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Design

Myceligem

The Myceligem Jewelry Tree is designed to hold up to 78 pairs of earrings and 48 necklaces, with allotted space for bracelets at the top. This item is inspired by the organic form of fungi.

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Project Documentation

I identified that I have a lot of jewelry that I keep in a box. This, in turn, led to sets becoming separated, entangled and I spend a lot of time digging through trying to find the piece I wanted. I started doing research into alternate jewelry storage devices and found jewelry trees to be visually pleasing and straightforward. However, I found the forms very similar and uninspired, so I wanted to develop one that better matched my personal style.

  • Inspiration Moodboard

I first made an inspiration moodboard in order to develop the mode of construction and type of form I wished to pursue. I personally find fungi to be interesting, and many different forms of jewelry trees already exist so I wanted to do something different from the norm for this type of product.

I then did some quick sketches of various types of mushrooms and tried to determine which key features of each and which aspects of them I wanted to incorporate into my design.

  • Initial form
  • Form offset
  • Earring hole addition
  • Initial Assembly

I took the forms I explored in my sketches and used them to develop an outline for the holder in Solidworks. I primarily utilized the spline tool to manipulate the general outline until I was happy with the dimensions and form factor. I then added all the necessary features and radially mirrored the part to make the main part of the holder.

  • Initial Growths
  • Radial symmetry
  • Assembly 2

I then made a base for the top part of the holder to slot into, which I based off of lichens. I radially mirrored these roots and updated the assembly.

  • Capture Ring
  • Final Assembly

To counteract weight and stabilize the top part of the assembly, I added a captive ring to resist the bending stresses on the individual members.

  • Final Rendering

I then rendered the final assembly and generated DXF files for each component so I could cut them out.

  • Outline DXF
  • Base DXF
  • Captive ring DXF
  • Laser cutting software
  • Laser cutter in action
  • Several test cuts and failed cuts
  • Majority of pieces for assembly

I utilized a Rabbit laser cutter and did a lot of test cuts in order to get the correct settings so the pieces would have clean cuts and no burn marks. I then cut out 12 outline members, 3 bases, and 1 captive ring.

  • Post assembly

I used a mixture of heat bonding and acrylic epoxy to assemble the final piece. To do so, I stacked the bases and epoxied them together, then slotted each outline into its slot and epoxied them into place. I found that for the top captive ring, there was not enough surface area for the epoxy to bond properly, so I used a heat torch to melt the pieces together.