Challenges
Every other month or so we challenge each other to construct a wearable piece of jewelry along a theme or from a
specified material. The goal is to push ourselves to work in media we are unfamiliar with. The members then vote on the
best creation and the winner receives a $25 gift certificate to the jewelry supply store of their choice.Rebirth
Winning Design
Winning Design
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In honor of Mother's Day we decided on "Rebirth" for our Spring challenge. This took imagination - how can you
physically represent this in jewelry? Elizabeth Clark did so beautifully, with her flower-encased, resin pendant, complete with
seeds and a bit of soil. Well done!
Winter!
Winning Design
Winning Design
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I thought the Winter! challenge would be, well...pretty cut and dried. Make something white and there you go.
And yes, we did create a lot of white. But the designs were very different and it never fails to surprise how uniquely each
of us views our surroundings. From sparkly, textured, delicate, and compact to microscopically detailed (an individual
snowflake) and big pictureseque (snow-dirt-snow-dirt - the city plows have been busy this year!) - all of these
things appear in the submittals for this month's challenge. Our winner: Marsha
DeFilippo, who stole the show with her asymetrical rendition of falling snow.
This n' That
Winning Design (sold before I could get a photo!)
Winning Design (sold before I could get a photo!)
Our This n' That challenges take some thought! Each member brings in several pieces of the same component and
everyone has to construct a wearable jewelry item using
every component
(you can add components, like wire, but you cannot subtract). Some of us go easy on the others - I brought in a bead (easy to
string!) - while some of us go out of the way to torment the rest (how do you make something out of bobbi pins, screws, and pennies?).
Deb Rollins won this challenge by creating a locket to display her components.
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All Buttoned Up
Winning Design
Winning Design
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Elizabeth Clark, one of our newest members, suggested the Button Challenge, which pretty
much put us all at the same level: neophyte. In the end, we came up with a
wide variety of designs
and Doris Ayotte took home the award with a well constructed and perfectly wearable necklace of vintage
buttons. Congratulations Doris!
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The Color Orange
Winning Design
Winning Design
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Orange is not an easy color to work with, which is why we selected it for our 2010 summer challenge. Donna
Tumosa had the winning design - a fabricated argentium silver bracelet made with lampwork glass beads, torched by the artist
herself.
Fabric Jewelry
Winning Design
Winning Design
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A few weeks before our May challenge, we taught ourselves how to make cloth beads using straws
wrapped in fabric. Lisa Taylor won this challenge with a fan necklace, constructed from handmade fabric beads
painted silver on the edges and strung side-to-side.
What Summer Means to Me
Winning Design
Winning Design
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Summer jewelry is orange, cream, and pink, lightweight, and jingly according to Lisa Taylor, our
winner of this challenge!
Hardware Hotties
Winning Design
Winning Design
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Jewelry contructed out of found objects (like sea glass and watch parts) is a hot commodity
these days, so why not something made out of items purchased from a hardware store?