An unusual request

Whilst at the jewellery and art expo a week ago I was asked by a visitor if I could look at a sketch she had done as a design for a leaf bracelet. The sketch was of two leaves running in opposite directions joined by a bridging square. The bridging square had some roughly sketched baubles and dangling bits.

The expo visitor said she had shown her sketch to various jewellers but had not been successful in getting someone to test her design. She wanted the bracelet to be made from aged brass - not too shiny.   The design reminded me a little of my leaf-spoons and leaf letter openers but with more curve. I agreed to see if I could turn the sketch into a bracelet once I had a measurement for the woman's wrist.

As you can see from the photos that follow I made two bracelet forms with a squarish bridging area.

©2015 Barry Smith - Overlapping leaf forms of the leaf bracelet 

©2015 Barry Smith - Leaf forms of the leaf bracelet

The designer wanted me to add dangly bits to the square bridging area. So I did this with one of the two bracelet forms. I inserted 9 small eyelets into the square area; and threaded flat headed pins through the eyelets and created a circle to take a jump ring to add small lengths of chain to.

©2015 Barry Smith - Back of bridging plate with flat pins 

I covered the flat head pins with three layers of thin self adhesive felt to cover the rough surface created by the flat headed pins. I also added bone coloured beads to give another point of interest.

©2015 Barry Smith - Leaf bracelet with chains 

©2015 Barry Smith - Two leaf bracelets - one with and one without adornments. 

I'll send some photos off to the woman who designed the bracelet to see if what I made reflects what she conceived.  The chains can be cut to shorter lengths and beads or other bits can be attached to them.