Pixel Jewelry - Stolen Jewels by MikeandMaaike

2008-07-23T18:49:00.015-03:00

Feature Designers

Dutch born Maaike Evers and Mike Simonian are industrial designers behind MikeandMaaike.com which is based in San Francisco. Innovative and experimental approaches are the hallmark traits of such designers and they both aptly showed how thinking outside the box can yield unusual results.

They wanted to explore the "tangible vs. virtual". So what they did was to scour the internet for images of really expensive baubles by famous jewelers. They took these images and changed them into extremely low resolution forms - similar to when you try and print photographs which were taken with too few pixels. They then transferred (printed) the images into cleverly scored leather for reincarnated jewelry. No wonder they called this design line Stolen Jewels. The design on the left is Imelda Marcos' Ruby and Diamond necklace by Van Clef and Arpels.

The first of the two necklaces below pays homage to Daisy Fellowes "Tutti Frutti" Ensemble, Cartier, 1936. Tutti frutti means all fruits in Italian and fits the multi-gemstone style which is one of Cartier's famous and enduring specialties. The collection features platinum, sapphires, emeralds, rubies, onyx and diamonds. You can see a picture of the original necklace here.

The bottom picture shows the necklace inspired by the fabulous " Great Chrysanthemum Diamond necklace" by Julius Cohen 1963. The original necklace features a huge pear-shaped brilliant cut fancy orange-brown diamond weighing 104.15 carats.

Via
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The Beading Gem's Journal

Wire Wrapping : Practice Makes Perfect

2008-07-22T19:45:00.002-03:00

Cindy is always learning and exploring new techniques. The last time I saw her was when she breezed in our workshop for only a short while because she and her sister were off to buy a torch to do some metal fusing!

But she also tries to improve her existing skills. This here is one of her practice pieces for perfecting her wire wrapping. Did she ever! The clear and very pale pastel crystals matched her outfit on the day I saw her.

The necklace was a variation of Embelished Bead Chain from Get Started Beading (Best of Bead & Button Magazine)

Beader Design #: 374
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The Beading Gem' Journal