Year 9 Jewellery Designs



Laser Cut Brooches

As part of the ‘Ocean’s Bounty’ project, the year 9s made these laser cut acrylic brooches.  Our school has a laser cutting machine which I’ve been learning how to use this year.  It is such a a fantastic resource to have in school, and there are so many ways to create things on it. 

The designs are essentially an acrylic sandwich: the top layer is the cut out design, in the middle are ‘Angelina Fibres’ and the bottom layer is a solid layer, which has a pin glued on the back.  The designs are based on the paper stained glass windows that the year 9s made (see here).  Before the students stuck the coloured tissue paper onto the black cut out designs, photographs were taken of the shilhouettes.  Using Word and 2D Design, the students chose a design for their brooch, by manipulating the photograph of their paper design.  Students also enjoyed making the Angelina fibres – a really simple and effective material.  Everything was then glued together to make the final brooch.  The students finished these in December so they made really nice Christmas presents!

Here are some examples that I made...

 The design is cut out in acrylic on the laser cutting machine, and a solid piece is cut out for the backing.

 The Angelina Fibres are cut to the exact size of thebrooch.

Everything is glued together.

The finished brooch.  This is one of the student's designs that I used to make an example, you might recognize it from one of the photos above.

Textile Portraits

Students were asked to manipulate a photograph of themself and translate this into a textile piece as part of their GCSE coursework.

Students experimented with different techniques such as batik and tie-dye to make a background fabric. 

In Abu Dhabi we have lots of tailors and fabric shops, so I visited some of these and got bin bags full of fabric scraps.  In addition to this, we had lots of donations of old clothes, which have been chopped up and used.  The Art departments has boxes and boxes of fabric now!

We also incorporated use of the school’s laser cutting machine (I love it) to cut out lettering in different styles.  The fabric had been prepped before cutting, so had a glue surface on the back, and the letters were ironed on the surface.

To finish, students added embellishments, text and hand embroidery on top of their sewing machine work. 

Fabulous glasses!

Embroidered detail and buttons...

Numan used an actual shirt on his piece, I think it is really effective...

Beautiful hand embroidery...

 Hollie used real necklaces on her portrait...

I found these plastic frames in my room (I'm always finding random things) and they fitted perfectly onto Gemma's portrait of her grandpa. 

 The other person in the portrait is her grandmother...

 Lucy experimented with the different stitch settings on the sewing machine, which she used for detail in her hair.  She has also added some lovely beaded freckles...

 Andrew was incredibly neat with his embroidery...

On display in the school's atrium...