned out to be even more labor intensive than just the plain painted beads. I took me about two weeks to do my first painted paper bead set. This set took about a month.

Digging through some of my old photographs and slides, I found some pictures (albeit bad ones) of some of my earlier experiments with paper beads.

The above picture is the very first jewelry set of a necklace, bracelet and earrings that I made that was designed entirely of paper beads. I made this set in 1991 and it was mostly experimental. I had bought a small little craft gadget called a “Bead Crafter” that was basically a jig for making paper beads. When I first got the tool, I experimented with wrapping paper, ripped out pages from magazines, even scrap paper. The results were interesting, but they weren’t exactly what I envisioned and I was worried of course about durability. Wrapping paper made for a rather flimsy bead.

Later, I experimented with painting the wrapping paper beads with a kind of clear acrylic coating to protect the beads and make them a little harder. A light bulb snapped in my head, “What would they look like painted?”. I made a bunch of rolled beads out of scrap paper (I believe this particular set was made out of an old chemistry exam) and hand painted each of them with acrylic paint. The result was paper beads that had a sort of plastic look. They were still light, but much harder and much more waterproof. That set spawned a small series of painted paper bead jewelry.

The above bracelet is called Untitled #1, the first in my series of Paper Bead Bracelets. This bracelet is made out of one of my favorite papers. It’s a dyed cotton rag paper that has some really nice uneven dyeing to it. The paper also has random silver geometric shapes silk screened on it that really sets off the blue marbling. The freshwater pearls give the bracelet some amount of heft, as many of these bracelets are rather light. But it’s a pleasant kind of heft.

Untitled #1 is on display at Vincent Hester Gallery in Portsmouth, Virginia. If you happen to be in the area, go take a look!

The above bracelet, “Untitled #2″ is the second in a cycle of Paper Bead bracelets. This particular bracelet is made of embroidered wrinkle paper, sterling silver, and glass beads. The paper for this bracelet was actually machine embriodered with rather loopy random designs. The beads made for some interesting contrasts in texture and some subtle colorplay between the various blues in the paper. There is no clasp on this particular piece. The connections on the bracelet gives just enough so you can slip it over on your wrist and then settles back in the original shape, a mechanism similar to what you see in those expandable metal watchbands.

The official name of this bracelet is “Untitled #3″. What we call it around the studio is “Mary’s Disco Inferno”. Why? I always have one of my sisters-in-law test out my new creations before unleashing them on the unsuspecting public. The first thing my sister Mary wanted to do with this bracelet was go out clubbing with it….

This particular bracelet is made with a really beautiful Japanese washi paper called “Silver Cherry Blossoms”. The paper is printed with an allover design of black cherry tree branches with little red and orange blossoms accented with flecks gold. The base of the paper is heavily flecked white and silver making it a great design for either gold or silver metals.

This is a rather wide bracelet, approximately 2 inches wide in fact, and combined with the silver, gold, red, and black accents it makes for a pretty festive piece. Disco on!