Wire is my Friend. . . .

. . . .except when it's not! 

Hello, and Happy Day to you!

I love playing with wire. And every once in a while something fun that I can use comes of it. I don't mean the soldering kind of playing; just taking various gauges of wire and trying to make things. In recent months I've been playing around with what what I call "bead frames." I haven't yet made one that actually looked like something I'd like to use, but I keep playing.  

So speaking of wire, which is my friend so much of the time, I have two earrings for you today. Two earrings, but they don't match. And no, they're not asymmetrical in design. They are two earrings, one each of both pairs I planned to share with you today. 

So yes, I love playing with wire. It's fun, it's therapeutic, and I love putting in something a bit quirky in designs. The problem comes in when I have to repeat what I did the first time! There is nothing so complex to warrant such difficulty in either of these designs, but I spent way too much time attempting to make the second earring for both of these. 
These earrings are not at all complete either. I'll say they're "half baked." Consider it a prototype. :) They will be oxidized and look more pulled together when finally completed. The Peace Sign with charms by Vincent & Nooma of Inviciti, and the Lampwork Glass by Leese Mahoney of GlassByLeese, will be oxidized to black. That will highlight the tiny silver beads around the frame. The same tiny beads run up and down the wire connected to the charm, on both sides.

The "Scream" earrings, copper by our very own Kristi Bowman-Gruel of KristiBowmanDesign, will be oxidized and buffed back to highlight the copper loops in the center. These pieces felt so not me at all but yet I wanted them, and in the end I loved them. I had a couple of more "Halloween-like" ideas I thought I'd try, but in the end I kept it more everyday wear, the ivory and black looked much better than the white and black I initially tried. And anything colorful didn't work for me. The lava stones add a bit of rustic, which you are not getting at all from my photos. The ivory Lampwork is shiny; I tried the matte version; didn't like it. The top bead you aren't seeing well either, really. It's shiny, but it has a very full Picasso finish underneath the shine. It's an interesting bead. :) This is probably a good time to apologize for the poor photos. I have lost the best place to take my pictures in natural light. So forgive me as I struggle to figure it out, or decide to depend on a light box. 

I have no intention of dropping these designs all together; I like them and will keep going. If I decide to make a change along the way, well, that's a designer's prerogative, isn't it? And I do that a lot! ;) Truthfully, I simply ran out of time to finish for today. Never did I expect to have such a problem with these. One, maybe, even though it didn't cross my mind, but both? Well, it is what it is. 

In the "Scream" earrings, it's a wonky piece of wire work to begin with, so it wasn't at all that I was trying to make them perfect one to the other as far as the wire. But it is the kind of design that for me requires the length to be the same. With many handcrafted components it's a challenge, but these two sets were perfectly matched. But length was the main problem I was having, and similarity of the loops in a secondary way. All I did was roll three rounds of wire on the step pliers with a wire pointing in either direction at the end. The wire facing down was bent inward to become the wire that the lava stone was put on, and then into the Scream face. The wire facing up was bent down and inward to wrap around the first wire. I then took a second wire and strung it through the middle of the three loops and wrapped it up from there.

The Inviciti Peace Sign earrings were a different story. I broke several pieces of wire from overworking while attempting to get this done. I could NOT get the wire centered in the kite-shaped frame, nor could I get it to come out the same size. Measurements did no good. Gggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I was so frustrated. Wire DOES, in fact, have a mind of its own, and you will never be able to convince me otherwise. 

So these earrings are not yet available; they will be but I don't know when. :) I've also attached a collage of a few of the things I've done with simple wire stuff; nothin' fancy; just fun little things that add a quirky something. These earrings have all sold; some of them recent, a few of them two or three years old. Like I said, I love wire; she simply doesn't always want to do what I ask her to. It's okay though; I'll keep her around anyway. :)

So thank you for taking time out of your busy day to have a look at what we've got going on here. We all appreciate it. We also appreciate comments or questions. We very much appreciate that! I'll be back in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, please let me know if you have some fun playing with wire! 

Thank you!

Happy Days to You!

Norbel Marolla

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p.s. I wanted to mention that we are attempting to organize a request for a challenge made by an EE follower. Not all of us will be able to participate, but those of us who are able will be working on it. She has requested that we each start with the same elements, a pair of "something," to see how differently we all use the same pieces. Fun idea! So we're working on it and will keep you posted. We hope you'll enjoy it.