Yearning for India

When I think of India I can see bright colors popping up everywhere, I can feel the soft fabric of saris, I can smell and taste the delicious Indian food. And I yearn. I long. I want to go back.
Instead I browse through my pictures of India and try to capture a bit of India in my jewelry.

These handmade copper dangles from Kristi Bowman have just the right colors, shape and texture for that purpose. Together with lampwork glass beads in matching teal from Lampwork by Amy, vintage Lucite beads and enameled bead caps, Swarovski crystal and handmade ear wires from Faerystones, and voila, a bit of Bollywood bling. I can pretend I’m back.

Now available in my etsy shop 

Thanks for looking!

Wishing you a wonderful day,

Janine

Esfera Jewelry

My etsy shop

My website/blog

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Weaver of the Web ☼

Hello everyone, my name is Lynn Ferro and this is my very first post!  I cannot tell you how thrilled I'am to be included in this blog, sharing my work with some of the most talented creators I know.  I have been creating and selling since 2007 and currently have a shop on Etsy named Yucca Bloom ☼

I find it most appropriate with my first post coming right before Halloween to show off my spider web earrings.  I purchased these connectors from Petra Carpreau of Scorched Earth on Etsy back in March, 2015.  I instantly fell in love with their unique look, but struggled immensely with a great design.  It all came to light looking back at some photos of tiny spider webs formed in the corners of a bridge handrail.  I did my best to weave my own web with glass seed bead droplets. I think they turned out pretty sweet, don't you?

Amazing how nature can have such an impact in your designs, I plan to do it more often ♥

As the weaver of the web, the spider symbolizes the spirit of creation and is associated with female creative energy.

Sounds like were all tiny spiders in our own weaving way♥


Thanks for stopping by, leave me some comments and we'll see you again soon.

my Etsy Shop
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Drilling Sea Glass for Jewelry

Drilling glass is something I thought I would never do. Never wanted to do, never thought I could do. But after collecting a sizable amount of sea glass I decided it was probably in my best interest to learn.

I looked online and found some articles. There is a  lot of information on the Internet. However, it never hurts to get a new perspective. So, this is my take on it. I've been asked many times about drilling glass and how to go about it.

For my work, I use a drill press. I have it set up in the garage. There are other ways to drill and I wont talk about them here because I have no experience with any other way.

Please note this is not so much a tutorial but rather a brief pictorial with explanation of my experience and helpful hints for those who want to give it go or just have some curiosity of how it's done. 

Diamond Twist Drill Bits from Rio Grande

What you'll need:

Drill Press (or other means to drill)

Diamond Drill Bits

Safety Glasses

Pencil

Sea Glass

Shallow Bowl with Water

Rubber Puck

Towel

Good Lighting

I have a variety of diamond drill bits to use for my glass. The kind I use, and have had the best luck with are these diamond twist drill bits from Rio Grande. They can be purchased online through their website or catalog. Nice, high quality bits manufactured in Switzerland. I use a variety of sizes from 1.3 to 2mm.

I use a pencil to mark the glass where I am going to drill. Once the glass is underwater, your perspective will be distorted. You will need that dot to guide you. Once under water the pencil dot will be silvery shiny and easy to spot.

Safety glasses are a MUST. 

This is my set up. Messy, yeah, I know. It is a garage! 

And I share this space, so I will blame the mess on him. (evil grin)

In this photo you will see my FireStorm Drill Press by Black & Decker, a fire extinguisher (for other stuff) a small box of sea glass, some drill bit packs, a lamp, a plastic tray for water, a black rubber puck inside the tray, my glasses and a cup for filling the tray with water.

 Glass must be drilled under water to keep things cool.

The puck is great for holding the glass steady. And it's not going to hurt anything if you drill into it. I bought this years ago from http://www.metalliferous.com/ I am unsure if they are still for sale there. I've seen others use a block of wood.

 

 I position my bit so that it will come all the way to the puck. 

Place the glass and make sure it's completely submerged.

Before turning the drill press on, I will lower the shank to make sure the bit will hit my mark. If not, rearrange and move the glass till your pencil mark is directly centered with the bit.

 Every piece of glass is going to be different and you'll want to figure out the best way to hold yours. I find this method works best for me in most cases. I am able to hold the piece down and keep my figures out of harms way.

You only want to drill half way through the glass. This is a tricky part, not going too far. And it's really a matter of practice. Learning to ease off the pressure, and knowing when to stop. I have even found with a new drill bit and going super slow, I have been able to drill all the way through without having any blowout or breakage. I do no recommend it!

..........................

For best results, 

drill very slow, 

under water 

and only go half way through the glass.

Turn over.

..........

Dry your hands and glass off and hold your glass up to the light.

 

 I have a great set up here in the garage because of the large window, I get lots of natural light. I turn the glass over and hold it up to the window. I can see the hole as a black mark in the glass. Here I can mark the other side. I have found it best to find the hole this way so that your perceptive is not distorted. Mark the other side where you see the black dot with your pencil.

Again, position your glass and drill bit so they meet before turning on the machine. Once you find the pencil mark, hold the glass and turn on the machine. Again, carefully and very slowly pressing down. You'll feel it give way once it meets the hole on the other side. 

And finally holding it up to the window again I can see the hole is clean and has gone all the way through. Yeah! Success! 

I recommend beginning your practice on pieces that you don't so much care about. Maybe you'll get it on the first try and be a natural pro. Maybe not. Best to work on some ugly pieces first! 

Good luck and have fun! Let me know if you have any questions. I will answer as best I can. 

(as with all the earrings here on the EE blog, these are examples and all designs are copyright the original artists. Thank you!)  Here are some of my success stories... 

Sold

Sea Glass + Fine Silver Available@ Art and Soul Jewelry

Lady in red

 I’m not a full time jewelry designer. I wish I was but at this moment it’s not enough to pay the bills. So I need to plan my “play”days. Usually it’s on Sundays. When I’m in the flow, designs seem to happen without any effort. My fingers hardly can keep up with the ideas popping up in my head. On other Sundays my muse decides to take a day off. Creations made on a muse-less day sound like a sweet yet ordinary melody. Nothing wrong with it, but it just doesn’t sing. It’s missing drums, guitars, back vocals.

For my interview with Lucy Haslam of Faerystones beginning of this year I made some give-away earrings for readers to win.

I was only able to make something at the last minute. And just at that moment my muse decided to party somewhere else. Nice. NOT.
I managed to make a couple of earrings. For this pair I used some beautiful porcelain drops from Petra Carpreau of Scorched Earth on Etsy. Normally my go-to beads to coax my muse out of the closet. I combined them with some Greek ceramic as well as brass washers, red lampwork beads from Amy of Lampwork by Amy and handmade ear wires from Lucy. They turned out ok but not amazing or stunning, let alone breathtaking or sensational. Not that I see myself as a designer making breathtaking designs, no, I’m still far away from that stage. Hopefully one day. But you get my drift. It was missing pizzazz. So it sat in my work-in-progress box for some months, waiting to be finished.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to wrap copper wire with some red seed beads in between the dangle and the brass washer. For me that made the difference between an ordinary simple melody and a complete song.

Let me know what you think. Still ordinary of does it have pizzazz?
Now available in my etsy shop 

Thanks for looking!

Wishing you a wonderful day,

Janine

Esfera Jewelry

My etsy shop

My website/blog

My facebook page

Geo Feather

Geometric feathers of polymer clay are paired together with copper and brass jump rings. The rings are accented with glass o-rings in bronze. 

Like a comfy pair of jeans, these could easily become a go-to favorite when you need just a touch of boho charm. 

Suavity Swinging

 Once again I was put to the task of designing a set of earrings whose main components were so complete unto themselves that I didn't feel much needed to be added to complete the design.

Here is a set of Claire Lockwood's ceramic glazed pod pieces.

I was surprised to notice when I received them that there was a little wire hanging from the inside that  made it easy to attach something.

I had saved out this little copper chain segment for years and thought it the perfect bit to hang some tiny numi-baubles from.

These pieces were a rescue from headpins from a set of headpins that didn't quite work somehow in another set. I had been holding on to them for a long time too.

The chain lends some movement to the design and the red baubles make a nice accent.

I've completed them with some of Faerystone's long copper earwires.

Thanks for looking at my NuminosityBeads Creations!

Kimberly Rogers

e t s y   www.numinositybeads.etsy.com

f a c e b o o k  www.facebook.com/numinositybeads

i n s t a g r a m  www.instagram.com/numinosity/

p i n t e r e s t  www.pinterest.com/numinosity/

and my f a c e b o o k auction and sale group 

/www.facebook.com/groups/967164829979604/

One Day I Will Be A Mountain...

...but today I am a fault. 

Oh, how I can relate. I mean, life is all about duality and growth, right? We all have sides to ourselves that make us proud, and of course the sides that make us want to do better. Sometimes it's extremely gratifying to walk in darkness, while other times we seek the light and peaceful way. Positive and negative, light and dark, life and death. I love exploring these dichotomies, both in my jewelry design and the titles behind each piece.

 


I especially love how these warm organic earrings evolved from cold hard metal. I used a simple fold-form technique on copper sheet to obtain the weathered "fault" lines. I then added in myriad punches for that decayed pock-marked look, and applied lots of pounding, heat, and magic to help to create that natural vivid red patina. The overall shapes are evocative of wings---or perhaps leaves---both of which bring to mind the idea of growth. See how many opposing adjectives I chocked into this paragraph? It's all about the dichotomies, baby.

The most wearable earrings for me are those that contain multitudes without overdoing the components, color palette, or the weight. I strive to achieve this balance in my designs, but it's also not bad advice for life, in general. 

It ain't always easy, but it's most always worth it!

Happy Wednesday!

Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Hammer Therapy

Copper Earrings with Labradorite

When I have a bad day and get discouraged because sales are slow, I can't find what I need to make something, or two components on my brand new computer fail within a month of each other, I pick up the hammer. No, not to inflict injury on Etsy, harm myself for being disorganized, or take a whack at the computer demons; instead I vent my frustrations on copper.

The earrings pictured above are a smaller scale chandelier design, stamped and hammered, then heated to get the glowing patina. I really like the combination of labradorite with copper, and these faceted brios are the perfect size to wrap and use as dangles with the trapezoid shaped copper bodies.

Arabesque Copper Hoop Earrings

These big and bold hoops began with Arabic shaped blanks from Supply Diva on Etsy. Again, I hammer the bijeezis out of them and heat them to add some warm color. The wire wrapping with tiny copper rounds was kind of an experiment. I knew it would be difficult to hold the wire in place on a curved piece like these hoops, so I added some Permalac to see if it would hold the wire in place and not show. It worked!

I feel so much better now.


Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy
Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry on Amazon Handmade

Stacked colorful playfulness

A trend that's been going on over the last year or so is the stacked earrings style. Perhaps it's on its way out already, I don't know, but I am still a big fan. I just love to play around with different kinds of beads and colors in this way. I tend to end up with slightly mismatched pairs when I do these kinds of designs, because they often spring from the bead soup of leftovers on my messy work table. 

The cute blue rhombic ceramic dangles came in a gift package from someone - I am a little bit unsure who it was, but I believe it was HappyFish. The other beads are a mix of ethnic beads, seed beads and czech glass.

If you too like the stacked earrings style you might want to check out this board on Pinterest called Stacked Earrings Challenge. 

All my best,

Malin

www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.se

We're All Ears :: October Reveal

 I haven't been as faithful to watching the Project Runway shows each week. It is something that my daughter and I like to watch together and since she is back in dance, Thursday nights she is gone from 4:30-9:00pm. So I have a few weeks to catch up with (don't tell me what happens!).

And of course, I left this until the last possible minute. So here I am (I won't tell you the hour, but you might guess what it is...) finishing up my earrings.

I know I said just PICK ONE of the outfits that you wanted to design earrings for, but I am the Host, and as such it just wouldn't do to not have a variety on hand! I truly loved all the looks. So I sat down first to sketch. Each and every one ended up being very long and streamlined, but with subtle differences for each outfit. That is when I realized that I should think like a Designer.

When a fashion designer is making a collection, they put in elements that are a common thread throughout. Color. Pattern. Textile. Shapes. So that is when I decided that I should make ONE COMPONENT that is a comment element in all six designs (and exactly why it took me so much longer to complete this challenge than my normal last minute efforts!).

Since the shape I kept coming to was long, I decided that I could make a dagger out of polymer clay. I wanted it to be long and thin (perhaps because these lovelies are all so long and thin?), with texture, and a little bit of shimmer. I rolled balls of black, dusty plum and magenta in some metal leaf, rolled that on a texture plate to make the shape and rough the surface. Baked. Then painted with a mixture of gloss black and dark antique copper. Wipe to reveal some of the surface treatment. I guess I could have used all the same clay as the paint really made them all the same!
 

 A :: Flirty with a little bit of added color to the deep plum, reinforcing the flower shapes with the different petal bead caps.
B :: The black Vintaj fairy petal bead cap mimics the lace pattern with a deeper purple crystal and subtle touches of copper to bring out the metal leaf.
C :: This monochromatic look is rocker, but a bit subdued. I kept it simple and sleek mixing in a silver tone for drama.

D :: This one shoulder dress is my favorite look. I bet that would look good on a variety of body types! Because of the built in asymmetry in the dress, I decided that just one shoulder-dusting earring positioned over her bare shoulder would be the way to go, with a bit of regal bling.
E :: This girl is badass, yet she has a softer side. I have had these funky vintage brass nesting beads in my stash for years. They seem to project the right attitude while the faceted lilac pearl softens it.
F :: The soft drapes of this dress almost have a geometric shape to them. I thought that just one long earring peeking out would heighten the drama. I used seed beads for the shape that sort of came together by accident.

So... what do you think of my designer collection? Did you think like a designer, too? I would love to hear how you approached this challenge and decided what to make and if you made more than one, whether you made them a cohesive unit or completely standalone. Do tell!

Now it is your turn to "make it work!"

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Skyline

One of the joys of making my own beads is being able to make just the right thing for a particular design. Other times, I just make things that I think could be useful - shapes and sizes that I often find myself using. The little yellow discs in these earrings are an example of this.

I made a number of pairs and when I came to use these ceramic droppers, which I also made, these sunny yellow discs were just the thing.  Added to the geometric antique silver connectors, they give the earrings a graphic, mid-century look that is very much my bag.  They're listed here in my Etsy shop.

Whilst I'm here, a quick reminder: tomorrow is they day of this month's We're All Ears challenge blog hop. Head here for the details. There's still time to take part!

Bye for now, Claire

www.somethingtodo.etsy.com

www.somethingtodobeads.etsy.com

www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com

Autumn Wings

I've been collecting leaves on my daily walks.  The colors and the patterns they make fascinate me.  The golden yellow and light green of these earrings echo some of the colors I have been seeing.

These earrings came together serendipitously.  We are placing our house up for sale within the next 2 weeks or so.  I've been trying to clean up my studio to prepare for the house viewings. As I was working, I scooped up these ceramic dangles by Diana P. of Suburban Girl Studio and the glass "Wing-Dings" by Genea Beads.  As I was about to put them away, I realized that they went really well together.  Consequently, I never put them away, I just made them into earrings instead!

My husband and I are at the time of life where we would like to downsize, not only our home, but also all the work that goes with maintaining a big yard and the cleaning and upkeep on the house.  We are only moving across town, and I am happy to say that although the new house and yard are smaller, I will still have room for a little studio and my kiln.
They Autumn Wings Earrings are available in my shop now.

-Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

Black Inspiration

I was recently asked to make some black earrings for a client. Ideas and inspiration exploded in my head. I believe with jewelry designers, artisans, this is how it happens sometimes. 

It's either feast or famine, right? 

Dry times of "making" can be so discouraging. I get through the "dry spell" by looking through my past work, cleaning my work space, and then just randomly digging through my supplies. Generally that's all it takes. Beads and components start coming together like magnets. 

However, this was not one of those dry times. This time, the inspiration was flowing like a river in the winter. It's like being filled with a spirit and your hands are not your own. For a few hours you are in another dimension being guided by a muse and when it's all over... you can sit back and bask in the glow of your creation. (hopefully) or be applaud by it- that's happened a time or two as well. 

Back to the black inspiration. 

 I am thrilled with how this came out. 

These earrings feature micro faceted Black Spinel gemstones, flower charms created from bits of recycled pure silver, and small fine silver hoops, hand forged. Available at Art & Soul Jewelry. I see a matching bracelet in the future!

See the rest of my Black Inspiration here!

peace, blessings, and INSPIRATION~

Pits and Palms

Palm Jasper Earrings

Rugged looking palm jasper marquis shaped stones with their pitted surface in earthy tan and charcoal gray tones have that ancient appearance that I adore.

I thought it would be an interesting blend of textures to combine the pitted jasper stones with primitive ceramic drops from Jana Bližňáková of Happy Fish Things. Add to that, some copper wire wrapping and waxed cotton cord with seed beads in black and turquoise that pick up the colors in the artisan ceramic drops.

Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy
Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry on Amazon

Flying South

I had the occasion to purchase some of Heidi Ahrens Williams of Azteca Designs Boutique handmade copper feather headpins. She's going to be auctioning some off in her facebook group on October 16th!

I knew I wouldn't need much embellishment to complete the design.

That's the beauty of handmade artisan components. There is so much inherent beauty in them  that you almost can't go wrong with your pairings.

These extra crusty beads with my handmade murrini cane were put aside for those something special earrings. Heidi shipped so fast and when I received the headpins I just knew that they were meant to accompany them. I used my favorite Lucy Haslam's (Faerystones) extra long earwires but they could be easily swapped out with shorter ones for a little less dangle.

Since we are heading south soon to our desert home I named them "Flying South" because of the feathers and the desert colors in the beads.

Thanks for looking!

 Kimberly of NuminosityBeads

e t s y   www.numinositybeads.etsy.com

f a c e b o o k  www.facebook.com/numinositybeads

i n s t a g r a m   www.instagram.com/numinosity/

p i n t e r e s t  www.pinterest.com/numinosity/

and my f a c e b o o k auction and sale group 

www.facebook.com/groups/967164829979604/

Fundamentally Me

For anyone who asks, I tell them that my work is just as much about finding unique components as it is about fancy technique. I'm by no means the most widely accomplished jeweler in terms of depth and breadth of skills. But I do have a keen eye for beads, stones, fossils, and random found objects that have artistic potential. I'm not going to divulge how many hours of my life have been spent surfing the web for strange items or pawing through bead/rock show tables. Let's just say it all goes "into the soup". 

I'm especially fond of stocking up on treasures that I know I'll most likely never ever find again. Seems like a smart approach, right? Until your hoard starts to cast shadows on the floor...I digress.

Something that I found a few years ago and have been greedily holding on to are these fossilized echinoderm "petals". Echinoderms include sand dollars and sea urchins---so when you look at these fossils, imagine their spokes or arms. I saw these fossils and snapped up more than a few pairs, knowing that they were fundamentally ME: rustic, old, organic, neutral earth-tone. 

A couple weeks ago I bravely decided to cut one pair loose. Continuing with the soldered bead cap concept that I've been working lately, I added in a rustic spiral to each cap to give some energy and movement to the metal. I think it helps accentuate the shape of the fossils, as well. A healthy dose of oxidation and buffing really help to bring out the underlying texture and pattern. Add in some of my extra long ear wires and you've got versatile, crunchy, dark, edgy little twins for your ears.

Hope your week is a delicious one!

Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy