AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh................!!!!

Yes, the screamers.  You may have seen Petra's screamers around for a while - aren't they just fab!!.  I made some earrings with them earier this year and loved them so much that I went back to Petra'a shop and bought a LOT more.  But that's where it stopped.  I had absolutely no idea what to do with them.  Recently I started seeing some pop up in my Instagram and Facebook feed....that sort of inspired me to take them out and have a go again.  In my previous efforts I think I was trying to over-think the design which is why it got nowhere. I kept things simple as the components alone are just WOW and hopefully I've added just enough to accentuate their fabulousness.

The usual group shot.

Screamers with double ended claws, fabric and Czech glass.

Screamers with claws, caps, fabric and Czech glass.

Screamers with claws, caps, fabric and Czech glass.

By this time I had had enough of claws so I used double caps instead with fabric and Czech glass.

I know it's the same design but I'm happy with the way they've turned out.  

These and many more will be available in my show on Monday and Tuesday in this group.

Until next time <3

Suhana xxx

My Etsy Shop: Buttoned Up Beads

"Those earrings..."

"...will be good for the holidays, huh?" my husband said.

I looked up at him, put down my pliers, took off my magnifying glasses, and blinked a few times.  He could tell I wasn't really in the room with him but was lost in Beadland--or more accurately, Ringland.

He tried again:  "You usually make a few chainmaille bracelets and earrings to sell at Christmastime, right?" 

I nodded.  "That's why I'm working on these--well mostly.  They're also just kind of cute."

He smiled.  He's a great guy.  "I'm also planning to make a Hodo bracelet or two and one in Garter Belt weave," I added.  "They work up pretty."  I know he's seen the bracelets and heard of both of those weaves (and he remembers the names), though I'm not sure he remembers what they look like.  But he's always so nice about what I make that I didn't really need to say any more, so I got back to work.

These earrings ARE cute, and they're distinctive to boot because of the oval rings.  I wish could say I created the design, but I didn't.  I learned the design from my friends at Chainweavers, one of my favorite online vendors of chainmaille rings and things (where I also got the cool sterling silver oval rings).  The earrings are a simple design to make if you know the Byzantine weave (or as we maillers lovingly call it, "Byz"), the most popular of all chainmaille weaves.  Each earring consists of three units of Byz and three oval rings (small, medium, and large), plus a Swarovski oval crystal.  The lightness and openness of the oval rings adds to the earrings' airiness.

For comparison, here is a photo of a classic sterling silver Byzantine weave bracelet:  

You can see how dense the weave is, with one "Byzantine unit" (can you see where they begin and end?) disappearing into the next, making one long sinuous round ropy bracelet.  This weave feels so good on the wrist (and around the neck when woven into a necklace)!  

And here is an oxidized sterling silver bracelet that I made in a weave called "Byzantine Rose," composed of alternating units of Byz and "rosettes" or "Moebius" elements:  

The Byzantine Rose bracelet is a little less dense than Byzantine alone, but not as airy as the earrings.  The crystals add a nice sparkle too.  

These crystal Byz beauties are 3-1/4 inches long and very lightweight and swingy. 💗

If any of you are interested in chainmaille in general or in learning the Byzantine weave or how to make these earrings, just let me know, and I can steer you to the right references to get started.  I basically taught myself with tutorials (as we all tend to do), but it's always nice to have a guide too.  :)

Thanks so much for reading--I'll be back again soon!

xoxo

Meridy

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A Bit of Northern Soul.

Last Sunday but one Helen Backhouse and I popped over to Manchester to the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair. It's a week long shindig funded by The Arts Council and is a veritable hotbed for new talent. Although we have seen some of the exhibitors before, there are always lots of new Arts graduates fresh out of university, bringing their ground breaking ideas with them! Some of them are a bit whacky for my taste - but always worth a look.

Helen always heads for the ceramics (she's mad on pots and bowls) and the jewellery, of course, grabs our attention. Lots of it - and I mean lots. Seemed like every other exhibitor was a silversmith this year. Some very unusual work too - modern and edgy.  Lots of black. But I head for the textiles. They always spark my imagination and I like translating the colours and textures I see into jewellery.
I also bought some hand made buttons from one of the mixed media artists, Shirley Vauvelle.
My first pair of earrings this week uses Shirley's buttons; the inspiration was the colours from a piece of textile work by Sara Tommins.  Sarah is one of this years graduates. Always collect the business cards!

 

I really liked the effect of the grey shell layered over the links of elongated black chain with the ebony spikes, so while I was on a roll a couple more pairs took shape. Again, Shirley's buttons but this time in aqua. 

 

The third pair have baby enamels by Kimberly Rogers in yellow, with a tiny hint of pink. The lampwork is by Patricia Ritchie, with pink enamel earwires by Lucy Haslam. Normally, I hate pink and yellow together but with the black these work really well!

 

 

See how one business card sparks the flame? Next time you  are in a creative slump, bypass Pinterest (am I the only person who saves hundreds of pins only to never look at any of them ever again?) and look around you - buttons, cushions, woollies, fabric of all kinds can provide the spark you need. 

 

 

See you in two weeks time

 

Lindsay x

 

My Etsy shop

 

My facebook page

 

Blue And Bold

Where to begin?  These earrings were made after a horrible day.  Without going into details, we had a potential health crisis in our family yesterday.  Everything turned out well in the end, but these earrings were made on an overload of panicked adrenaline. When they weren't turning out like I had pictured them in my mind, I found myself on the verge of tears.  I don't cry over failed earrings.  Really.  O.K., Linda, deep breaths.  It's going to be O.K.  And it was - eventually.

What I like about these earrings: 
- The teardrop shape of the metal loops echos the teardrop shape of my ceramic components at
   the bottom.
- The electroplated hematite dangles inside the metal loops adds a nice touch of bling.

What I dislike about the earrings:
- They are too long - over 3 inches.
- The wire wrapping on one of the earrings is too loose.

Given the circumstances of the day, there was no time to redo these.  Here's how I plan to improve them later:
- I can see a couple of potential spin offs from this design. -
I think that the metals teardrops, hematite and Czech glass flowers would make pretty earrings without the ceramic charms.  That would make them short enough to be wearable.

I also think the Czech glass flowers and the charms would make simple, but pretty earrings. So revision is in the cards soon.

In the meantime - Bead Fest! It's this coming weekend, Oct. 27th - 29th. Two of our Earrings Everyday members will be there: Kristi Bowman (table #516 ) and me, Linda Landig Jewelry (Table # 518)  Please come by our tables and say Hi!  And to make that easier, here's a coupon to save you a couple of dollars on your entry fee.  Just print it out and get in for only $3!  See you soon!

Linda Landig Jewelry

Quoth the Raven, Never More...

I was introduced to Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The Raven", in grade school and that was the beginning of a love of the dark, mysterious side of life. I went to the library and got a book of Poe's work and read it in one sitting.

What is it about the fascination of the dark, mysterious afterlife? Some people relish it and celebrate in everyway imaginable. Some people are horrified by the whole concept.

The celebration of the dead and spirits have been going on for centuries and around the world. There isn't a society that didn't have something to commemorate the passing of the spirit from our world to the next.

My favorite is All Hallows Eve, or Samhaim, when it was believed that the wall between our world and the spirit world was thin enough for the spirits to pass back through and harm their crops. 

As you can see I love this time of year and the ancient ways of celebrating the thinness of the wall between the spirit world and ours. So with no further adieu, I present my dark and mysterious earrings for All Hallows Eve....

My first earrings, "Lenore" from Poe's poem, have fantastic lady skull cameos in copper from Kristi Bowman-Gruel, fabulous coppery beaded beads from Rebecca Anderson, chocolate brown lampwork spacers by Jodie Marshal and teardrop copper charms from Joanne Tinley.

Thinking of Frankenstein, I used another set of amazing, goulish copper charms from Kristi Bowman-Gruel. I attached some green and brown ceramic drop charms from Sarah Kendell-Gritzmaker, and brass paddle connectors I wrapped a scrap piece of sari silk with a twist of brass wire and coppery-brass delica seed beads.

And last, but what I consider the darkest is my "Mina" earrings I made inspired from the classic story of Count Dracula. I used star cut garnet gemstones wrapped around brass skeleton leaves with chocolate black Czech leaves finished off with a tendril of brass wire. 

Happy Halloween,

Jetta

Jetta Bug Jewelry

We're All Ears :: October Reveal :: Harvest Moon

Did you get to see the harvest moon this month? I am sad to report that I actually missed it, as it was pouring for 2-3 days. If you had a chance to spot it, I hope that you snapped a picture or two and did a little jig in it's light to release joy to the world!

I knew that I had the perfect components for this month's inspiration. A few weeks back I had stumbled into an online sale for enameled components from Gardanne. I went a little nutty saying "Mine!" and "BIN!" in the posts on her special Facebook page. So many that I really lost count. But I guess I didn't really care because I totally love her work. The colors are fabulous!

Typically, the Gardanne goodies that I have are leaves, which are beautiful. So I was completely smitten to see the new round shapes that she made. And they looked just like big ol' harvest moons.

The problem was that these were a large dapped disk shape so adding anything else to them really diminished their beauty. I tried other types of beads, from Czech glass to polymer clay to gemstones, and it just didn't work. I realized that I needed to let these charms speak for themselves.

So I decided to just add some lengths of my favorite chain in a chevron pattern. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to get the pattern and lengths just right. But in the end, I actually love the look of these. So simple. So full. So luminous. Just like the harvest moon.

Let's see what you made!

The LinkyTools will be open for the next 7 days and I would love to see what you made inspired by the MOOOONNNNNN! Join in the fun!

Fall Beauties

Hey everybody! I hope you're all doing great and that the weather is behaving in your neck of the woods. I'm sorry I went MIA a couple of weeks ago. I injured my knee the day I was supposed to make earrings, take pictures and write a post, and my coconut just totally zonked out with the pain killers and the ice.

My knee is fine, thankfully... my coconut, well...... it's getting older. I'll leave it at that LOL ;)

I've got a showcase coming up on FB on Nov. 2-3rd in the Handmade Beads and Findings group (I hope to see you there!), and I've been making various things, including these:

But, my heart wanted to make something with one of the pairs I had made, so I grabbed them and here's the pair of earrings I designed for you today:

Handmade polymer clay round earring connectors featuring modern leaves, with shades of orange, russet, and aqua blue, with a touch of brass. I love how the colors play against each other.

I added copper tone chains for a feminine wispy look, on which I suspended a pair of pretty TierraCast hearts. I've also included some cool funky shaped 'tube' Blue Apatite gemstone beads that i bought many many years ago (yes, I'm a hoarder!!), sandwiched between some rustic TierraCast rondelles, topped with sparkling yellow glass seed beads.

These will be available for sale in my Etsy shop HERE over the next couple of days, as well as new handmade polymer clay jewelry making components!

I wish you all a Beautiful Fall season (and my heart goes out to all those still dealing with all the fires, and other storms going on at this time)

Cheers,
Nathalie

Visit my shops:
My Garden Of Love Jewelry Supplies
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Dia de los Muertos

Hola!  Loralee here for a visit and I've brought a couple of friends with me today!

A festive pair of earrings using lovely unglazed skullies from Gaea Handmade.  I gave her a rhinestone necklace and a hand carved, two-sided, mother-of-pearl, rose crown.  She is wearing the perfect party dress by Inviciti! Yes, the lady can dance, as her dress moves freely from side to side!

La Catrina

Bold, vibrant, primitive crosses by JoesphineBeads paired with hand carved bone skulls that are two sided.  I wanted to keep the continuity of the cross and skull, so I made a fabric wrapped neck piece, joining the two.  I really love the way it looks!

Las Almas

The components are two-sided or finished on the backs so it actually could be used as a second pair of earrings if you flip them on the ear-wire with a pair of pliers.  The backs of the crosses are a bronze metallic and are beautiful.

¡feliz día de los muertos!

Loralee xo

Loralee Kolton Jewelry

A little bit of art in your ears

Hello! I have a showcase at the end of this month over on The Earrings Show on Facebook, so have been busy creating some new things for this. I thought I'd share a design I'm enjoying making at the moment, using Petra Carpreau's (of Scorched earth) beautiful art decals. I love these Klimt decal droppers (someone correct me if I'm wrong! I think they are Klimt). They are teamed with beautiful gold nugget beads by Maryse Fritzsch-Thillens and brass hoops to give a layered look. I've added some gold and silvery seed beads to pick up some of the tones in the decal prints. These seed beads are part of a new range at Smitten Beads, and oh they are lovely! They match this design pretty well

Next up, some more of Petra's decals, except this time a bit of Frida Kahlo. I doubled up the brass hoops this time, and kept things simple with freshwater pearls and pretty little blue czech beads to pick up the colours in the decal drops.

So there we are. Little works of art in your earlobes! These will be available at my showcase at the end of the month (details on my Facebook page). In the meantime, get yourself over to Petra's shop. There's a whole range of decals with different artists -bliss!

See you next time

Sue :-)

Facebook page

etsy shop

Sleek!

Hi everyone, it feels like ages since I posted here.  What you see below is just the tip of the iceberg 😄.  I have been in full production mode as I have an earrings showcase on Sunday.  Artists featured in my earrings today are Kimberly Rogers and Melissa Gabelle.

The obligatory group shot 💗

Kimberly's headpins with claw shaped caps.

Kimberly's headpins with some fun brass bits and glass flowers to soften the look a bit.

Melissa's flower caps with brass findings and sari silk

Melissa's flower drops with partinaed brass connectors.

These plus lots of other designs will be available on Sunday in The Earrings Show FB group.
I'll be back in a couple of weeks with new designs, see you then.

Suhana

My Etsy shop: Buttoned Up Beads
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ButtonedUpBeads?ref=ss_profile

✨ Bringing the Bling ✨

Hi, everyone!  This week, I made earrings that pushed me right out of my comfort zone.   Yes, I did--and on purpose too!     

Helen Backhouse's hand-painted polyclay leaves always take my breath away, and these particular leaves are so long and stunning that they seemed to call for something dramatic.

So I went for it!  These earrings are looong (a little over 4 inches).  They feature AB rhinestone rondelles, sparkly 12-mm aqua blue crystals topped by small leafy bead caps and little blue zircon crystals, fabulous spiky double bead caps, and clusters of blue zircon and bright yellow Swarovski crystals, dangling from teal anodized niobium jump rings.

One wonderful thing is that, being made mostly of thin leaves of polymer clay, the earrings are very lightweight and kind to tender earlobes.  Another wonderful thing?  I absolutely loved making these!  Who knew bringing the bling could be so much fun?  💗

Thanks so much for reading!  I'll be back with more to share in two weeks.

xoxo
Meridy
My Etsy shop
My Facebook page

Fun with Fungus

Fungus. Mushrooms. Toadstools. How often do you really look at them, and see how complex a structure they are? Shapes and patterns. Especially on the underside.

It's been warm and wet over here and fungi are springing up all over the place. Don't they have just that little element of magic about them? Home for fairies and elves. Often at the base of an old,  possibly magic, tree. I've been instagramming them like mad as I walk round our village.

During one of her shows, my eye was caught by these translucent polymer clay pieces by Jeni Houser Alasad . They looked to me like the underside of a toadstool, and I loved those rich garnet brown colours on the edges.  Anyway, I missed them with my slow broadband but Jeni made me a special pair.
How to do them justice? They're extremely unusual.  And quite large. I've given them a few coats of looking at (as my gran would often say) and here we are.

I've tied them up; bound with copper wire and irish waxed linen cord, to Lucy Haslam's twisted sisters, her hand made chain and beaten copper circular earwires. The fab ceramic drops in metallic garnet are, of course, Petra's.  Loads of texture, just like the real thing.

 

                    Hope you like them. And don't forget to look around for your own earthly treasure  
                                                    - you never know what you may find!

                                                                      See you in two weeks

                                                                              Lindsay xx

                                                                            My etsy shop

                                                                       My facebook page

In a gypsy mood

Hello peeps,

How are you all doing?
Well, autumn has arrived here in Greece as well and with those beautiful leaves falling from the trees I was getting a bit in a gypsy mood. Can you tell by looking at these earrings?

Being a hoarder I have been able to amass quite a stash of sari silk as well as seed beads.
I wanted to incorporate those tiny seed beads into my design, so I stitched some peyote bead tubes.









Together with sari silk, Czech glass and some chain they turned out exactly how I had envisioned them.

I couldn't stop myself and made three pairs, with lots of new ideas for more.











Which pair do you like the most?

These are now available in my shop.

Thank you so much for visiting and I hope to see you again next month. As you know we at Earrings Everyday love to read your comments so please, don’t be shy and leave one. It doesn’t have to be in English :)

Thanks for looking!

 Janine

Esfera Jewelry

My etsy shop

My website/blog

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Life and Laundry

Hi, Jetta here....I have found a nice clean bead or two in my pocket after doing laundry. But that isn't what my post is about today. My post is late this morning because I forgot it was my day to post till late last night after an all day laundry feast of my family's clothes :)

So I freaked out a bit and went to my work table to see if I could find a finished pair of earrings to snap a photo and write about them. Refer back to the frantic paragraph above of all day laundry. My life seems to be running from one major activity to the next. I am sure all of you can relate.

Nope, not a finished pair of earrings in site on my work desk. But I had these beauties as a work in progress....

I LOVE disc beads! These ceramic lovelies are from Marsha Neal Studio. This was my first time using micro screws. I love the effect. I just need to read up on how to cut them shorter so they don't stick in the back of your ear. Then I straightened these long ear wires just enough to slide on star cut strawberry quartz and reshape them to their original shape. I may or may not wire them onto the ear wires...




Here are a few of my earring idea baggies. I get ideas all the time but not always a lot of time to sit and put them together when the Muse hits. So I put them in little zip baggies and sit, relax, and create when those moments of peace and quite come my way.

 

I hope you have a day filled with creativity, lots of beads, and the time to play with them!

Jetta