Ferris Wheel Tassels

When you buy faceted gemstone briolettes the strands often come with matching tassels on the ends, which I save. Today's earrings upcycle some tassels from a strand of carnelian briolettes.

I paired the orange tassels with a pair of my ceramic Ferris Wheel components. Between the ceramic connectors and the tassels I have bronzy-orange Czech glass flowers, silver spacers and Swarvoski crystals.  These earrings are really long, but I figured that this way I can give them a "haircut" to any length the purchaser desires. Don't you think these would be fun, swinging from your ears, on a sunny day?

See you in April.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Out of Africa

This weekend I'm taking part in a show I've been planning for ages - Out of Africa. I haven't made much tribal jewellery for a couple of years but it's one of my favourite styles. I had a whole collection named for Conrad's novel 'Heart of Darkness' about 6 years ago so it felt like time to revisit. I've made quite a lot of pieces with old African beads that Kimberly Rogers sourced for me at last month's Tucson Bead Show and the lovely Claire Lockwood, who was over there staying with Kim, brought them back for me in her luggage. What it is to have beady mates, and to choose your stock via Messenger!

The pair I'm showing you today are typically African in style, with vibrant yet earthy colours and textures, and plenty of movement.

Beautifully enamelled brass work by Candam Imrak is complemented by a fringe of rich red amber - vintage from my mums collection - on copper ball end headpins with tiny brown, lilac and gold seed beads. Hand made pure copper earwires finish them nicely.

 

 

Do join us over in facebookland in The Very Nice Group from Friday evening - I'm in good company, with Helen Backhouse, Lucy Haslam, Susan Schmidt Moran and Julia Hay. We plan  a virtual tour of the dark continent, from the Souks of Marrakech to the plains of Kenya, the treasures of Cairo to the sands of the Kalahari. And after that, I'll see you in two weeks.

 

Lindsay x

 

My Etsy shop

 

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Rainbow Hares

Continuing with the rainbow theme this week I painted brass shields in rainbow colours and brass hares in purple and rose gold.  

I attached both painted parts with wire and seed beads.  

To keep the focus on the hares and the bright background, I added purple flower dangles to the bottom.  

Hope you like the finished item.  I actually have quite a few of these painted bits to put together as they are meant to be part of my next components show.  These are available on Etsy. 

Thank you for looking and I will see you in April.

Suhana <3

My Etsy shop: Suhana Hart Jewellery

Not so green

Hello friends,

Today's post is about not taking the time to read properly. Yep, being impatient as I am, I did not read the post of the "We're all earrings challenge" of this month properly. What stayed in my mind was spring and "leaping green".
So, with much gusto I dived into my polymer clay stash and started to make some pencil stroke flower beads in soft pink with some sparkles (the "spring" part of the challenge). I learned to make these through the tutorial of Susan Bailey of Turtle Soup Beads. 

I love love love her beads. Mine are not quite as pretty as hers, but I am learning.

Thinking leaping green, I combined the  beads with pretty green beads. So I was all set for the challenge. I thought. Not. Nope. When I wanted to post the blog I finally read the second post of Erin... Oops, it was suppose to include much more green. Ah, well, that meant I had some new earrings to show you today :) 

These will be available in my earring show beginning of April.

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 two weeks.Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of joy, spring flowers and singing birds,
Janine
Esfera Jewelry

Spring & Good Fortune

Spring is upon us and I'm enthralled in the color of green!  Until just two days ago I had planned a completely different post using grey metal tones. Those earrings will have to wait as it is the very first day of Spring! Green, hooray!

 I found these little vintage fortune cookies awhile back but really didn't have a vision for them.  I loved their size and shape but like so many bits in my studio, they sat patiently waiting for inspiration to strike!

Originally there were no holes so I pounded down the tips of the copper cookies. They flattened beautifully (don't ya just love copper that way) and punched holes at the tops.

A couple of weeks ago I happened upon a component show hosted by Sue-Lin Tarnowski on Facebook.  She posted these pretty tin pieces with delicate Chinese characters at the top.  I asked her if there was a backstory to them, she wrote and said that the tin was vintage, and found in an antique store in a small ranching and organic producer town in Cawston, British Columbia.  She told me she travels frequently for work and seeks out antique and second-hand stores that cross her path.  I've attached a link to her name if you'd like to check out her next show.

The tin pieces although vintage were very new looking in comparison to the aged cooper cookies. So, I used a texturing hammer and added some bronzy alcohol ink to give it a little bit of a framed border.  I think it's a more cohesive look now.

It's such a pleasure to share designs with you all - thank you for stopping by!  I'll be back in April!

Loralee XO

www.loraleekolton.etsy.com

I’ve gone girly !

Morning you lovely people I’m running a little late today as my little mum is off out for lunch with my daughter,she’s 95yrs old but still wants to look nice so I’ve been helping her choose an outfit .

I’ve gone girly

I love making pretty little earrings I just wish I could wear them myself ! But when you are 5’9” of red headed wildness and not a small person , little girly earrings are a bit like a pea on a drum as my mum says lol. 

Anyhoo I found these gorgeous ceramic components from BoHulley which just say spring/summer to me they are so pretty and delicate, I’ve wrapped sterling silver chain and wire with stunning tanzanite rondelles around the neck,with just one cloud grey organic pearl to accent the lilac of Bo’s pieces and hung them from my own sterling silver “ bobbles earwires”.

Flirty and fresh these would be lovely with a pretty dress or even dressing up your jeans.

Love and hugs from Lucy at Faerystone 

Siren red

Hello Earring Lovers!

I have been making quite a few pairs of earrings for a showcase at the end of this month over in Facebook Land. I particularly enjoyed making this pair.

The starting point was a pair of delicious enamelled 'tinnies' by Kimberly Rogers of Numinosity. I love everything about these! The shape. The colour (that siren red!). The texture. They remind me a little of a Rothko painting -dense colour and lots to see the more you look.

I wanted to accentuate the angle of the charms with some oxidised brass. I like the way they make the tinnies background, rather than foregroud. Some pretty contrasting czech glass and a little oxidised brass hoop to add to the clean lines, and voila! 

Hope you like them. There'll be in my showcase over on The Earrings Show on the 29th March (Facebook). See you next month :-)

Sue

Utterly Lovely Stuff

We're All Ears ::March :: Leaping Greenly!

This is going to be short and sweet. I didn't get started on my greens until after my daughter left for her spring break trip to Florida. I am so jealous that she is soon to see grass and palm trees and flowers and sand and water. We are in a funk of dirty grey snow as far as the eye can see. So this month's challenge is all about hope for me, Hope that spring will be just around the corner!

So earlier tonight (it is just about 1 am as I am typing this), I pulled together all the green art beads I could find. I didn't have as many art beads in green as I had hoped, but I found a few.

I wanted to make three pairs, but I ran into a snag with one pair and had to abandon it to save my sanity. I ended up with just two pairs this time.

This first pair has some lovely ceramic headpins from Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Designs in a juicy crisp apple green. I found these bead frames that are sort of off-center and added some rizo beads in a great garnet shade of red with an iridescent finish. They remind me of seeds in a pod. Seeds are fascinating because of all the potential that is within waiting to burst into life.

For these I wanted to use the tablet glass beads from Sue Kennedy of SueBeads. They have a larger hole, so it was a struggle to get them to not wobble. I solved that by putting a bugle bead inside. They still spin a bit, but they don't wobble anymore! I stacked them on top of these nice heavy brass triangle bead frames and thought a pop of color would liven these up, so I found these pink coral beads, a bit of bling with the rhinestone rondelles and then some ceramic beads in classic blue-white combo. At the top I threaded some African tribal brass tubes for some texture. These feel like they are begging for a sun dress and a walk on a beach!

Your turn! Let's see what you made to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day (March 17!) plus the return of Spring (March 20!). It is returning...right?!

Glorious Geometrics

Hi, everyone!  The first thing I'd like to say about these earrings is that I really loved making them...even if they were time-consuming.  😉

As a chainmailler, obviously I like working with metal, but as a woman who for years transcribed the (sometimes unintelligible) dictation of doctors, I now find myself with arthritic thumbs that aren't up to heavy-duty metal work anymore.  These days, the idea of making chainmaille in stainless steel--famously hard to work with--is a little scary at best.

But I really enjoy working with wire that's easily manipulable, and with chainmaille rings in softer metals.  So every now and then, rather than pair beads with beautiful components like these (made by Marlene Kazor Quigley of MarKazo Art), I create something out of wire instead.

 

In this case, I made circles out of several wraps of copper wire, antiqued and tumbled them, and wired onto them tiny beads in colors that bring out the vivid hues of Marlene's enameled copper triangles.  I even wrapped some little beads to the ear wires.

I always did like geometry.  💗

Thanks so much for reading!
xoxo
Meridy

My Shop
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Sunshine, Showers and The Tempest

 

It's been an odd sort of week, weatherwise. At the beginning of last week we were out on our bikes in warm sunshine; by weekend, it was back to rain, sleet and hailstones. Tonight we have a mini storm, and there will be some fences down by morning - hopefully, not ours as we had to replace them all at a similar time a couple of years ago. So this weeks earrings represent the weather - sunshine yellow, rainy blue and stormy soldered silver.    

 

 

 

The beads are, of course, Basha Beads; nothing quite like them for magical depth of colour, with gold, blue, and aqua all vying for attention. The headpins are Lucy Haslam's 'punkies'; copper, soldered with bits of recycled silver - here I bent them sideways, to form an interesting shape, and from them dangle vintage oxidised silver chain and swarowski crystals.

 

So there you have it - this weeks weather, condensed into a pair of earrings! In my Etsy shop now.

 See you in a couple of weeks, by which time, we will have hit Spring. Hope all is well in your world!

                                                                          Lindsay x

                                                                     My Etsy shop

                                                                My Facebook page

Midnight Sky

I had fun making today's earrings. I've had the blue sparkly beads for many years, but never found the right thing to pair them with, till now.  The red and silver flower beads are a new acquisition and they were just what I needed.

 The midnight blue glass beads are from Vienna - known worldwide for it's long history of making outstanding glass. What appears as tiny white flecks in the photos, is actually a glittering, metallic material in the glass, called aventurine. Whether in daylight or candlelight, these Viennese glass beads shine and sparkle! 

Legend has it that aventurine glass was invented by accident when a Viennese glass artist spilled copper filings into a batch of molten glass. The glass that resulted from that happy mistake was named aventurine.  "A ventura" is Italian for by chance. The deep blue of the beads reminds me of the night sky, strewn with hundreds of twinkling stars.

The blue beads are topped by bright red flowers that are accented by a metallic, silver wash that adds to the shimmer from the Viennese glass. Silver metal spacers are nestled on both ends of the blue glass beads. The Night Sky Earrings are available in my shop.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Summer Dreaming

Spring is here but I'm thinking up excuses to indulge in as much colour as possible.  When it comes to colours...more is always more.  I've had these polymer drops framed by copper wire for ages, they never worked in my previous attempts.  I also came across these ribbed polymer beads that I've also had for years.  These were part of another pair of earrings which I took apart.  The colours in both sets of polymer beads matched up perfectly.  All I needed to do was create something to go in between...to break them down a bit.

I painted brass tubes, instead of going for darker colours I decided to go all out and match them with the polymer beads. I laid them out: polymer rounds followed by tubes and polymer drops.  They did not look complete. 

I sort of took the 'lazy' approach and wire wrapped some hoops in matching colours as I couldn't think of anything else.....hoping they would all fit together despite the explosion of colours. 

Here's a closer look.  I think the components look comfortable with each other - the oxidised copper wire acts as the 'softener'.

Polymer ribbed beads: Di Keeble

Polymer drops: Holly Stultz

These earrings are now in my Etsy shop.  Have a lovely weekend and I will see you in a couple of weeks. 

Suhana <3

My Etsy shop: Suhana Hart Jewellery

African safari

Hello friends, how are you doing? Hopefully Spring arrive very soon if you are living in the areas where Winter doesn't want to seem to leave.

During our travels we never managed to visit Africa. We concentrated mostly on Asia and the Middle East. So, hopefully, someday we experience an African Safari and see the magnificent wild life.

This weekend I made beads instead of jewelry: paper, Tyvek and polymer clay beads. I had great fun and I love how they all turned out. The polymer clay beads have a wonderful African feel to them.

I combined the earring charms with old Padre beads, Agate and old copper trade beads.

 

These will be available in my show beginning of april :)
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 two weeks.Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of joy, warm weather and sunshine,
Janine
Esfera Jewelry

Seigaiha (青海波) Blue Wave Of The Sea

Happy March, Beady Peeps!

  

All I can think of is warmer weather as I'm sitting in the studio with the windchill temperatures in the negative digits this morning!  As Erin wrote for this month's challenge "Make It Stop!" - she cracks me up!  

Looking for something interesting to show you this week I kept picking up these ceramic charms made by Golem Studio. They feature a traditional Japanese pattern of layered concentric arches symbolic of waves. This wave pattern represents surges of good luck and also can signify power and resilience.  The wave symbol was originally used in China on ancient maps to represent the sea.

The connecting beads I chose for this design are by Jon Burgess.  They are bone like in appearance but made of polymer clay and very lightweight.  They also have a lantern-like shape and worked beautifully holding the wire in place.

I used wire with a thicker gauge to appear rope-like, then messy-wrapped the tops to look like the ropes you'd see lying on a dock.  

I think this pair had a lovely blend of materials and textures. 

Well, I hope these bring good luck and better weather soon!  Until next time!

Thank you for stopping in!

Loralee xo

 www.loraleekolton.etsy.com 

Beautiful Buds

Hello lovely ones how are you all? Have you survived the storms ? Or have you been basking in the February sunshine (two words you never thought you would hear together  ,February and sunshine)
Here in Wild and wonderful Wales we have had it all sun,rain storms and apparently now snow!!!!
Because of the unusual sunshine we have been sat in the garden quite a bit in the last week and I couldn't help but notice the abundance of buds that are popping out all over my wild garden.
It's marvellous to see these tiny green pops of colour among the greys and murky browns of winter ,it gives a new colour pallet with different textures and of course the hope of Spring.
So yes I'm on the green road again ....I just love green so many different hues and tones !!

Yes I know " get on with it Lucy stop waxing lyrical about green lol"
I've had these gorgeous lampwork headpins from Karin Hruza for quite a while but couldn't seem to find the right partners for them .....until....these beautiful honey amber nuggets appeared.
Ooooo they are just scrummy rich and tactile.

They complement the wonderful apple green of Karin's headpins and bring out a iridescent glow.

I've added some of my aged copper twiddled discs ,and wire wrapped these glorious lush honey nuggets above,then a tiny pop of almost lime green to make them sing,hung from my tiny maze aged copper earwires.

I think these little pretties will make the change from winter to spring very easy,copper and green go so well and these amazing headpins have now at last found their partners.

Love and hugs to you all 

Lucy from Faerystone 

Dark hearts

Blimey...where does the time go! I know it's the beginning of March and I should be making earrings inspired by Spring. Unfortunately, I've never been terribly good at doing "seasonal"...

So these gorgeous ceramic ball and heart drops are by Petra Carpreau and they are clearly much better suited to a February post and Valentine's Day...Sorry!

The hearts have a gorgeous deep red glaze, and grungy feel to them. I thought I'd dress up the connecting bits of wire with some pretty silver seed beads to match the silver ceramic ball.

 And, of course -there have to be hoops. Beautiful dark oxidised brass hoops to frame the ceramic pretties and add some extra swing.

So there we have it! Dark hearts. Nothing to do with Spring, but I hope you like them anyway. There'll be in my showcase at the end of this month, over on The Earrings Show.. 

See you in a couple of weeks :-)

Sue x

We're All Ears :: March Challenge :: Leaping Greenly

If you are living in the upper half of the US, you might be experiencing a white-out of epic proportions. Here is the snow hill where my kids used to go to school. The kids there were in heaven, rolling and tumbling and making forts. I can assure you that it was never, ever this high when my son was playing king of the hill. 

MAKE.IT.STOP.

Everywhere I look I am surrounded by white. The snow drifts around these parts are higher than my car in a lot of places, making it dangerous to just inch out onto a road. [And it seems neverending! I heard a prediction of -40 degrees again on Monday...guess that means I will have to put socks back on!] 

I know that last month I was all enamored of the sparkling beauty of the snowflake but this month I am all.....pffffffft.

I was going through my now defunct blog [treasures-found.blogspot.com] recently in preparation for a writing class I am teaching today, and I stumbled across this post that I wrote on May 19, 2011. 

I really enjoyed reading all the things that I wrote back then. I truly had a knack for telling a story. But more than just words, I also have love of visuals, and telling a visual story is just as compelling to me. 

Back then I used my Canon DSLR camera for everything, I bought some filters to turn my lens into a macro and took myself on a photo-safari walk around the riverside park next to my office. I still remember this vividly.

So I made a little collage to remind me that spring is just around the corner....right?!

[Just to be clear...I have actually used this similar set of photos in a challenge back in September 2014...but they are sooooo good and I am sooooo longing for these colors!]



Here's to a hopeful return of sunshine to start the onerous melting process. 
Here's to the Vernal Equinox that is coming on March 20th. 
Here's to the slumbering buds and the dormant blades of grass that are preparing their debut. 
And here's to the coming Saint Patty's Day celebration of all things green (especially my favorite Shamrock Shakes! ;-).

Let's break out all the GREENS we can find for this month's We're All Ears challenge. 

See you right here on Friday, March 19th!