Reading between the Lines.

Last weekend was my biannual visit to the Rock and Gem show at Harrogate - to stock upon my favourite gems and see what's new. It fit nicely with my plan for this weeks blog post - I took with me these polymer clay spikes from Jon Burgess to get some ideas of what to put with them.

Here's a selection of my top gemstone picks; ancient looking African turquoise, rough cut chrysocolla, labradorite, lapis chrysocolla, lapis cubes, leopardskin jasper, porcelain jasper, obsidian discs, shoushan, ocean jasper, and rainbow jasper. Lots of lovely colour and different shapes.

I'll be having some fun with these. For my first  pair with the pop of yellow, I used the black obsidian discs sandwiching yellow Picasso Czech glass. I like the bold mix, and vertical and horizontal lines.

The next pair uses some of Lucy Haslam's beaten copper washers and the marvellous rough cut chrysocolla - again, those horizontal strata lines in the stones really pick up the verticals in the spikes, as well as the soft green at their top end.  A much less strident pair. Simple blackened copper circular earwires (also Lucy's) finish them off nicely.

Clean and simple lines with pops of colour. Hope you like them - both are available in my  Etsy        shop.

                                                       See you again in two weeks!
                                                                  Lindsay x

                                                                 My Etsy shop
                                                            
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Blue Elegance

One of my favorite lampwork artists is Sue Kennedy of Sue Beads.  I have a large collection of her lampwork glass beads, beaded beads and enameled jewelry components.  Clearly she is a multi-talented artist.  So for today's earrings, I am featuring some of Sue's lampwork glass bicone beads.

I hung them from some sterling silver double hoops and accented them with Bali silver dangles. I've always loved the combination of blue and silver.  That color combination just sings! I think these earrings would be great for occasions that called for a bit of elegance.

The Blue Elegance earrings are available in my shop, Linda Landig Jewelry.

Linda Landig Jewelry

My Year to Declutter

My New Year's resolution was to pare down on some of my beady stuff. I even gave my two kids a challenge, for every toy they donate they will get a quarter. We all need motivation sometimes. I did inventory on all my beads and decided to completely empty some of my bead boxes. The first box up was my collection of Industrial Chic components.

This first pair has rustic, tribal polymer beads from Magnolia Moon Studio that I stacked on top of various seed beads on a eye pin. I let the Industrial Chic number charms dangle from the bottom.

 I love using these triangle jump rings for a more tribal look, but the beads wouldn't stay in the middle. So I dug through my Industrial Chic box and found these awesome brass double ball end wires and wrapped the bottom of the triangle to keep everything hanging the way I had envisioned.

I thought I would try and patina these metal pieces for a different look. But I found out even sanding them didn't take off enough of the factory seal for them to take a patina. I do like the scratches that the sanding created and it did allow some color stains to get traps into the scratches.



The second pair is my nod to Harry Potter. I call them 'I Open at the Close'. I used black dye to stain these charms and just added rose gold filigree with rose gold jump rings and rose gold ear wires.

 

 

Here is a photo of my Industrial Chic box. I have used two other charms for bracelets. And I have another charm I am working on for a necklace. Slowly but surely, I am getting closer to accomplishing my New Year's resolution.

Have a great week,

Jetta

My Etsy Shop:

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Glamming up the rustic!

Hello, its all about glamour teamed with rustic in today's post, featuring works by some of my favourite ceramic artists.

Today's earrings in their group shot.

1.  Here I've used these gorgeous, rustic/grungy discs by Petra Carpreau layered with a pair of wire wrapped hoops I saved from another pair I took apart.  I wrapped all sorts of fabric stuff (at least 3 different kinds including sari silk) and my favourite cup chain.  They're long! 

2. I've been hoarding these Claire Lockwood discs for ages - it was time to dress them up :D.  I wrapped the top with fabric and cup chain.  To make the look complete I added teeny raw brass chain to the bottom.  

3.  And this pair is pretty much identical to the second except the colours.  Ceramic discs are by Petra Carpreau.  

Here's another group shot to show their length.

I hope you enjoyed my offerings for today.  These earrings are headed for my February showcase in The Earrings Show which starts on Sunday.  Hope you can join me 😁

See you soon.

Suhana <3

My Etsy Shop: Buttoned Up Beads

Surprisingly, Pink

When you think of rustic-industrial, pink probably doesn't jump to mind ~ but, isn't it a nice little surprise?!

THE coolest lampwork glass with nailheads by Kimberly Rogers of Numinosity Beads; one-of-a-kind, handmade, patina finished, pewter charms by Inviciti; vintage glass pearls.

↔

Stacked, mismatched headpins!

 I had one lovely, drool-worthy, orphan headpin, by Kimberly Rogers.   So, I thought I'd make a stacked mate using a small headpin by Pipandmolly, then layer a rhinestone spacer, a shimmery matte teardrop lampwork bead by Kay Mallery and a rough cut piece of pyrite.  I topped both off with yummy vintage AB faceted crystals for a little symmetry .

Many thanks for stopping by today!

Loralee xo

LoraleeKolton ~ artful in beads

Long with large acrylic or resin

I am happily continuing on the path I've been on lately with long eye catching earrings with large light weight resin or acrylic beads. Varitions on a fun theme that I very much enjoy working with.

Ingredients:
Large black and brown faceted acrylic beads
8/0 matte metallic bronze seed beads
Black faceted glass beads
Vintaj brass large jump rings
Vintaj brass earring hooks
Strung on 4 ply walnut brown waxed irish linen cord

All my best,
Malin

Hoop, there it is

Copper Hoops made with my own texture, paired with amazing Lampwork

 by Regis Teixera of MagmaBeads.

I also added a little bit of Sari Silk to these wonderful components, along with cool ceramic flower caps, a beautiful Red Glass bead on top and lots of messy copper wrapping.

Colorfully fun and Rustic at the same time!!

These earrings are available

⇛ HERE ⇚

Kristi

KristiBowmanDesign.com

KristiBowmanDesign.Etsy

KristiBowmanDesign on Facebook

We're All Ears :: February Reveal :: Chandeliers

Hello peeps!
I hope you had fun taking the Hudson Valley lighting quiz to find out what type of chandelier suits you best.

Hudson Valley describes chandeliers this way:

The showstopper. The breathtaker. The envymaker. Chandeliers are the rock stars of the lighting world. When people think of lighting, often, it’s chandeliers they are thinking of. Glamorous and glittering, chandeliers beam out the most light. They set the stage in the home's entryway. Our chandeliers come in many different styles and finishes; whatever your taste is, we have one for you.

What I like about this description is that it is perfectly suited to earrings as well. Just substitute "lighting" with "earrings" and "home's entryway" to "earlobes."

I happened to take it more than once. Because I loved all the choices! I found out that I was both Timeless Elegance and Chic Vintage & Industrial. So my challenge was to try to come up with chandelier earring styles that suited both of those.

Wouldn't it be romantic to have a sweet and sparkly chandelier like this dangling over your bedroom?

Timeless Elegance is pretty classic. Lots of filigree and crystals. I happened to find a pair of little sterling silver chandelier components. Of course, that makes the task of putting together chandelier earrings really easy! And, of course, I have a lot of blingy crystals in my stash. These came together pretty quickly. Hard to photograph, as those crystals have a bit of an AB finish that catches the light so perfectly.

The Chic Vintage & Industrial is most fun for me. I like the mix of metals and the funky vibe of repurposed elements. Ever watch shows like American Pickers or West End Salvage? Those stores would be my dream job to work in!

I ADORE this Herkimer Brass pendant light fixture from Hudson Valley Lighting. If I hadn't waited until the absolute last minute (and the promptly forgot about it!) I would have made my own brass and steel domed and punched bead caps. Alas, that was not to be, but it will be something I will keep in mind for the future!

I gathered up all sorts of bits and bobs that spoke to me of industrial or vintage. I found tiny steel washers, brass saucer spacers, faceted silver cubes, vintage fluted bead caps and even the tiniest lightbulbs! Yes! I had some slightly larger more globe-y ones, but these tiny ones made me squee with happiness.

I have no idea where I got them, and I am fairly certain they could be real and working, but I can't imagine the tiny dollhouse light that they would fit into! Of course, teensy lightbulbs aren't made for earrings - no holes. I had to get creative to solve that problem. I figured that electricians use copper wire for wiring the electricity to the lights, so that is what I used to form a sort of cage around the threaded stem of the bulbs. I wanted the copper wire to sort of peek out from under the "shades." They fit perfectly into the vintage brass fluted caps. I decided that they needed just a little more of that wrought iron look, so I found some black spiky bead caps to layer with the other bits finishing with the wrapped copper wire and copper ear wires. I would hang pendant lights like these over my kitchen island any day!

So that was a fun exercise in scale and creative problem solving! I think that if I ever get stuck for an earring idea, I will gladly go and browse the online light shops or take a trip to Menard's and stand under their lighting department!

Let's see what you made! Light us up with your designs!

Bead Soup Celebration 💗

Spring comes early to Sacramento, here by the beautiful blue American River.  Things start to bloom in February--sometimes even earlier--and I've been getting the urge to make something colorful.  And bright.  And Boho.  And swingy.  And long.

Really long.   Shoulder-sweeper long.  😊  

So I pulled out some small, brightly colored beads and searched through my box of chain and came up with the perfect bead soup ingredients:  turquoise rice beads, dyed jade rondelles, faceted purple agate rounds, ocean blue jasper, multicolored faceted agate rounds, bright fuchsia Czech glass rounds, tiny brass hexagons, Japanese seed beads, and Swarovski crystals.  

I especially liked this soldered brass chain, with its large and small twisted links, because of its airiness and the way the shape of the large links mirrors the shape of the turquoise beads:

I've been busy lately with several custom orders, but these  earrings wouldn't let me rest.  They insisted that I finish them--and who was I to argue?  

The Celebration Earrings can be found
 at Two Trees Studio.

Cheers, my friends!  Happy creating, and thanks for reading!  I'll see you again in a couple of weeks.  💗

xoxo

Meridy

My Shop

My FB page

A do-over too

It seems Jetta and I are going through the same phase: rethinking old designs.
For me it has more or less to do with space. Storage space that is.
As most of you probably know me and hubby live in a truck, converted into a mobile home. 

Which comes with limited storage space. Very limited storage space. You can imagine that this is not a good combination with my urge to hoard beads.
We live in Greece but often have to fly back to the Netherlands for our work. So, most of the time a great part of my bead collection is stored in our “bench seat” and I would only have a small working stock more easily accessible. Now you know the reason those cute ceramic bead caps pop up in almost all of my latest designs. A baggie of these is part of my working stock.

To have more choice in beads I periodically go through my stock of jewelry and make a selection of pieces which will need a re-do/make-over/re-think.

Here an example.

This older design was pretty, but didn’t actually sing. It was missing something.  Now I did have some beautiful lampwork glass beads left from an order the lovely Kate from Maya Honey made for me, for use in a very special bracelet for a very special customer.
And that’s what this design needed. And some colorful ceramic bead caps of course.

Now available in my shop.
Thank you so much for looking. And you know it by now, I love to read your comments, so don’t be shy. Let me know what you think of the new design. And if you are an artist, do you re-do/make-over/re-think your designs sometimes?

Janine

Esfera Jewelry

My etsy shop

My website/blog

My facebook page

I need a do over....

I don't know about you but I am not the greatest with change. I have been going through some of my old pieces and rethinking them. It was hard to decide if I should take any apart. But once I did force myself to choose it was freeing to see them as beads and findings then start again with fresh eyes.

My redo, 'Playing Around', was a bit more boho tribal than the original earrings. I took the amazonite drop charms and stacked Gaea ceramic lanterns and stripe glass caned discs. A little color, a little texture, and redone.

These are the earrings I took apart.They were beautiful but I feel the ceramic teardrops from Bo Hulley Ceramics are really destined for something more extraordinary. I may use them for other earrings, a bracelet, or necklace....or I might keep them in my stash pile because Ms. Bo Hulley isn't making more ceramic beads at the moment.

 

Dream big and create your heart's happiness,

Jetta

 

 

❤💗💚 Colour Me Hippy 💙💜💛

Hello, how about a splash of colour this week?  Ok maybe not a splash, maybe a flood of COLOURS!!  You may need to get 'them' 🕶 on.

Here are this week's offerings in their group shot. Very colourful wouldn't you say?  I felt the need to brighten up everyone's days as I've been seeing lots of snow on my FB feed lately.  

1.  First pair features painted resin and brass charms by Martin Hart, layered (I used to do a lot of layering, now that I've re-discovered it....you will see a lot in this design) with vintage enamel flowers, topped with brass spacers (I have softened the colour on these a little, can you see?) and finished off with delicious sparkling rocks by Maryse Fritzsch-Thillens.

2.  Painted resin and brass charms by Martin Hart, layered with those stunning vintage flowers, sitting on top are Carolyn Saxby tyvek beads.

3.  Painted resin and brass charms by Marin Hart, layered with vintage flowers, topped with Roman glass discs, Maryse's sparkling rocks and sari silk.

4.  and a 4th pair in the same design.  I had these vintage flowers in 4 colours....didn't want to offend the cream/white pair by leaving them out 😁.

There we have it.  A riot of colours.  All of these are now listed in my Etsy shop.  See you in a couple of weeks. 

Suhana <3

My Etsy Shop: Buttoned Up Beads

A Fine Romance

So. It's Valentine's Day - do you 'do' it or not? This year I'll have been hitched to him indoors for 47 years. For most of those we have exchanged cards, for many he's bought me flowers - ok, sometimes garage afterthoughts, but flowers nonetheless. Last year we made a conscious decision to cut down on 'stuff ' we didn't need. We have a house full of  'stuff' that at some point our kids are going  to hold up their hands in horror at; so let's not add to it.  Cards are a casualty of our cutbacks.  Beads however, that's a different matter! But let's quickly gloss over that....

In honour of St Valentine, patron saint of courtly love, I asked Helen Backhouse to make me some 'hearts that aren't really hearts'. Heart cockle shells - subtle.  Then I turned them upside down - because that's what love can do.

 Gold and black/gold chain dangles from the rear and bright blue Czech glass really brings out the blue in them.

  Whatever you do today, make a point of giving someone a big hug, because love comes in  many forms.

                                                                  See you in two weeks
                                                                          Lindsay x

                                                                      My Etsy shop

                                                                  My Facebook page

My Delicious Valentine

It would be awkward having strangers trying to nibble on your earrings, but I can't guarantee that won't happen!


Raspberry-Lime

Blueberry-Plum

Kiwi-Grape

Ginger-Peach

Lush little droplets of iridescent Czech glass.

Vintage copper stamping which are 60 plus years old and have a natural aged patina.

Yum!

Thank you for stopping by!  Bet you're thirsty now :D

Loralee xo

Loralee Kolton ~ artful in beads