Making stuff is how I have the best fun! I feel very fortunate to have been able to share my fun with you for the last year! Thank you. Merry Christmas to you and yours, and my wishes to everyone for all good things in 2017.
Having been very inspired by Cindy Pack and her work with silver, I planned on making something with silver for this post but it didn't turn into anything "fun." :) So I switched tracks and decided that I would challenge myself somehow. Flexibility. After a few hours of pondering, I decided the challenge would be to work with Pearls. I've only used pearls twice, I believe. A friend, whose name seems to pop up in my posts often ☺,
Susan Delaney, gifted me with four beautiful pairs of pearls, and I had a little stash of beautiful, small Keshi pearls from
Debbie at
TheFickleBead.
This post could be a veeeeeeeeeeryyyyyyyyyy long post with what went on during the time I worked to make these three pairs of earrings, but I won't; it'll be long enough as it is. ;) As an aside, I laughed out loud and read it to my husband while reading Erin's post last Friday. In no way was I laughing AT HER! She said she made 23 pairs of earrings in 2 hours! I was stunned! In awe! And jealous! lol Now, I am not exaggerating when I say that it takes me 23 hours to make 2 pairs of earrings. I truly am in awe, Erin! :)
The first pair is made with connectors that I purchased from
Petra Carpreau of
ScorchedEarthOnEtsy in the very FIRST order I placed with her on April 14 of 2013! I just haven't been able to give them up. :)
When I pulled out the pairs of pearls I received from Susan, I picked these first. It's likely difficult to see but they have a lovely texture and a very pretty white color. Oddly enough, I thought of these ceramic pieces almost immediately. And I love how they turned out. They are black stoneware finished with Bronze Gilders Paste. I added brass rings, the beautiful pearls, glass beads and brass at the bottom, with extremely oxidized copper wire.
The second pair also includes Petra's ceramics. I am not a fan of Picasso's work. But I loved it in this medium, and was thrilled to be able to get them. They're paired with wonderful rustic sticks of Rust and Blue Kyanite, purchased from
Kimberly Rogers/NuminosityBeads, and another pair of pearls from Susan. These are smooth, glossy, round white pearls.
One of the difficulties I had throughout this project was that the teeny, tiny holes in the pearls require thin wire, 24-gauge. The lower connection was wrapped with 22- gauge on top of the 24. They sell large-holed pearls but these are not those, and they are much too beautiful to ignore.
The last pair was made with the Keshi pearls. An 18-gauge loop wrapped with 24-gauge. A separate piece of 24-gauge was used for the pearls, the
 |
This pic depicts the purple beads
more accurately than the other |
ends wrapped around the loop, wrapped a bit at the top of the dangle for stability. The pearls are thin, beautiful, peacock Keshi pearls, a lovely gray with metallic colors. The purple polymer clay beads were made by
Jon Burgess of
JBDRusticOrganic
and the accent beads are black, blue and green Vulcanite beads handmade in Nigeria.
I do hope you had a bit of fun here with me today. I look forward to making the earrings and writing the post and simply being a part of this great group. When I say the "group," I mean all of you who enjoy taking a look at what we have going on. I am so grateful to all of you.
Once again, Merry, Merry Christmas
to you and yours, and all the best this life has to offer in 2017!
See ya next year!
Norbel Marolla
She Flies Again
