Brick and Mortar

Once again, I'd like to welcome our lovely friend and wonderful designer, Meridy Migchelbrink, of TwoTreesStudio, and thank her as well for giving us her time to design and create these earrings special for today. I love Meridy's style, her work; she is also one of the loveliest women you will ever meet. She works color expertly! If you have not yet, a walk through her shop is joyful.
norbel

I love well-crafted, beautiful, and whimsical earring components, so when I found these beautiful, playful enamels by Marlene Kazor Quigley of Markazo, I knew I wanted to make something with them! 

The enamels begged for RUSTIC, so I went looking in my stash to see what beads I might have that would work with them (I’m trying to cut back on my bead spending—yes, you may laugh now, I’ll wait).  After no immediate success, I remembered that I still had a pair of Leese Mahoney’s, GlassByLeese, gorgeous crusty-rustic cones in a perfect shade of green. 

So I started to play.  I needed a bit more red, so I pulled out some chunky 10mm red horn discs, which looked great with the cones and the enamels.  I also wanted motion, so I made small wire-wrapped dangles in red and olive green and hung them from matching green niobium jump rings (thank you, chainmailling habit—I always have plenty of rings to choose from!).  Since I wanted to use my signature fiber-wrapped earring technique, once I got the cones and horn discs onto the linen cording, I had to weave the cording through the holes in the enamels AND through the rings, making sure the linen was wrapped tight enough around the area between the enamels and the beads (so that all was secure) before I started the decorative wraps that drape over the tops of the rings.  

When I was happy with the look of the earrings, I trimmed the cord ends and made backings from red handmade paper and glued them to the backs of the enamels to hide the cord ends.  

 

And the finished product.  Pretty, whimsical, swingy, and definitely fun. 

And they’re even a tiny bit Christmas-y—which hadn’t even occurred to me until I had finished them!  ;)

Thank you for inviting me to sit in here at EE again—I always enjoy being here with you all.  J

Meridy Migchelbrink

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