The first jewelry project is “Scrabble Tile Jewelry.” I had never heard of this type of jewelry before, but I am amazed at how creative and beautiful the examples are! It all starts with little wooden tiles—basically the size of Scrabble letter tiles. Ms. Burns provides the students with pre-made wooden tiles—20 or so depending on the piece of jewelry being made. The wooden tiles are unfinished. The students begin by drilling holes and sanding their given tiles. The holes are used for stringing wire and threading beads in-between each tile.

The design element of color is used when choosing their beads. We had the students focus on designing a color palette for their identity. They are to use this palette, with some slight variation, throughout the semester. As you can see from the picture below, this student’s color palette is red, white and blue. The student is also using metric rhythm and pattern to help create a flow from tile to tile. It will be interesting to see where this project goes as it develops.

Once the structure is built then the design continues. They will apply other parts of their identity to the tiles by way of images and more color by painting the tiles’ sides and sealing them with a clear gel.

Scrabble Tile structure