Llamas and Hearts

I thought I would share my two latest makes with you today. As you have probably noticed I love to work with bright colours and this first pair is no exception with my hand painted llama components on an aluminium base which makes them nice and light. I paired them up with colourful lampwork by Petra Maříková, Czech glass bead caps and lampwork spacers. To finish off I used these fabulous ear wires by Louise Goodchild Designs.

For this next pair I have used beautiful enamel components by Bea Stoertz which I have matched with lmpwork by Régis Teixera. I then added lampwork spacers and Czech glass bead caps. The ear wires are sterling silver.

Thank you for taking a look at my post. The heart earrings will be available in my FB group later today - Nicola Morse Jewellery & Components

Matchmaking

I have made sooo many variations of this design that I've lost count but components were left overs from my last show and I needed to make something really quick.  I feel like I've cheated as the wrapped hoops weren't specifically made for this post but oh well :D

For this first pair I found these Régis Teixera beads that matched my hoops perfectly, added matching flower dangles to complete this look.  

The matchmaking was even better in these.  Lampwork flower caps by Beth Mellor perfectly complemented the pink, orange, peach and purple colours from the hoops.  I made the dangles longer this time.

Another perfect match here using Maryse Fritzsch's sparkling nuggets.  Longer dangles again...just because. 

These will be available in my FB trunk show on Tuesday in The Jewellery Show.  Back in a couple of weeks <3

Suhana 

My Etsy shop: Suhana Hart Jewellery

Gradations...

There are times that I've bought beautiful components because I fell in love with them, and sometimes they've sat in a drawer for years.  And there are the "most of the time" purchases, the ones that are transformed into jewelry fairly quickly, though I don't always know immediately how or what to design with them.  And then there are the times when I know exactly what I want to do with something the moment I see it.

Seeing (and buying) these charms by Inviciti was one of those times.

The first thing I wanted to do with these charms was to paint the crescent moons a pearlescent white and then string 15/0 glass seed beads on 2-ply gray Irish waxed linen thread and wrap them around the charms.   

My usual modus operandi would be to search through all of the most rich, saturated colors I could get my hands on (because COLOR!), but for the Lady Moon and these lovely dark and rustic charms I wanted to stay with a palette based on moonlight, moonshadow, and the dark of the night sky, so I chose an ombre shading of pearl white, into silver, into dark gray, into black (and back again).

The earrings are lightweight, with backings of fine paper to cover the thread and ensure the strength of the earrings.

Many thanks to you all for reading.  I will be back on the second Thursday in February!  Love you all!  💗

xoxo
Meridy

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Violet Dream

Sometimes I struggle to put together a pleasing combination of beads and other times I know right away what to do. These earrings fell into the latter category.  I had fun making these floral ceramic earrings charms a month or so ago.Then last week I received some beautiful lampwork glass spacers by Susan Spurling of Flame Madein. Right away I could see that they belonged with my violet ceramic charms.

I had some small lampwork glass beads, by Beads And Botanicals, in my stash which matched perfectly. I brought everything together with Sterling silver wire, which I crisscrossed across the front of the top beads. I love the result.  They are perfectly dreamy! 

Linda Landig Jewelry

Mirror Image

Am I fussy ? I'm always extra happy when I find earring components that are 'handed'  - with an identifiable left and right. And being brought up at the seaside I'm a sucker for anything sea themed; having just booked our summer holiday it was even more on my mind. So I was chuffed to find these fab ceramic pieces from Lindsay Drake. Not only handed, but the most beautiful, subtle colours of honey and green with edges that make them look like old, burnt parchment.

  

With the starfish pair, I used lovely etched lampwork beads by Josephine Wadman that just shout sea and black volcanic sand. Like a greek island sunset - Santorini maybe. The urchin caps are Vintaj copper.

These soft, glossy green ammonite pieces are reflected with tiny roman glass rondelles and turritella agate beads - such an amount of pattern on such small things.  

These would take you nicely through spring and into summer. Both pairs are in my Etsy shop now.
See you in a couple of weeks - keep well and hope the weather is kind to you, wherever in the world you are.

Lindsay x



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Don't forget the earwires!

Hello earring lovers!

Today's blog is all about earwires. Well, a particular design of earwires I love working with, by our very own Lucy Haslam of Faerystone. Now, our Lucy has a talent with metal and creates all sorts of wonderful things. These twirly earwires are (I think) among my faves of her creations. You could really just pop them in your lobes on their own, with no adornment! Earwires are usually things we (or certainly I)  hook on, right at the end of creating a pair of earrings , often without much thought. while the beads that hang from them are undoubtedly the stars of the show. But sometimes it's nice to give them equal billing!

This first pair, feature gorgeous ceramic drops by (of course) Petra Carpreau. The most beautiful turquoise glaze on these. I added some little hand forged copper hoops and a little ring of turquoise seed beads and a teeny tiny seed on the base of the earwires to echo the design.

This next pair feature beautiful glass headpins by Kimberly Rogers of Numinosity Beads. They are so feminine and pretty. This time I wrapped some seed beads around the earwires themselves, so they were really an integral part of the design.

And that's that from me this month! These and many more will be available in my showcase over on The Jewellery Show in Facebook Land on the 26th Jan. Do pop in and say hello!

Sue x

Utterly Lovely Stuff

We're All Ears :: Living Coral

I truly didn't think that I would even have any beads for this month's challenge of the Pantone Color of the Year, Living Coral. So I decided to challenge myself with 15 minutes on the clock to pull out all beads that I could find, art bead or otherwise, that was even remotely in that particular hue. I surprised myself! I took a few liberties with the color, trending a bit more to a brighter orange than coral for some beads, but you get the gist.

At the same time I pulled out an assortment of art beads that might work. Found a few!

Next I decided to go back to the color palettes that I shared in the inspiration post.  I decided that I would try to make one pair of earrings for each of the five palettes. That gave me a lot of choices for accent colors! Unfortunately, my time was limited as I started this on Thursday night, and I only managed to make three pair, but at least I have ideas for some future earrings!

And finally, I can reveal to you what I created!

Focal Point Foliage
I came upon these perfect little disk beads from Heather Powers of Humblebeads that were coral with little green foliage. Serendipity! I then found some moss agate briolettes and some faceted Czech glass for some additional hues of olive green and peachy-coral. I love the copper wire and spacers that play off the warm tones of the peachy-coral polymer clay.

Trippy
This palette calls for a mix of bright hues and funky patterns. I had these vintage orange glass beads with the sunbursts. I found these great ceramic headpins in aqua from Michelle of Firefly Studios and rubber O-rings for movement. Perfectly trippy in every way!

Under the Sea
I lucked out in my Humblebeads stash to find these flat tablet beads that had a pattern that fit this palette perfectly. The shapes on the polymer clay beads remind me of coral reefs with colorful fish darting to and fro, like the little coral beads dangling at the bottom and topping it off with a bespeckled midnight blue goldstone.

I have to say that this exercise was a good one for me. Sometimes I let the coral beads take the lead, and other times they were just a supporting cast member to another hue. And even though I didn't have time to work up all five palettes, but at least I have some ideas for Shimmering Sunset, and Sympatico.

Let's see what beauties you made with Living Coral!

Making for Friends .

Hello lovely ones how are you all?
I’ve been rather ill over the New Year and I must admit I’m not quite better yet.!!!
Anyhoo as the title suggests I’ve been “ making for friends” isn’t it funny how making a piece of jewellery for a friend or family member can be sooo different from making to sell !!
When I make to sell I normally have an idea in my head of what I’m doing ( well sometimes I do other times it’s the will of the gods and a bit of Celtic luck lololo)
And when I make for friends I know which ones like colour or a bit of bling ..... or who’s a bit of a goth ( not mentioning anyone ... Lindsay )
But what happens when a Friend you know through Facebook asks you to make something..... Eek!!
I have been making two pieces just recently, one is a whole set earrings,necklace and bracelet and although I have actually met this lovely girl .... I’ve struggled ( just want them to be perfect of course)
But the other piece is quite different I’ve known this fabulous person only through Facebook .
She’s a bit of a dafty like me and an amazing glass artist who I have bought several pieces off in the past, and just before Christmas when I was buying a piece from her she said “ why don’t we do swapsies, you make me some earrings “ .
Ok I thought that sounds wonderful... so I asked the usual questions ... what colours do you like? Do you want dangles or short? What sort of gemstones? Silver or copper ?
And this was her reply ... Err purple or blue , love danglies, Ooo no gemstones just any tat you have lying about ( tat really !!!!) love copper but it doesn’t like my ears and I love texture .
Oh good lord I thought no gemstones!!!! ....and so this is what I came up with after much faffing and messing about .

I’ve cut out some copper shapes and hammered and twiddled them to give them a ridged textured feel, then solderd some tiny silver circles onto the surface,I then gave them a rather dark patina and polished them back to a nice dark sheen.

Hung above are some wonderful purple Charolite ( so soft and tactile)

discs with some of my hammered and twiddled crinklies spaces inbetween , I would normally add darkened copper earwires but I have made some pretty little silver “ Maze “ ones for her delicate little lobes.

Then because I couldn’t resist...and because everyone needs a tiny bit of amethyst I have hung some pretty little flat amethyst briollets from the front ( shhhhh she might not notice )

When I read this back it sounds like it all came together so easily.....lol they really didn’t , they are nothing like the pieces I started with but I really hope she will like them .
Thanks for listening to my ramblings   Love and hugs Lucy Haslam ( Faerystone).

Headpins and more

Hello, hello from a wet Holland

Last Tuesday we travelled  from a Sunny Greece to a wet and dreary Netherlands for work. Rain and gray skies. Luckily no snow and not as cold as it used to be.

Today I am sharing three pairs of earrings with you. All three made with beautiful handmade ceramic headpins. Even if my life depended on it, I cannot remember who the artist is. If you know who made these beauties, please mention her name in the comment, so I can give her proper credit.

I am still experimenting with ear wires and I have to say, I like the beaded ear wires a lot, they are wonderfully in flow with the rest of the design. What do you think?
These will be available in my jewelry show February 4.

Thank you so much for looking and your support for Earrings Everyday :)
And you know I love to read your comments, so don't be shy and leave some words.
See you in the beginning of February.NWishing you all a wonderful day, full of joy, laughter and singing birds.

Janine
Esfera Jewelry

Seeing Pink Elephants

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So, it all started when I bought a simple little pair of tin pink elephant components made from a vintage, mid-century, cocktail tip tray. I loved the elephants so much I hunted down a couple of the trays!  To be honest, the trays are so adorable I'm not sure I can cut these up!

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Here are the little guys from Shipwreckdandy that started my binge!

Pink elephants need bubbles so I used hollow blown glass beads.

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And, using another portion of the tray...

 This time I thought some white elephant charms would really pop!  I added some vintage glass pearls to complete the bubbly effect. ❍❍❍

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And, some smaller iridescent plastic bubbles!

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Elegant Elephant Ears!!

Pewter charms by Inviciti with scattered various vintage pearls!

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Lastly, I made some pins!

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I had a lot of fun with this!  It's good to break out and just do things that make you feel happy :)

Thank you for stopping by today!

See you again in February!

Loralee xo

www.loraleekolton.etsy.com

Snow Flurries

The weather here at the very end of Puget Sound has been completely free of snow - at least so far. However the mountains have been getting some nice snow - skiers rejoice! And its white in the eastern part of the state, where I lived for nearly 30 years. So even though I've been spared the white stuff this year, I was still inspired to design some snowy earrings.

I started with the pretty snowflake charms.  The large, ribbed lampwork glass beads were a perfect choice to go with the charms. The white glass that swirls throughout the blue beads reminded me of the way snow flurries blow and drift all around. The Snow Flurry Earrings are available on my website.

Winter is not my favorite time of year, but I did enjoy designing these earrings. Do you have snow where you live or are you in warmer climes?

Linda Landig Jewelry

A Carnival of colour

I thought I would start off the new year with making some earrings using my own components. They are made by hand painting a design onto a metal shape and then I add a layer of jewellers’ grade resin.

For this fun first pair I combined Petra Maříková’s lampwork with some spacer beads including Czech glass flowers and ceramic bead caps with these adorable puppy face components. 

For this pair I used a combination of dark blue, turquoise and lime green and I decided on quite an elaborate design based around my peacock feathers components. They are combined with hollow lampwork beads by Alisha White and Czech glass beads and bead caps.

For this final multi-coloured pair I have used lampwork br Régis Teixera, headpins by Yuliana Goldin-Dunn and some spacer beads.

I hope you like them, they will be available in my Facebook group today - Nicola Morse Jewellery & components.

Spikes

For the first post of this year I delved in to my extremely large stash of Scorched Earth goodies.  There are tonnes of spikes...I was definitely spoilt for choice.  I kept things simple, I didn't have a lot of time to make elaborate designs and I've also wanted to go back to stacked earring designs.

This pair features Petra's spikes decorated with fine silver strips.  I added silver plated brass and raw brass caps for the stacked section plus rings.

Here's another view. 

Petra's spikes again with fine silver - stacked with raw brass caps, Czech glass big hole beads and flowers.

Another view.

These are now available on Etsy. See you soon <3

Suhana 

My Etsy shop: Suhana Hart Jewellery