More about Sources of Inspiration

Anything can become a source of inspiration for design. It can be a color, texture, shape, abstract, realisitc, organic or man-made. I am fortunate that my daughter works in an old fashioned sweet shop and looking at the many jars of sweets, stacked in rows, is a great source of inspiration (not to mention the delight in eating them).
The colours of these licorice torpedoes make them so appealing to the eye. The combination of their glassy look and synthetic colours were the inspiration behind this glass candy dish. Fortunately, Bullseye makes opaque glass that reflect the artificial brightness of this candy and placing the different coloured glass squares together was great fun.

I'm not a big fan of candy - I prefer chocolate myself but I am rather fond of licorice. Again the bright colors of Licorice Allsorts proved to be a source of inspiration, particularly as each bright color is bisected with black.

I have attempted to make these Allsorts cufflinks slightly more sophisticated by using deeper or more subtle colors than those in the candy, including turquoise blue, red, vanilla and soft blue. I hope that the "fun" element in the design hasn't been lost in translation. I really like these cufflinks and they look great on a white dress shirt. The studs are silver plated.

Finally, this dish is again inspired by candy but the colours are slightly different. Instead of opaque glass I have fused transparent glass onto white. By separating each coloured glass piece with a tile of white I prevent muddy colour combinations occuring. As transparent glass is see-through (obviously) it is going to reflect the colour underneath. Without the white tiles the amber glass fused to green would make a nasty brown, the turquoise on the amber glass would make a dirty green.

All this glass is available for sale at my Etsy Shop.