Making Lemonade

So, I'm on on a flight of fancy with these lovely autumnal rustic stoneware pieces by Ceramiky. I finished one, very happy, but then I had to make the other in mirror image. Always tricky for me, and fiddling too much with wire I knew was slightly too robust for the piece I managed to break off the corner. Who hasn't been there?

Sling it on the failure pile to cut up, or make the best of it?

Always a push to do something asymmetrical for me, I'm either in the mood or I'm not, and they can just look contrived.

I'd used a 22 gauge wire to keep its shape with the beaded arc, copper tube and carnelian disc with the carnelian flower firmly anchored on the other side. So for the partner I found a Kimberly Rogers lampwork headpin, fancy bronze beadcap by Anna Chernykh, and used the same carnelian flower and disc, copper tube and scarlet beads for the echo.

A friend described it as 'making lemonade ' - I guess, like making an omelette with broken eggs!

 

If you like asymmetry, they're in my Etsy shop now.

 

Hope life is treating you well, and see you again in  couple of weeks.

 

Lindsay x

 

My Etsy shop

 

My Facebook page

 

Celebrate In Style

As I was writing the title of today's post, it reminded me that the first dance my husband-to-be and I attended in high school was titled Celebrate. But I digress...
Today's earrings are meant for celebrating! With their shoulder duster length and the glimmer of gold colored hoops, these earrings will put the wearer in a festive mood!

My friend, Sue Kennedy, of SueBeads, is a multi-talented artist. She made both the beaded beads at the top of the earrings, as well as the handmade lampwork glass beads at the bottom. I didn't purchase these two components at the same time, but they go together perfectly! Paired with the hammered gold TerraCast ovals and the gold plated wires that tapper to a rounded point at the bottom, the earrings take on an elegant look, with flowing lines.

I was thinking of holiday parties when I made these, but since there is nothing "Christmassy" about them, they will look great year 'round on any dressy occasion. The Celebration Earrings are available in my shop now. Take a look!

Since this is my last post before Thanksgiving, I want to wish our US friends of Earrings Everyday a Happy Thanksgiving, filled with laughter, love and deliciousness!

Linda Landig Jewelry

Creative Weekend

This past weekend was long-awaited and extra special for me!  Once a year I steal away with one of my best friends to South Haven, Michigan to attend the "Inspired By Nature" jewelry retreat. The event is hosted by Heather Powers of Humblebeads.

One of the many projects we worked on were these lovely faux tin components.  I actually made this pair using our "practice sheet" of tin, before using our fancy copper sheeting.  The practice run was supposed to let us get a feel for applying the transfers and baking which can be tricky.  However, I thought they turned out so well I decided to make a pair of earrings with it!

I oxidized all the copper accent beads and jump-rings to coordinate with the dark navy blue floral pattern and cut tiny squares of tin for fringe (nothing wasted!).

This gauge of tin was extremely lightweight and so nice for earrings.  The charms I made on copper sheeting will have a little more weight and be sturdier however, both materials are great in their own way.

Here are a couple of pendants I've made with copper backing.  Definitely more substantial.  I'm still working on them but wanted to show you.

Here we are working away like little elves in one of our cozy cabins.

All the lovely elves!  ♡

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I'll be back in a couple of weeks with some new things!

♡

Loralee XO

www.loraleekolton.etsy.com

Beaded embellishments

Hello Earring Folk!

A brief one from me this time. Look at these gorgeous ceramic connectors by Petra Carpreau. They have a beautiful soft bronze glaze. Petra's connectors are always fabulous -so versatile. I'm often tempted to just pop them on a pair of earwires and leave them be! However, I thought I'd play with these a little.

In both pairs of earrings, I've used silver and bronze seeds beads wrapped on wire. I love the simplicity of these pebble connectors -they're very tactile. I've added oxidised brass hoops to frame the seed beads and replicate the shape of the pebbles.

This next pair feature Petra's connectors and her super popular ceramic drops. They both have the same bronze glaze, and I added the seed beads to add a little boho flair to them. These are party earrings I think!

So that's me done for this month. I'll be back at the beginning of December

Sue

Utterly Lovely Stuff

Dulce et Decorum Est

It's been a busy week - the weekend past was our Very Nice Group charity auction in aid of The British Legion, for Remembrance Sunday. I made two pairs of earrings to offer, very different from each other.
The first pair are more traditional 'Poppy Day' earrings - glossy lampwork poppies by Jacky Alty, paired with lilac enamel drops by Kaz Baildon - you can just see those tiny poppies at the bottom.

The second, darker and more brutal, 'The Wasteland' - to depict the twisted metal of the battlefield.

 

Here, proprietory black metal connectors are matched with blackened copper leaves by Bernie Ryman, fab chain that just happens to be half copper and half black, and tiny Picasso glass drops.

 

Happy to say both pairs sold, and together we raised over £300 for the veterans.

 

  I'll be back in two weeks, with new work I hope!

 

Lindsay xx

 

My Etsy Shop

 

My Facebook Page 

Perched on a Gingerbread House

Hi all, thank you for taking the time to read my post, it's  a very short one today. I decided to make some Christmas earrings as it seems to be creeping up on us.

These fabulous enamel gingerbread houses by Cathleen Zaring stood out in my stock of components and where there is a house I usually like to perch a bird on top of it, it just seems to be the right thing to do (for me). The lampwork bird beads are by Kateřina Sojková and with their bold spots I think they fit in nicely with the house. Czech glass and copper bead caps are also used plus lampwork spacers. and copper ear wires by Louise Goodchild.

These will be available to purchase from my group page later today - Nicola Morse - Jewellery & components

Head In The Clouds

Greetings! Thanks for stopping by!  

I've had these on my worktable for a while now.  I originally was going to messy wrap the charms to the clouds with AB crystals but it came across too stiff.  I wanted a little movement --a little shimmy, so I decided to add these tiny little silver charms and I'm super happy now!

Hand formed ceramic droppers by Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarth with Rene Magritte images.

The tiniest and sweetest little pale blue ceramic clouds by Gaea Cannaday of Gaea Handmade.  Honestly, could those clouds be any more perfect?!!!

I'll be back in a couple of weeks!  Hard to believe Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

Until then! 💙

Loralee XO

www.loraleekolton.etsy.com

Knotty Or Nice?

OK, forgive me for the title. I love puns and with the holidays approaching, I couldn't resist this one. So I learned a new thing last week. Using YouTube I learned how to make these knotted leather infinity links. I actually found two YouTube tutorials and each taught the infinity knot in totally different ways - even though the end result is identical. I found it intriguing that such different approaches ended with the same result. The earrings below were the first ones I made. The leather is quite thick. I think it is 1.5 mm. It's also a somewhat rough or rustic leather cord. It was a bit difficult to knot tightly, especially since this was my first try. I had to unknot it and start over a couple of times till I got the hang of it.

 I used the second knotting tutorial for the earrings below and found it much easier to follow. I also used a lighter weight cord (.5 mm), which means that in order for the leather to hold its teardrop shape, I had to use lighter weight dangles. This cord was very smooth and I think that helped me make better knots.

I had fun making these and I know I'll be making more. These knots can also be used as clasps and connectors. Guess I'll be needing more leather soon.

What is something new that you have learned recently? Doesn't need to be jewelry related. Let us know about it in the comments below! Thanks for visiting Earrings Everyday. See you in two weeks!

Linda Landig Jewelry

We're All Ears :: November Inspiration

You know how one thing leads to another? Like an adult version of the children's book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" where the cookie leads to all sorts of things? Well, we recently upgraded our home wifi to a Google puck-type thing. It was fine and dandy for set up, but then I noticed that my printer wouldn't print. Which lead me to find out that it is obsolete (yet works perfectly!) so my only option seemed that I needed to buy a new one. But then I discovered that I could wire it in directly (instead of the wireless of before, where it was on the other side of the room). And that meant a trip to the store to buy a cable. But the longest one they had was only 6 or 10-feet, so I had to move the printer closer. Which lead to the fascinating discovery of all sorts of flotsam and jetsam, like an archeological dig in paper form on the very messy computer desk. I am still sorting through it, but I did come across this little notebook with all these cryptic phrases in it, like Barely Clouds, and Disappointed Bees, and Hidden Venus. I was completely at a loss for what this was until I found a scribble at the end that this was from a random name generator called The Forge.

Random Name Generators exist to help people come up with all sorts of names...for characters in your next novel, Scientific-sounding bird names, Music Band Names, Dragon Names and so much more.

I like to name my pieces and I was obviously stuck for some cool-sounding names, and stumbled upon this, sometime in the past 10 years of living here. The FantasyNameGenerators website is far more robust and offers far more types of names to generate than I remember that the original one I used. I think that my diversion of this website was to produce a list of names that I could then use to influence my design, rather than naming a thing after. It is a good challenge to start with a name and see what leads you to create. So that is what we will do this month.

Above is a list of some of the names that I had in my little naming notebook. Pick one or more to create a pair of earrings that embodies this spirit of the name. And if you are so inspired to find your own random name, check out FantasyNameGenerators. See you back here on Friday, November 15th for the reveal!