Worried Paper Art Jewelry Won’t Last? Au Contraire, My Friend…

Do you love paper art jewelry, washi paper beads, and origami jewelry, but hesitate to buy them because you’re afraid they won’t last?   No need to worry, if you buy from Paper Demon Jewelry.   At PDJ our biggest goal, aside from creating *beautiful* jewelry, is to create *lasting* jewelry.

I am hard on my jewelry.  I sleep in it, drop it into the bottom of my purse, squish it into suitcases…  so, I am determined to create and sell only jewelry that stands up to the abuse it would get at my own hands.

Shoji Chokers, New This Week at PDJ on Etsy.

Take the Shoji Chokers, new this week at our Etsy shop.  These are the product of years of experimentation (following on years of jewelry making and washi craft experience) to be as durable as any piece of jewelry you can buy.

The key is the polymer sealer.  It’s waterproof, so it protects the jewelry against the skin on one side, and against the elements on the other.

But since the polymer sealer can’t be applied directly to washi,  there are even more layers of other sealers underneath. It’s taken years to learn which sealers work, and in what order!    And before the sealers can be applied, the metal has to be prepped, and the washi adhered to it.   Our glue comes specially from Germany, and our sealers come from the Netherlands!  The whole process is a closely guarded PDJ trade secret!!

Right now we’re in the process of switching over to all-green sealers.  We’ll let you know how that turns out soon.

The great thing about all these layers is that each one deepens the colors of the washi and draws out its organic, fibery texture in different ways.  They also interact with the metal in interesting ways, sometimes oxidizing it, sometimes lightening it…  all part of the artistic process!

The end result, a lush, saturated, glossy jewel, glowing with color, feather light, and ready for any weather or wear.

Check them out at PDJ.

(I recommend that Paper Demon Jewelry paper art jewelry not be worn in the shower or swimming.  Chlorine, salt water, and things like that are not the friends of any fine jewelry.)

 

ReArt Challenge: Take Out the Trash (and Make it Beautiful!)

Re-Use is the New Recycle!  That is the motto of Next Step Recycling, a leader in the reuse movement in Eugene, and the motivation behind their second annual Eugene ReArt Festival , coming up August 6.  The ReArt Festival is an awesome arts and crafts festival devoted entirely to recycled art.  Everything at the festival needs to be at least 75% made of recycled materials.  And by recycled, they mean, actually destined for the trash heap.

Since the Paper Demon is going to have a booth there, she needs to get her act together and start pumping out recycled jewelry!

She had a plan but needed materials.  So, today wonderful partner and I took a trip to MECCA (where else), and I got everything I needed.  I came home and created a beautiful piece of jewelry in almost no time at all.

100% Recycled Paper Art Pendant

I don’t have time to post a tutorial right now, because I also need to create 75 of these for swag bags at a Green Beauty event in San Diego next month.  But I’m going to share my photos of the process in the hopes they inspire someone else to grab something really really old and ugly, cut it apart, repurpose it, and transform it into something beautiful.

A skanky cable bundle and a bread bag full of paper scraps

Noticing the nice soft wire inside the skanky cable bundle

Use a mat knife to cut open and remove the rubber cable cover

unwinding some of the wire

shape and hammer flat a beautiful shape. For me, it's spirals. I burnished for shine.

Attach paper scraps

coat with gel medium. let it dry. Appreciate.

hang on recycled cord. Voila!

 

Newest Pieces in the Paper Demon Etsy Store

I’ve been making jewelry like mad, trying to get ready for the opening of Eugene’s 5th Street Market Artisan’s Market.   It’s supposed to open in July, so they say, and I need inventory!   Bit by bit, it’s making it onto the Paper Demon Etsy store too.

I am still obsessed with washi and wire!  But now I’m exploring solid colors.

Solid blues and whites:

LoveBubbles Robin’s Egg Blue

Gradations of orange:

YuzuCocktail Washi and Copper Choker

Contrasts of deep jewel tones like purple, orange and green.

LuciousFruits Washi and Copper Wire Earrings

And contrasts of the palest blues and greens:

AfterTheRain Choker

It’s so vivid!  Where else can you find jewely in colors like this?   Sure, you can find swarovski crystals in every color of the rainbow.  But that’s all about the glitz (nothing wrong with the glitz, I’m just sayin’).  My biggest problem–i can’t make them fast enough to try out all the colors I want!

 

Finding Beauty in the Blending

I live a blended life.  It’s assembled from many parts.  We have a blended family–the kids, their bonus mom, and me, plus the rabbit who thinks she’s a dog.  There’s our  bonus extended family in Oregon and then my extended family in Florida and Pittsburgh, and the kids’ family in Japan.  My kids have two homes, one in Illinois, one in Oregon, one all Japanese, one mostly American but with a big dash of Japanese thrown in.  They have an lgbt family and a straight family, go to a Japanese immersion school in Oregon, and a Japanese school in Japan over the summer.  But we love the 4th of July and go all out for parades and fireworks (realized I’m a bit of a pyro when i found myself crossing the Indiana state line to get illegal fireworks last summer)

COTTON CANDYCOUNTY FAIR IN WASHI

LGBT Love in Washi

the Oregon Coast in Washi and Wire

All of these parts come together in my jewelry—the Japan part, the American part, the lgbt part, the 4th of July fireworks, the Oregon Coast…. The rabbit will be in there one of these days; just haven’t figured out how yet.

This week I made these:  CottonCandy SpunSugar Washi and Copper Spirals.  Using fine handmade Japanese washi in honor of county fairs and the joys of an American summer.   Why not?  The beauty is in the blending!

 

Summer Loveliness

It’s graduation season and tomorrow my daughter Miyako graduates from 5th grade!  I’m so proud of her, but sad that she’ll be saying goodbye to her wonderful Japanese immersion elementary school 😦

The kids at the immersion school wear yukata (cotton summer kimono) for graduation!  Luckily, we have a few lovely yukata and obi (sashes) that I’ve been picking up over the years in Japan, and now Miyako is big enough to wear one.   It took three tries to get all the parts on right!  Underneath that obi are 4 (four) layers of specialized waist wraps that you have to use to get the “right” kimono sillhouette.   I can’t believe how lovely she looks.

After we got it all on, we decided it just needed something ‘extra’.  It needed that little Paper Demon touch.  So, we decided to design and create an obi ornament.  Traditionally Japanese people wore netsuke ornaments of ivory hanging from the sashes of their kimonos.  Japanese girls today wear all kinds of sweet, original little doo-dads when they go out in yukata for summer festivals.

After much discussion, and debating the merits of tiny koi fish, sakura flowers, and bunnies, we finally settled on these cube shaped acrylic beads that have yukata fabric encased inside them.   I got them last summer at a very special tiny specialty shop in the ancient city of Kamakura, courtesy of a local friend who had scouted out the store for me ahead of time (thanks Yuki!)  I like to make earrings out of these, but I have to admit, they look awfully good as what they were made for—-yukata ornaments.  Maybe I’ll try adapting the idea in a pin!   What do you think? Would you wear it?

 

Washi Stained Glass Jewelry

One of the most wonderful things about washi paper is its combination of strength and delicacy.  The mulberry, hemp, and other fibers that it’s made from make it like fabric—it can be molded, sculpted, folded, wrapped and manipulated like fabric, without losing its wonderful color and shape.

At the same time, there is nothing as fine, as delicate, as washi.  That’s why it’s used by so many interior designers for lighting.  It is always translucent, and light passes through it with a soft glow.

SeaSpiral Washi and Copper Wire Pendant

My latest experiments in jewelry are inspired by these qualities of washi.  Patterned washi is made by superimposing a gossamer thin color/pattern layer over a slightly heavier fiber layer.  I’ve been developing a new method to separate these two layers, and then **ever so delicately** transferring the color layer onto a wire structure, to make a kind of stained glass piece.  My first finished piece is called “SeaSpiral”—it’s inspired by the colors of the rocky sand of the Oregon coast.I love that it’s translucent like stained glass.

Light shining through washi stained glass

There is only one kind of washi paper that can be used for this technique–chirimen washi, which is the most fabric like of all washi.    I also love to use the tissue-like Unryu washi as well, but that is always in solid colors.  The cool thing about chirimen washi is that it comes in amazing patterns.

Some examples of chirimen washi

Looks like I need to pick up more of this on my next trip to Japan!

 

Pushing the Limits of Paper Jewelry Art

I recently discovered the paper jewelry art of Ana Hagopian.  It blew my mind, and changed the whole landscape of the paper jewelry ‘enterprise’ for me.

Some of the paper jewelry art of Ana Hagopian

This stuff is not about pretty little origami earrings, as nice as those are.  This is wearable sculptural art that draws out the integral qualities of handmade paper (I think she makes her own, but it seems similar to Japanese washi in fiber texture) and explores the limits of paper worn on the body.

There are so many technical issues involved in getting paper to make those berry shapes, for instance, and hold that shape while being worn on a warm body,that I can’t even begin to comprehend how she does it.  But her work inspired me to go back to a project I’ve been playing with for a couple months, which is abstract shape paper jewelry.

"GlowWings" -an experiment in sculptural washi paper jewelry

I started exploring a few ideas this week, and am pleased with the results. I like how the spidery fibers of the washi are echoed by the delicacy of each individual vintage burnished copper and gold embroidery filament.

The quality of paper that I like, even more than the colors, is the translucency.  I’m drawn to making jewelry as thin and gossamer-like as possible–the challenge is, keeping it wearable!  The irony is not lost on me that I, who sleeps and showers in the same pair of earrings for weeks on end, am the one dedicated to fragility as beauty.

 

Some New PaperDemon Paper Jewelry Creations

Neo-Corsage--Pink

Washi paper art bracelet

washi and vintage bamboo necklace

My family and I made it back to Oregon!  We’ve been here in Eugene since January, and now that we’re settled, I’m embarking on my new career:  full time paper jewelry artist!  I’ve lined up a job selling full time at a new artisans market at a local high-end boutique mall, and have revved up my Etsy site.  I’m loving making my jewelry and art full time.

Paper jewelry is hot right now, but it seems like most people are doing versions of the same thing—decoupage beads or altered art collage.  These are both great, but there is so much more you can do with paper when you’re working with washi, which is like  paper and fabric combined.  The thing about washi is, you can sculpt it.  That’s what I want to do with my jewelry—transform gorgeous washi into even more gorgeous 3-D sculptural art.   Every day I’m getting new pieces up on Etsy—visit my site at www. paperdemonjewelry.etsy.com!!!!