Pinwheels

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've had the privilege of posting on EE, but am happy to say I will be showing up with a post here and there!

These fun earrings were created from lampwork headpins by the talented and lovely Jen Cameron of Glass Addictions.  I layered them onto brass flowers that I torch-fire enameled with bright colors and then wired them onto textured copper ovals.

Even though they are securely attached, they have just enough slack so that the flowers twirl around...sort of like a pinwheel or a whirligig!  Remember these cute little toys?  As a kid, I used to get plastic ones that had little candies in the stem.   I would stick them out the window of the car to let them twirl in the wind as we drove home from the store...much to my mother's disapproval!

From livingtheswelllife.com via Pinterest!

They are so fun....I will be putting them in my shop later today, and will be creating more, since I had the opportunity to snag more of of Jen's gorgeous headpins at BeadFest last weekend!

A sweet bouquet of lampwork headpins by Jen Cameron and Sue Kennedy!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Rustic Moon Face Earrings

 Inspired by soulful days spent inward, creating and humming along to Anugama - Shamanic Journey. Dancing around the room, eating chocolate sort of days. Carefree and filled with Peace days. 

Yeah, I had a really nice today, and did all those things. 

My offering this week was born of today's soulfulness. 

 Hand carved (bone) moon faces from Indonesia. Found at a wonderful bead shop in Seattle called Alexanders. A small totem of beads dangle below. Including tiny white porcelain and Czech glass, wrapped in dark oxidized copper wire. 

The hoops are hand fused and forged pure copper with a dark oxidized patina. 

Sterling silver handcrafted ear wires, also oxidized for a rustic, aged look. 

I imagine these earrings going with something like this outfit from Gaia Conceptions...

gaiaconceptions on Etsy

"handmade organic apparel"

☮ Cindy 
Art & Soul Jewelry

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Last Days of Summer

Tomorrow is my birthday, and it's always a little bitter sweet for me. 

I enjoy the celebrations, but it also reminds me that Summer is sadly fading away.

When I was a child, it meant that I'd be starting school the following week

and that my days at the beach were coming to an end.

Inspired by what this week has meant for me for nearly half a century,

I've created this set on Polyvore, to go with my earrings

I just LOVE this dress, don't you?

Boho Beach by nathalie-lesage featuring a glitter lipstick

The earrings I've made are simple 'stick' earrings with mixed metal

and features a pair of gorgeous 'blue jeans' color Topaz gemstones:

I wanted to capture the simplicity and breezy airy feeling of the beach,

and some of the geometric lines found in the dress and sandals.

The gorgeous slightly muted blue shade of these faceted Topaz gemstones

captures the sun and some of the colors in the sundress :)

 

I think that mixing metals is my favorite thing to do... 

You can find these earrings on my website.

Enjoy the end of Summer while it lasts!

Nathalie Lesage

Metalsmith, Jewelry Artist

http://www.NathalieLesageJewelry.com

 

Santa Fe Stones

I love these rustic spiral ceramic beads by Jana of Happy Fish Things! If you haven't checked out her Etsy shop, you should...you won't be disappointed. I paired them with red coral beads and turquoise heishi beads and Vintaj ear wires of course! The colors reminded me of the Southwest.

I think they would look great with this outfit.

 

Southwest Style by kristyabner featuring a red shirt


These earrings are available HERE on my website

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!

Kristy Abner
Kristy's Kreations
 

Another story

Spikes again from me this week - or one spike, at least.

I'm rather fond of this pair. I've teamed a stray Scorched Earth spike, finished beautifully with a cap of fine silver, with a Ragged Robyn connector.  The connector was one of a pair and I was reluctant to split them up but when this design came to mind I couldn't resist the combination.  I've added in some freshwater pearls and a lovely, glow-y drop of rainbow-coated quartz.  

They are almost bridal, but unconventionally so.  They've also got a bit of a winter-y feel, but so has the air here in Somerset of late, so they don't feel too out of season. 

They're available here in my Etsy shop.

Bye for now, Claire

(something to do with your hands)

Stacked

It seems so simple - making a stack of something. We make piles and stacks of things all the time in our everyday lives - bills, shoes, sandwiches, dishes, folded clothes, the list goes on. Yawn. Boring.

Now talk about making jewelry stacks and you've got my attention. I've been loving stacked earrings lately, both vertical and front-facing. It's an exercise in graduated size, texture, color, and medium. I love to mix ceramics, glass, stone, textiles, shells...you name it.

 

Here's an sweet little pair I listed last week that plays with all of these different elements. Two reptilian ceramic discs from Petra at ScorchedEarthonEtsy serve as the base, and I've layered them with art nouveau steel PMC washers from Kiyoi Design as well as crusty little shards of violet Roman glass and flashy raw moonstone nuggets. 

I love how the garish chartreuse olive yellow-green of the ceramic base contrasts with the eggplant purple of the Roman glass and the ultraviolet flashes in the moonstones. Olive and violet - a weird color combo I've been stuck on lately. 


OK girls, now get stackin'!

Happy Wednesday :)

Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Maricopa Point

Southwestern Cross Earrings

I love the southwest! How can a person get to be my age and have never seen the Grand Canyon? I don't know, but it's true. So this year my husband and I traveled to some spots that I somehow have missed along the way. It mas May and still mercifully cool the day we drove from Las Vegas to the south rim of the canyon. One of the vistas on the southwest side of the canyon is called Maricopa Point. A beautiful name for a beautiful spot, but I was curious as to its origin. As it turns out the Maricopa are a native tribe that once lived in this area, along the Colorado River.

Our trip inspired me to design three collections, these earrings are from my Maricopa Point Collection. My first collection was called Joshua Tree, and a future one will be named for the eastern entry to Yosemite called Tioga Pass.

Maricopa pottery is still well known in the southwest. One of its characteristics is the distinctive reds and ochre, much like the colors of the Grand Canyon. This beautiful piece is from Andrea Fisher.

My native Maricopa inspired earrings focus around white copper southwestern crosses from Kristi Bowman, to which I have added colorful Czech beads for that tribal look and rustic copper accents and ear wires. Mixed metals make them more primitive looking, and I like the contrast it adds as well.







Gloria Ewing
Chrysalis Too on Etsy
Chrysalis Jewelry on Artfire

Cairn

I love seeing rocks stacked one on top of the other and I love to stack beads!

I recently got a strand of little Ostrich Egg Shell discs from a bead store I visited in Reno so of course I had to try stacking them and I love the look!

I really love these bright Faceted Candy Jade and they were the first pair I made.

A friend came over to visit and bought the first pair of these I made but I liked them so much I made another and I'm going to make some for myself too!!

It was fun to go through my stash and see what beads looked good with the stacked shell.

Red Coral, Carved Picture Jasper Leaves and Candy Jade.

Source

Some of you may know how much I like birds,
 so I just had to share this Cairn I found with a bird perched on top!
Love it!

Kristi

KristiBowmanDesign.com

KristiBowmanDesign.Etsy

We're All Ears :: August Reveal

These stunning sculptures by artist Gabriel Dawe seem so dreamlike to me. I love the linear quality of both the kaleidoscopic threads and the railings of the stairs. The overlapping colors look like they are floating in the air, like when you see those dust motes drifting in the air currents of a sunbeam.

For my earrings I found a stash of some Swarovski crystal briolettes in a rainbow of colors that were left over from a wedding I did in February. I love briolettes but finding a way to connect them always irks me. I usually resort to a thin gauge double wire wrap at the top, but that would feel too heavy for this inspiration. So I devised a new way to hang briolettes using beading wire and crimps. I like that you can see the entire top of the bead and they almost seem to float.

Here is a bonus step-by-step showing how I created the briolette connectors:

Since I wasn't making one pair of earrings in all the colors, I decided that I would make a series of them in a variety of colors. I even tried them in silver with a clear crystal. I see the beginnings of a collection happening here!

I like my earrings long with movement and texture. These certainly fit the bill and are something I would wear with every outfit every single day!

I couldn't come up with a name for them. Plum out of ideas. Any thoughts?

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Pointed -

As I'm sure I've said before, I do like a spiky bead. I also like a bead that looks ... hmmm, what's the word?  Weathered? Aged?  Moreover, I have a little inner goth that can't resist a bit of black and red.

So, I'm rather fond of this pair of earrings. I think the seller of these glass beads described them as 'distressed'. I love them. This isn't a new pair of earrings; they've been in my shop for a little while, but there's a serious danger that they're going to find their way into my ears soon. If you'd like them for yourself - and, please, do stop me! - they're available here.

Bye for now, Claire

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Sea Foam Earrings

As you may know, I've recently begun making ceramic jewelry components, in addition to finished jewelry.  So I thought it would be fun to make a pair of earrings for today's post, using some of my components, in addition to some gorgeous lampwork glass from Out West.

I'm writing this very late at night, or rather early morning.  I was gone for much of the day and then spent the afternoon glazing some last minute ceramic components in preparation for Bead Fest next week.  Later in the evening I picked up a friend from the airport and didn't get back home till nearly 2:00 a.m.  Yawn!

I made the earrings after dinner, but didn't have time to photograph them or write this post till I got back from the airport.  So if this post is rambling or incoherent, please forgive me.  It is now past 3:00 a.m.

I am really loving creating with clay and I will be offering a selection of my ceramic components at Bead Fest next week.  I'm grateful to Jennifer Cameron for sharing a bit of her lampwork glass booth with me at Bead Fest.  Stop by booth 473A and say hello! 

-Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

Rustic Silver Flowers with Ruby Spinel

A few posts back I posed the question - what do you pick out first the jewelry or the outfit? I got mixed responses. My conclusion? It is totally an individual choice! Same goes for earrings and necklaces, I suppose. You find one you like and try to match another piece to it, yes? 

These earrings actually came after the necklace. And the necklace became something completely different than what I started from. 

Either way, I am very pleased with the end result. 

Again, these components came together like magnets! You may have experienced this yourself.. you get on a roll and light bulbs start going off in your head like explosions of inspiration!

The charms are sterling silver disks that went through he rolling mill, pressed with bits of flower rick-rack. The flowers left a lovely embossed impression on the silver. It reminds me of rustic tin... although I hesitate to compare sterling to tin.

They are framed in fine silver hoops that were hammered with a dotted texture. 

And then finally adorned with ruby and pale rose colored Spinel gemstones. Absolutely a gorgeous array of colors in these little faceted stones. I can hardly believe they lasted in my bead drawer as long as they did!

I was able to achieve a nice big loop on my ear wires so it almost looks like a tiny hoop. 

Farewell summer... hello autumn... Rustic Silver Flower Earrings. 

☮ Cindy 

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August Flowers

The month of August is the month of my birthday, and what I love most about this month is the sight of the mature greenery and all the flowers in bloom. I love to stroll and take in all the gorgeous flowers that I see in all the gardens, as well as the wild flowers that bring a touch of colors sometimes in unsuspected places...

I absolutely had to make a pair of earrings to represent August Flowers:

I made a pair of .999 Fine Silver hoops on which I have wire wrapped some stunning Fancy Cut (faceted kite shaped) Tsavorite Garnets, AAA micro-faceted lilac amethyst gemstones and gorgeous berrilicious Pyrope Garnets.

I have also added some sun-catching faceted sterling silver beads near the top, and stamped a small leaf under the wrapped area.

All handmade from scratch, including the .925 sterling silver ear wires... these are my August Flowers earrings.

I wish you all a great remainder of August... enjoy the flowers while we still have them. Winter will be coming too fast.

Nathalie Lesage

Metalsmith, Jewelry Artist

http://www.NathalieLesageJewelry.com

Sun King

 I always have my iPod on while I am in my studio creating and I had to laugh while creating these because The Beatles, 'Sun King' came on and I immediately thought to myself, "That's the name!". Love when the happens because often times I struggle with a name. A few months ago, my mom was going through old jewelry to donate or throw away and these sun charms were on a pair of earrings so I scooped them up and now I'm glad I did. Recycled into these beauties. The lovely ceramic drops are by Happy Fish Things . Have I mentioned how much I love Jana's work? It's lovely, you should definitely check out her Etsy shop.

 

You will find these earrings for sale HERE.

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous weekend!

Kristy Abner

Kristy's Kreations

 

You Stud, You

A little tongue-in-cheek homage to my first pair of stud/post earrings - what took me so long? 

I guess I have always gravitated to longer more dangly earrings because you can add so many bits and pieces to them - a small collection of parts that come together to make a provocative whole. Post earrings, however, are an exercise in minimalism that can go horribly boring if not executed well. Plus, I just hadn't taken the time with my metalworking to hone in on the details necessary to make a wearable set of posts. 

So last week when I was in Austin, Texas visiting my brother and sister-in-law, they took me to Nature's Treasures, a fantastical rock shop. I think we spent about three hours in the store - me working myself up into a frothy lather while pawing through bins of crystals, fossils, and rocks. It wasn't pretty, but my haul sure was. When I saw these little cross-section coins of petrified wood branches, I knew I had to have them. A split second later, I knew that I was going to have to make them into earring studs. As soon as we set foot back home, I made a beeline to the studio and worked these babies up. Who wants to unpack when there's art to be made?

Primitive organic post-punk wicked faux-gauge-looking little devils - these will serve as a prototype for many pairs to come. In the meantime, I think I'll keep them for myself - you know, for research's sake...*cough*

Hope everyone has a great week :)

Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Earth Maiden

Woodstock Earrings

A bit of a flashback to the late 60s, these fringe earrings would have fit right in at Woodstock or Monterrey. Earth Maiden is just my idea of a potential Earth Mother figure, who is still being groomed for the position, sort of an apprentice type situation. You can almost smell the green meadow where dancers twirl about in a carefree frenzy, until the next morning when they wake up dehydrated, sunburned and covered with insect bites. Earth Mother and Earth Maiden will be there to nurture the wayward souls.

These earrings started out with the turquoise deerskin lace and the darkened copper ring and grew from there. I added nylon cord in blue and green, and the seed beads in chartreuse and turquoise with accents of African red orange seed beads, resulting in a tribal Bohemian fringe design. I make the ear wires from 19 gauge copper wire and oxidize them for that primitive look that is characteristic of my work.



Gloria Ewing
Chrysalis Jewelry on Artfire
Chrysalis Too on Etsy

Fall Flowers

I've been playing with different color combination on my Polymer Clay Hibiscus Flowers lately and this pair are a perfect match with some of the Beaded Beads I have from Kristen Stevens!!

They make a beautiful pair of Autumnal Earrings.
I know it's too soon to be thinking about Fall but it's coming up faster than I would like!

These earrings are available to purchase HERE in my shop!

Kristi

KristiBowmanDesign.com

KristiBowmanDesign.Etsy