Designing with constraints

One of the exchange groups I belonged to would send out an item which everyone who choose to participate had to use in making an ornament.  I enjoyed these challenges as there were times I would never had used the item(s).  I had in the past done similar challenges in jewelry where everyone would receive a bag of beads which had to be used.  The first came in the school year of 1977-8, when Rezunit® came out with the cone shaped air freshener.  They had a national contest open to high school students to use the cone to create something “Christmassy”.  The design which I submitted was turned the cone into a tree but using seeds, pods and spices.  The final piece had anise stars, cloves, cinnamon bark, sweet-gum balls, cardamom and cumin seeds.  Various shades of browns, but smelled of cookies and pies.  It took First Place.  Being limited to what you can and cannot use can be liberating, forcing you to think outside the normal,

In 2012, one of the challenges was to create and ornament using a compact disc.  I thought several days when I was looking through a scroll saw magazine and found some scroll saw ornaments.  Using one of the patterns as inspiration I called a friend and asked if I could send him a design to cut on his industrial laser.  I knew I wanted to ‘sandwich’ a piece of color between 2 CDs to create a ‘stained-glass window’.  After cutting the surface, I turned the next CD over to cut from the reverse.  I cut several pieces as I wasn’t sure how the final piece would look.

Two CDs are glued together with a piece of red lighting film sandwiched between.  To continue with the dilver reflectiveness, a silver-toned chain and jump-ring were used as a hanger.