craftgrrl | Not just pretty dresses... (Reply)

'Allo fellow crafty-folk. It's me again, the one who posted the wedding dress. First off, yeah, it was Photoshopped...from two almost identical pictures of myself in the dress. I'd prepared the image (note- no background) for the portfolio of the seamstress that put it together and fitted it to me. One image showed the brocade on the dress more clearly, but one of my eyes was crossing horribly. In the other one, my head was just fine, but the lighting was hitting a little more strongly, and so the fabric of the dress wasn't as distinct. Wanting to showcase the gown as well as possible without morbidly chopping off my head or making the showcase my crossing eye, I stuck one head on the other body. When the image is smaller you can't even tell, and I'd actually forgotten until someone pointed it out in the comments. So..I admit it. The image was altered. But it's still my head, my body, and my dress, as they were, as they looked.

Now that that is out of the way, I'd like to ask what you think of one of the other kinds of things I make, that I got a chance to grab an image of tonight. I make jewelry, and I make chain maille, and I make chain maille accessories/jewelry....and one of the most popular kinds of pieces is called a "hand flower"...where a webwork of rings/chain/beading extends from a bracelet to a ring. (Most incarnations appearing at RenFests and as Hindi jewelry.) A lot of people really like the concept, but aren't big on the look of maille, finding it too gothic, or old-fashioned, or chunky, or whatever. So, I have a series of hand flower styles I designed that are a little more delicate. The one I have linked pictures of behind the cut uses largely chain, swarovsky crystal beads, and silver-tone sliders accented with coordinating swarovsky cabachons....

So, what do you think? I actually plan to use fold-over clasps and an expansion chain of linked rings...once I can find decent foldover clasps...for increased adjustability of size. In the meantime, I'm using these highly secure clasps of unknown name (I have a whole sack of them from a jewelry class about a decade ago), which are very secure, but easy enough to manipulate that I am able to put this on and take it off without any help, or even a hair tie around my wrist to hold one end.