Summer circular swap / Poletni krožni swap

  V slovenščini lahko prispevek preberete tukaj.

  I enjoy very much participating in swaps. The first of all was the February 2012 swap Valentine's heart, organized by a Slovenian team of 4 polymer clayers Izdelovalnica malih umetnin and then every month followed a new one. For the summer months they organized a Summer circular swap.

  Let me first briefly summarize the rules of this swap: the 4 organizers (from Izdelovalnica) have collected the initial set of 40 polymer clay pearls, focals and other pieces made by themselves. They have sent the package to the first participant that had to take 5 to 8 pieces out and put the same number of pieces (made by her) in. She had one week time to make something from the pieces she had taken out, but not more than two pieces of jewellery. Then she had to send the "renewed" set of polymer pieces to the next participant and so on.

  I was the fourth one in the line and my reveal was scheduled on June 16th. Here is the set I have received: 
 

   Happy as a child I was changing the position of the pieces, combining them in different sets, chosing some of them, then changing my decision again and again ... fortunately there was a deadline for sending the package out to the next participant, and I made this final decision

   There were mainly two criteria I adopted: first, the coordinated colours (as there was a limit of two pieces); and second, I wanted to take the pieces that differ from what I have made until now. The pumpkins were made by Flo; the golden pieces in the middle by Metuljcica and the bottom pearls were made by Roberta.

  For the golden pieces Metuljcica got the inspiration from the Buddhist prayer mills, what recolled to me the red colour (that happens to be also one of my favourites) and the golden tassels as a kind of threads of life ... resulting in this pair of earrings:

  This is also my #22 pair of 52 pairs of earrings a year. 


  The rest of the pieces in matching colours I immediately imagined as a part of a necklace. My starting point were the colours in both Roberta's pearls, but there was no way to achive just the same shades as she did ... so I decided to make a skinner blend from yellow to dark blue and use it to make small pearls from each shade. To break the symmetry and expose the pumpkins a little more I decided to insert between them some wire. I'm quite happy with the final result, what about you?

  The creatins of the other swappers are posted here - well, all the texts are in Slovene language, but you can always admire the pictures :-) You can always use the online translators, but they usually create quite a fun translation ...

  Have fun,
  Alenka