ArtFire

This Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Necklace is an original handmade design featuring three green beads that are appliqued with a wide variety of bright and cheerful images including butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs, tropical flowers.

The beads measure 1 1/8 inch (26 mm) diameter beads on a 20 inch (51cm) silky green rayon cord with a 2 inch (5cm) necklace extender. Length can be customized if requested.

Though the beads were originally inspired by highly glazed Mexican Talavera pottery and are often mistaken for fine Italian glass, the beads and all the tiny, intricate designs are painstakingly crafted by hand from artist-quality polymer clay. The beads are decorated with studio-made clay canes that are sliced wafer thin and appliquéd onto to the bead base, one piece at a time, using liquid polymer clay to adhere them. Some of the tiny details are painted on with tinted liquid polymer clay.

Caning is a labor-intensive construction technique borrowed from glass making similar to making jellyrolls where colored rods of clay are laid horizontally forming a complex pattern from which a thin slice is cut allowing the pattern to be seen.

It is shipped in a white cotton-filled gift box tied with a cheery bow and placed within a padded mailer.

I remember the joy and excitement of the fiestas that I experienced as a child and wanted to capture that feeling in faux glazed pottery bead necklace to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

polymer clay, liquid polymer clay