Tag: handmade glass beads

A quick recap:

• I had to make a lot of necklaces like this for a particular shop.
• I had to work out how to turn this exhibition item into a production item.
• I had to decide which design I liked the most.

Then I had to work out how to make the most of this design (see below)

So, how was I going to make the most of this design?  Well, I took the idea of numbering the beads with the different colours that I was going to use.  That was necklace #1.  And then I just moved along a couple of spaces, and started the numbering at a different bead for necklace #2.  This way, I can make 2 necklaces, and 2 pairs of earrings using the same glass, but they would turn out quite different.

Exhibition work is quite different from production work.  With exhibitions you have a lot of freedom (and usually a lot of time) to play with new ideas.  To try things and see how they work.

With production you have to be a little bit more precise with your work.  You have to make the most time appropriate decisions so that your work ends up “costing” a feasible amount.  Unfortunately it is true what they say “Time is Money.”

I hope you have enjoyed my design decision posts.

So, in the last post I had determined that I was going to make the beads for both necklaces and see how they turned out.  Well, this is how they both turned out:

I am curious about what other people think of these necklaces, but I have to admit that as soon as I laid the beads out, I knew which necklace I preferred!

Yes, it is the necklace with 3 different colours in it.  I like how that extra colour makes the necklace just that little bit more interesting.  It has a little bit of extra colour, without having too much colour like the original necklaces.

Now, to turn that idea into a production item required one more step in my thinking, and I’ll share that with you tomorrow.

The first step in the process for me is to do some drawing.  Luckily for me I knew how the necklace was supposed to look, I just didn’t know what colours I was going to use, or how I was going to use colour, to simplify the design.

I started with the necklace design, and thought “What about if I just use two colours?”  That would definitely keep the design simple.

Next I thought, “What about 3 colours, how would that look?”  I added that to the design ideas.

I could kind of picture the necklaces, but I needed to make the beads in order to realise if they were going to work or not.  So, I went to my studio and picked 3 different rods of glass, and went to work making enough beads to make the 2-colour and 3-colour necklaces.

Tomorrow I will show you how these necklaces turned out.

I made these necklaces for my “Home Wear” exhibition this year.  I love the simplicity of them, but I didn’t really intend to make them a production line.

Until one of my stockists asked me if I could make a bunch of them for their shop.

Of course I could!

When I do production runs, I like to make things a bit simpler than what I would do for an exhibition.  So, for example, these necklaces have 9 beads on them, with 8 different colours.  That is a lot of different beads to make, a lot of different glass to use.  I wanted to create something a bit simpler.  Something more sustainable from a production perspective.

So, I started drawing some ideas on paper, and I’ll share with you tomorrow what I am thinking.  This design process will last for a few posts, while I work out what I am going to make!  I hope you enjoy watching some of this creative process.