Stacked

I've made many polymer clay cuff bracelets since I first started working with the stuff. I'm teaching a class at this year's ArtBliss on them too. Lately I've been making bracelets with lots of dangles on multiple chains, very layered and complex. But not exactly stacking layers.

So when I found out from my good buddy Cindy Wimmer about the Wrapped, Stacked and Layered Challenge that Tracy Statler was organizing, I knew I was in. I didn't know that stacked bracelets were such a big trend, I could just imagine what an amazing opportunity for design it would be. Excess in jewelry-- what's not to love? My notebook doodling was fast and furious and of course, I could not complete every idea I had but I think the stack I completed displays some of the better ideas I had.

My dear Douglas brought home some heavy paper cores that were a perfect diameter for a bangle so I sawed one in half and wrapped ikat-dyed silk ribbon around it and attached a jasper rectangle to the front with copper Whim-Z Wire.

I love memory wire bracelets and have made myself several. I like substantial bracelets and I use these to showcase my favorite stones or very special OOAK treasures. This one incorporates mastodon bone beads, amber, copper beads of all sorts, several kinds of jasper, and some very old African pipe beads.

I used a blank metal cuff as the base for the deerskin suede-wrapped cuff. The rough edges were dyed with alcohol inks and then I wrapped the pieces around the cuff and added some fine copper wires and tiny copper beads.

This last bangle was the most fun to make of all the layers. I got the idea from Mary Hettmansperger's book "Mixed Metal Jewelry Workshop" and used polymer clay instead of copper metal clay to save time. I mixed up a bronze-color polymer snake, wrapped it around some 16 ga. wire, cured it and then used some gilders paste to add highlights.

Here's the completed stack. Makes me wish I had long, skinny arms so I could wear all of them at the same time but they mix and match nicely so I'll probably wear a couple together. Thanks, Tracy, for setting up such a super challenge! I definitely see more bracelet stacks in my artistic future.

Cave of Dreams stack

Check out the 80 other links too to see what they've designed by going to http://makebraceletsblog.com/
(Sorry-- couldn't get the list to work on my blog!)