Found Object Final Project: Barbie Hands

In my casting class, our final project was to find a random object and get it casted to make a piece of jewelry out of it. She showed us some images to get us inspired, there were twig necklaces, cigarette butt pendants, matches turned into rings.... I wanted to do something that looked classic, but came from something fun. Thats when I decided to use a barbie. To get inspired, I googled "barbie jewelry" and found some interesting pictures:

These are all super fun pieces, but like I said earlier, I wanted it to  be more classic, and needed to get my object casted anyway. So after I picked up my barbie doll from the big Toys R Us in Times Square (which terrified me, and made me feel like I was on an episode of Project Runway), I started playing around with her to see what I could make.

At first I wanted to make two bangles, one out of her leg and one out of her arm. I dont know if you have seen the new barbies lately, but they are supposed to look more like "the average woman" yet her legs are now twice as long as her arms, and are pretty fatty, which wouldnt work for a bangle, and her arms are too short to make it around. Thats when I decided to use her hands, so I took a pair of scissors and chopped them off. While playing with them to see what could look nice, I realized that her hand positions make a heart when you put them together.

I fell in love with the idea, ran to the store and picked up some super glue to glue the two hands together, and then dropped it off at the castors. Here is how my necklace turned out:

I got so much good feedback from my friends and tumblr/instagram followers, that I am considering mass producing them and selling them sometime in the next year. Today though, I had to hand in my piece to my professor so she could grade it and she didn't give me any (positive or negative) feedback, she only asked if the hands came put together or not and then gave the piece back and walked away. Mind you, I've had some issues with this professor all semester, but it still felt kind of weird that she didn't say anything to me about this piece when she usually says what she likes about it, what she doesn't etc.

What do you think about my barbie necklace?

My Paisley Necklace

If you didn't already know this, I'm a jewelry design major in school. In one of my classes one of our projects is to make a design, get it casted multiple times and turn the multiples into a piece. I decided to make a little paisley, or "half a ying yang sign" as I explained the idea to my dad.

Bottom photo credit: My very talented class mate, Nguyen Hall.

Originally I wanted the necklace to be all silver, but while making it I loved the rainbow iridescence effect that came from my shaky hand with the torch. Thats why the whole thing looks dirty in the photo (aka, it looks better in person). In actuality the chain looks like a snake, and the pieces change color with different light.

What do you think about my necklace? Give me your honest feedback!