Allegory Gallery jewellery prompts

When I found Allegory Gallery jewellery prompts – Bead in the New Year 2024 on Beadlove’s blog, I was tempted to try a few out. I was late for the day-by-day follow along. However, I felt like I could do a few of the prompts.

Work with Resin

I had a jewellery order after a really long time and I was making a bunch of Andal pendants. With the ‘Work with Resin’ prompt in mind, I made a few more pendants which I knew I could make into necklaces. The images include all time favourites – Temple gopurams, kolams, and prints of miniature paintings. The kolams turned out super streaky, so I made scrap them and reuse the bezels.

I Combined 2 prompts

Day 1 was ‘Make a pair of Earrings’ and day 20 was ‘Nature is your Inspiration today.’ I combined the two jewellery prompts to make a pair of earrings inspired by nature. In the beginning of December, I had gone to Kodaikanal (a hill station in Tamil Nadu) with my colleagues. Even though it was foggy and rainy, I found several brightly coloured flowers in bloom that I took pictures off. I used one such picture as colour inspiration to create this earring.

Remake an old project into a New one

I have been inspired by Ms. Rozantia of Bairozan to refashion old projects into new ones and rescue usable beads from old necklaces. You can see one such hand painted trial in my pervious post on ‘10 reasons why Brass jewellery is popular.’

I choose the necklace that I made for my 2023 Swap and Hop to refashion. Since it had gorgeous lampwork beads, I left them intact and removed only the chain. In its place, I strung round frosted pink beads with a beautiful sheen. To complete the new necklace I added a hand cut brass pendant with a floral image. I have been itching to try out image transfer technique for a long time and finally found the supplies and the opportunity.

In the case of this pendant, I applied the transfer directly on the base, without a coat of paint, for I wanted an ethereal, well-worn vintage look. I was so excited after I made it that I wore it immediately. Therefore, I did not seal the pendant. So I am not sure about its durability or what will happen to the image as the brass oxidises. Since then I have been experimenting with other techniques. I would like to know if any of you have tried image transfers on metal. If so, what kind of varnish do you use? Clear varnish seems to create a thin gravel-like texture on the transfer which I do not care much for.

I hope you find it interesting

Cheers