Saturday 10 March 2012

Cuff fun

Cuff style bracelets have long been a favourite project, as they give me plenty of space for design play. I managed to get some lightweight aluminium cuff blanks from Fantasybeading on Etsy, and decided to make a slightly different cuff.

I had a gorgeous patinated brass butterfly and thought it would make a lovely centrepiece, and some pressed glass leaves in a similar colour. Initially I thought I'd embroider around the butterfly, but it looked really nice against a scrap of old gold Ultrasuede, so decided to keep it simple. Because of the 3-D nature of the blank, I first 'filled' the body cavity with a rolled piece of Ultrasuede glued in position. I let that dry, then glued it down to the piece of Ultrasuede. I didn't want to rely on glue to hold everything in place, so I stitched strands of tiny size 15 seedbeads in several of the grooves on the butterfly to anchor it more securely. I then stitched  a few Czech rondelles and Swarovski sequins/lochrosen in a curve on either side of the centrepiece, and attached the leaf beads (as these had two holes I could keep them firmly in position with a couple of stitches). Finally I stitched the gold piece to the backing, with which I had covered the cuff inner surface. I held the stitched piece in position with small squares of 'PeelnStick' double sided tape from Thermoweb and finished the edges with brick stiched triangle beads, in aqua I/C gold.


Sometimes, less is more, and I am really pleased with this cuff prototype, it is light and would be nice to wear through Spring and Summer. What do you think? And what other stampings could I use for this kind of cuff?
Heres the side view, a few sequins go a long way!

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