A bangle making experiment

After my recent vacation at Jaipur, and having been floored by all the art there, I decided to try my hand at making stone studded bangles..similar to the lac bangles.


Here are the materials I started with

1. Steel wire (you'd get this in the local hardware shops - in different thickness, and in large rolls - you can buy as much/ as little as you want)
2. Glass stones ( I used the ones left over from my Tanjore painting stash ! You can also use beads, mirror etc)
3. Fevicol
4. Shilpkar
5. Chalk powder or talcum powder
6. Hobby art acrylic paints ( i used pearl metallic colors for the shine - you may use any variants)
7. Brushes, bowl, water etc to paint !
8. Tools to cut and bend steel wire


Bend the steel wire to make a circle of desired diameter. (In my haste, I didn't bother making a perfect circle, but I suggest that you do ! ) You can roll it around a cylindrical object in your house ( a bottle, may be). Use a cutter/ plier to bend it. Tie up the two ends. In mine I wanted this to have a 'kangan' look so I joined the ends slightly thicker.


Now knead the shilpkar (I used about half a packet for this bangle)



Roll it like an earthworm, place the steel bangle and fold the shilkar around the steel wire. You may choose to use make the shilpkar clay layer flatter or rounder.


Use chalk powder/ talcum powder to smoothen Shilpkar. This will remove the creases, folds and fingerprints.


Now decide on the placement of your stones. Put a drop of fevicol wherever you want to place the stones. Press down the stone into the shilpkar.


Let this dry and harden (overnight)


Now you can paint with colors of your choice. I have given 2 coats of paint. Paint is likely to get on your stones too. You can finally clean them up by scrapping with a needle or safety pin.



Let the paint dry, and the bangle is ready to wear !

Try this and let me know how your experiments went !