Necklaces inspired by The Cure

At the beginning of June, a Cure friend, Katie T. and I decided we wanted to work on Cure band inspired craft. We settled on making necklaces. Each person would make their own Cure inspired necklace and upon completion send the craft to the other person...A Cure crafty swap! The Cure have so many iconic designs and album art that I love. I thought this craft swap was gonna be a breeze, I could knock out a necklace overnight. Things would not go so smoothly. So many doubts, so much desire to represent The Cure in a fashionable design that Katie T. could enjoy. So, I finally decided on dark, Gothic roses with a band symbol from the album, "The Cure". Everything but the black beads, were made with polyclay. Three weeks later, that necklace was packed and sent to its owner.

The following week, I received my Cure necklace designed by Katie T. I was so excited to have my very own Cure necklace. Katie did great things with beads, color and texture. The necklace was so professional looking, like something I could have bought straight from TheCure.com store.

I'm also including a picture with the flash, so you can really see the texture.

Here I am wearing my COOL necklace, made by Katie.

Katie T. was kind to do a write up about her creation...a more in depth process of her magical, creative ways. :)
  When I first started the project, I wanted to make a necklace with the entire "Cure" written out with the Wish-era "C" symbol. This proved to be too technically challenging--if I made it small enough so that it wasn't tacky, it was too difficult to cut out the letters. I decided that I would just do one "C" instead. I drafted the design in Adobe Illustrator, and then printed it onto poster board to make stencils. Then, I used the stencils to cut the shapes out of polymer clay and texturized the "C" and the blue background before baking. After a light sanding around the edges, I painted the clay with liquid acrylic paints to give it an "antiqued" look. I decided on a bronze theme, so I finished the necklace with Vintaj brass chain and accent beads. I believe the black beads are onyx, but it's been so long since I bought them that I can't remember! I really wanted just a touch of red and blue in the beaded chain, so I added red seed beads for a little "pop" of color. I went to a couple different bead stores looking for the perfect blue beads. I wanted a natural stone with swirls of blue, white, and black, and right when I was about to give up, I found these sodalite stones! The project was such a blast!

 I would really like to expand this craft swap idea. I want it web out as far as it will go. Doesn't necessarily have to be Cure inspired crafts...but would be cool if it was.

Oh Yelle!

The Masquerade in Atlanta showcased Yelle, on Monday April 25, 2011.
It was one awesome show! The lead singer of Yelle, Julie is very beautiful and very petite. I was very near the front row and was able to admire her from only a few feet away. She danced back and forth across the stage in a pair of worn, white keds. The constant steps of dance caused Julie's dice earrings to sway with the band's catchy beats.
I adore all of Yelle's songs, and although I can't always decipher the french lyrics, the upbeat tempos keep my interest strong.
After the show, there was a meet and greet with the band. Unfortunately, I was only able to meet one of the three due to some time constraints but in my opinion, the more handsome of the three, Tepr.
Once I got home, I was so inspired by Julie's dice earrings, that I decided to construct a pair of my own. I didn't have any dice so I molded some with poly clay and used seed beads as the number markers, drilled a hole thru the middle and placed some wire, and fashioned a hoop where an earring hook was placed.
If I can't be a rock star...I'm at least going to look like one.