Naming

I've been thinking of names for my neck piece, its taken a lot of searching research and digging deeper. I looked at fruits, shapes and even friends names. Funny enough I found its name in me or in my zithakazelo (praises or family line), someone mentioned that the links reminds them of clouds or bubbles. Mafu is one of the praises which also mean cloud, there it is the name of my necklace is MAFU ( call me Cebekhulu, Linda mkhonto, mangethe, nongalo, mafu)
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Drawing

This is the neck piece that I'm busy working on, I don't know how it will look in the end but I hope all goes well.
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More NSA

I'm making more stock for the Christmas sale at NSA, I haven't used these beaded discs before so this is my chance to see if people will like them or not. Hopefully they get some sort of recognition, even if its some sort of feed back. I'm hoping to start getting people to help me with more of my stork making. This didn't work that well last year, hopefully all goes well from now on.

Free

These links are also 100 but they occupy more space, not only do they do that but the way that they are linked allows more movement, this is how I will link this neck piece.

fourr

Still the same links but linked in a star. Formation. There won't be much movement here.

four.jpg

100 links
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Reflect

I'm feeling a bit stressed, I don't know weather its too early or its too late to start feeling this way. I think I should write down everything that I have to do and give it a time frames and in that way I'll get more things done. There is more to these links then I thought there was. I want a finished product now, what do you think, don't you want to see the finished item.

Beaded dome

I used size three and size one beads, they don't look that neat though.

Domed

The domed earrings have beaded discs in them and as much as it is not visible, the discs are stuck on. So with this dome, I've drilled hole on the plate before I domed it and the holes distorted, learned that lesson. The hole in the middle enables me to bead well.
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Domed studs

The studs before these are flat and I used less metal, I'm still trying to move away from less metal to more metal. Making jewellery that allows me to use more techniques then just wire making and soldering.

Studs

I couldn't help but want to make jewellery from the little beaded discs, I don't know if jewellery can be called cute but I think that's how they look, cute.

More links

I'm not making the whole piece myself, I've had help from Songezo and Sabelo, they are making the links for me. I've prepared the wire and the sizes for the jumprings. Songezo made the big jumprings and Sabelo's worked really hard in soldering the small jumprings onto the big one. They are still not enough though maybe I should have an picture of them on my next blog, showing them hard at work.

Beaded discs

Here are some discs that I beaded in order to choose the colour of my neck piece, I can't seem to make up my mind about which one I should use though. What do you think?

Drawing

This is the drawing of what I'm busy working on, I know I've posted it before but as I keep looking at it I notice that there are different colour links. I don't think that different colour links will work because it will be too busy.

Choose

Well here are some of my links but I can't seem to make up my mind about how to like them up. The one way allows me to have less jumprings but the problem is that there is so much negative spaces between the links and the other one has small spaces but it will require to have a lot of links in order to cover most of the chest. What do you think?
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Reflection

As I have been doing these test pieces I find that there are a lot of questions that come up that relate to the next step. Apart of me feels like other people questions can help you make to the next step and others can set you back a couple of steps. As mush as I would love to say that I'm making jewellery that pleases me, I also like to hear what other people think or how they can suggest things. It is very hard to hear some peoples opinion at the moment because I feel as feel the piece hasn't even been made yet but on the other hand I don't want to make this neck piece that has over 100 links only to find out that its just not good enough. Then the other thing is, who is to say that its not good enough?

Last test piece

I think that this is the last test piece or links that I'm making for this neck piece, I think I've done a lot of test I have to start putting the plan into action.
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Middle

This should be my last attempt of finding a way to link my discs up because this way allows the discs to sit, not flat, not too high but in the middle. I want to get started now.
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IMG00345-20101014-1359.jpg

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Neater but

As much as this way of linking up these discs is neater in the sense that they are linked up with one jumpring in the middle, they sit too high. This piece will not sit flat on the neck and doesn't feel friendly.
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Neater

This is another neater way to link up the discs.
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Beading

I found a clear string that doesn't break the beads and is very flexible, it allows me to bead and doesn't stand out against the wire discs. This beading (marked with an arrow) is neater and flat due to the fact that I took time and picked up a bead at a time where as with the other disc I picked up two beads and then one. It comes to show that if you do a rush job then you'll get a rushed messed up piece.
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Links

I like the way the colours are put together but in not so sure of the white strings that shows on the sides of the discs. The beads are not flat and the have some sort of gap between them.
The four discs look ok (size) but I'm not so sure of the way that they are linked or joint together. The small jumprings could be smaller and they are just to busy in the middle. I have to find some way to make it look less congested.
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Circle neck piece

These are the links to my circle neck piece and it is the neck piece that I will be focusing on for now. I mentioned that I want to focus on one then do the next while the other is in the process.
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Test piece tri

This is the next step to my neck piece, I had to make these elements in order to see how the would fit together and how the colours would look.
I met some problems with this neck piece, the plate is too thick and sharp, its not friendly to wear. After talking to Chris, I've decided to put this to rest for now and focus on the circle links neck piece.
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Cut

So far so good.
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Another order

This is the last wedding invite bunch that I'm making until I'm done with my btec head ins.
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Graph

I'm excited about my neck pieces to the extent that I'm planning them to the T so that I won't waste time in making more jewellery from them.
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Idea number 2

This other neck piece that I'm hoping to make and link it like that.
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Idea

This is a neck piece that I want to make using those little discs, I know that I might not have enough time to make it because, I don't want to make just one. So I will make to prototype and then pay someone to make it for me, I will have to make sure that everything works and falls in place before I can give it to someone to make that frames so that I can give it to someone else to bead it for me. These are drawings of how I think they should be joint together.
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Small Bracelet

This is my latest jewellery piece and I like the colours that I used on it. A comment was made for me to use plate because the wire that I was using was very thin so I used thicker wire and smaller jumprings to link everything together.

As Amy I want to use these small beaded discs to create a bigger picture or a bigger jewellery piece.
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Amy C. Clarke

I found Amy in a book called 500 Beaded Objects, I like going back to this book to see how crazy people are about beading. This picture is (10.2 x 14 cm) and yes its all beaded "I thought about the hope inspired by the light of a single candle in darkness, and how I make a wish everytime I blow out a candle."

Thought

I have been busy trying to make a beaded so that I could use them to create a range of contemporary beaded jewelery. I have found some people that have made them and have done a very good job at it and I have add one of their links on my blog.
I'm thinking of moving away from trying to make this big bead for now because its really not going anywhere and I think its slowing me down.

I used to hate or dislike beadwork that is flap or beadwork that is bigger then a miter wall painting because I thought it would take me forever to do something like that. I still love beads or beading, I love how one bead on its own can mean nothing but if put next to other (beaded) can create or be part of a bigger picture (work of art). I guess that's one of the reasons why I wanted to make my own beaded bead.
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Earrings

Well they are finished and I can't really say that I'm impressed with what I see, I like the whole concept of using plate but a part of me feels like the pattern is almost fighting with the beads maybe keeping it simple is the way to go. Maybe I should make another pear that is more simple and maybe smaller, what do you think?
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Blame the eye

Well I burnt my eye last week and it hasn't easy make jewellery that is neat. These earrings will have beads where the wholes are, I'm not sure how they will look but hopefully the look better then the wire frame earrings.
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Plate earrings

It has been a long time since I last blogged and I found that a lot of ideas and next moves are lost by not blogging. I going to do it more often so as to keep track of what's going on.

When we spoke to the lectures, they made a comment that I'm using too little metal and that I should try using plate to bead on. I went and drew this earring and hopefully it will work out.
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