The need for colour!

So January is done (hooray!) and I am feeling the need for colour!

For this blog, I revisited an old design which is a bit of a favourite. I got hold of some of Helena Benkoczka's folded copper bails. Helena is perhaps best known for her beautifully colourful polymer clay components, but is a very talented jewellery designer herself AND also makes some gorgeous copper components on occasion too. These beauties have a teeny tiny Buddha stamp.

I paired these up with some of my favourite recycled glass chunks in a vivid purple and wrapped some colourful seed beads onto some oxidised copper wire and looped them through the bails.

Bright, colourful and a bit boho. However, I was in a rush to photograph them before I lost the light today and spotted a tiny bit of wire that needed to be trimmed/tucked in! It has been sorted, but I couldn't take another photo, so it sits above, annoying me! Can you spot it? 

These will be available in my next showcase over on The Earrings Show on Friday 23rd Feb. See you in a couple of weeks!

Sue x 

www.etsy.com/shop/utterlylovelystuff

Pretty insect wings

Hello!
I am Sue from Utterly Lovely Stuff and I'm so happy to contribute to this rather fabulous blog :-)

I've been making jewellery for several years now, and love making earrings most of all. I have an enormous stash of Petra Carpreau's gorgeous ceramic pieces (ScorchedEarthonEtsy ) so turned to this when I was looking for inspiration for this blog. Petra's work is inspired by nature -shells, leaves, flowers etc and her pieces never fail to inspire. These gorgeous insect wing decal droppers leapt out at me. Wings of all descriptions seem to be very popular in earring designs at the moment (see Erin's previous post and beautiful moth inspired earrings). I love Petra's take on this current trend. The colours in both of these pairs are beautiful, they're like little impressionist paintings -gorgeous!

I wanted a slightly different design for both pairs. For this first pair, I added some czech glass roller beads, some layers of pretty black chain for contrast (and to give them a layered look) and some picasso seed beads to finish them off. Love the yellow and pink in this pair.

For the second pair, I used another pair of czech glass roller beads (these are great because of the wide holes) and added some pretty purple seed beads in loops (this was a fiddly business!) and finished these off with some delicate silver plated leaf chain for contrast

Hope you like them. These pretties are available in my etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/utterlylovelystuff

See you in a couple of weeks

Wire is my Friend. . . .

. . . .except when it's not! 

Hello, and Happy Day to you!

I love playing with wire. And every once in a while something fun that I can use comes of it. I don't mean the soldering kind of playing; just taking various gauges of wire and trying to make things. In recent months I've been playing around with what what I call "bead frames." I haven't yet made one that actually looked like something I'd like to use, but I keep playing.  

So speaking of wire, which is my friend so much of the time, I have two earrings for you today. Two earrings, but they don't match. And no, they're not asymmetrical in design. They are two earrings, one each of both pairs I planned to share with you today. 

So yes, I love playing with wire. It's fun, it's therapeutic, and I love putting in something a bit quirky in designs. The problem comes in when I have to repeat what I did the first time! There is nothing so complex to warrant such difficulty in either of these designs, but I spent way too much time attempting to make the second earring for both of these. 
These earrings are not at all complete either. I'll say they're "half baked." Consider it a prototype. :) They will be oxidized and look more pulled together when finally completed. The Peace Sign with charms by Vincent & Nooma of Inviciti, and the Lampwork Glass by Leese Mahoney of GlassByLeese, will be oxidized to black. That will highlight the tiny silver beads around the frame. The same tiny beads run up and down the wire connected to the charm, on both sides.

The "Scream" earrings, copper by our very own Kristi Bowman-Gruel of KristiBowmanDesign, will be oxidized and buffed back to highlight the copper loops in the center. These pieces felt so not me at all but yet I wanted them, and in the end I loved them. I had a couple of more "Halloween-like" ideas I thought I'd try, but in the end I kept it more everyday wear, the ivory and black looked much better than the white and black I initially tried. And anything colorful didn't work for me. The lava stones add a bit of rustic, which you are not getting at all from my photos. The ivory Lampwork is shiny; I tried the matte version; didn't like it. The top bead you aren't seeing well either, really. It's shiny, but it has a very full Picasso finish underneath the shine. It's an interesting bead. :) This is probably a good time to apologize for the poor photos. I have lost the best place to take my pictures in natural light. So forgive me as I struggle to figure it out, or decide to depend on a light box. 

I have no intention of dropping these designs all together; I like them and will keep going. If I decide to make a change along the way, well, that's a designer's prerogative, isn't it? And I do that a lot! ;) Truthfully, I simply ran out of time to finish for today. Never did I expect to have such a problem with these. One, maybe, even though it didn't cross my mind, but both? Well, it is what it is. 

In the "Scream" earrings, it's a wonky piece of wire work to begin with, so it wasn't at all that I was trying to make them perfect one to the other as far as the wire. But it is the kind of design that for me requires the length to be the same. With many handcrafted components it's a challenge, but these two sets were perfectly matched. But length was the main problem I was having, and similarity of the loops in a secondary way. All I did was roll three rounds of wire on the step pliers with a wire pointing in either direction at the end. The wire facing down was bent inward to become the wire that the lava stone was put on, and then into the Scream face. The wire facing up was bent down and inward to wrap around the first wire. I then took a second wire and strung it through the middle of the three loops and wrapped it up from there.

The Inviciti Peace Sign earrings were a different story. I broke several pieces of wire from overworking while attempting to get this done. I could NOT get the wire centered in the kite-shaped frame, nor could I get it to come out the same size. Measurements did no good. Gggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I was so frustrated. Wire DOES, in fact, have a mind of its own, and you will never be able to convince me otherwise. 

So these earrings are not yet available; they will be but I don't know when. :) I've also attached a collage of a few of the things I've done with simple wire stuff; nothin' fancy; just fun little things that add a quirky something. These earrings have all sold; some of them recent, a few of them two or three years old. Like I said, I love wire; she simply doesn't always want to do what I ask her to. It's okay though; I'll keep her around anyway. :)

So thank you for taking time out of your busy day to have a look at what we've got going on here. We all appreciate it. We also appreciate comments or questions. We very much appreciate that! I'll be back in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, please let me know if you have some fun playing with wire! 

Thank you!

Happy Days to You!

Norbel Marolla

She Flies Again on Etsy

She Flies Again on Facebook

p.s. I wanted to mention that we are attempting to organize a request for a challenge made by an EE follower. Not all of us will be able to participate, but those of us who are able will be working on it. She has requested that we each start with the same elements, a pair of "something," to see how differently we all use the same pieces. Fun idea! So we're working on it and will keep you posted. We hope you'll enjoy it. 

German Rose Earrings

Having a huge pile of copper components by Kristi Bowman on my work table, inspired me to dive into them and start creating.  I have an art walk show coming up, so the more earrings the better.

Shameless Self-Promotion:

I won these copper pieces in a Facebook auction giveaway that Kristi had. I like the asymmetrical shape and pattern.

 I topped the copper pieces with a few Greek ceramic discs and some lovely vintage, German glass  roses.

I did some wire wrapping down the back of the roses and beneath them to keep them facing forward. To give visual balance to the asymmetrical copper pieces, I added dangles consisting of transparent  Swarovski crystals and Czech glass flowers.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Unpredictable Verdigris

I love working with patinas and painting, my favorite colors of course being the blue-greens. However.... the end result can be very unpredictable, but I think I'm getting the hang of the process to actually duplicate the colors pretty close each time. I make sure that the brass and copper bases are raw by removing any protected sealers, it seems to take the color faster with overall better coverage.

There are a number of suppliers out there, my favorite being Swellegant, they also offer a number of dyes & how to videos to help you out.

Below are a few pieces I've made using this product, as you can see the end results have been pretty close.

I used copper for the chain/leather fringe earrings and tribal triangles, the large flower pods with raw brass.

◄ this finish, I added a tad of deep blue and then dipped it again in the regular solution, I couldn't be happier with this flow over embossed copper, its just gorgeous!

These flower pods turned out a little more green, but I've made others with veins of deeper blue here and there.

Hope this sends you some inspiration for the day.  Thanks for stopping by, share a few comments if you can and we will see you again later this month.

Lynn♥

My Etsy Shop- Yucca Bloom

Nothing Ventured- Nothing Gained

Do you ever get the urge to go out on a limb and try something new? Oh if only I had a torch!!! I can only imagine the possibilities at my finger tips.  Unfortunately my living space does not accommodate this venture, but someday I hope.  Nevertheless, I fall back on what I can do, and that's paint.  I was trying to come up with a cool finish on the surface of metal.  Really loving the crackled look, I Googled how to achieve this.  Turns out you can do it with Elmer's glue, dang...that sounds easy!!  Doesn't it???

I applied enamel paint over the surface of copper, adding two different colors, one over the other.  After drying, I applied crackling gel, ( I did not use Elmer's this first go around).  The results were not as I expected so I tried to sand it off thinking I could start from scratch- NOT!!
As you can see, this removed the shiny crackle and brought out both colors of the paint as I sanded through the finish deeper. I kept going until I reached an affect I was okay with.  

They were looking a little plain, so I jazzed them up with a strip of stamped copper and some tiny copper rounds.

Not quite sure how these were going to be perceived in my shop, but I thought what the heck. Nothing ventured, nothing Gained, right?.  To my surprise they both sold right away ☺

Thanks for taking a peek and would love to hear which finish resonates with you most. 
Bye for now!  Lynn

My ETSY Shop

Yucca Bloom on ETSY

Left Overs ♥

For any of you who are a huge fan, like me!! of Scorched Earth on ETSY, and have ordered from Petra Carpreau will appreciate the little extra's she throws in her shipments, and I'm not talking about just the candy!!☺  I have quite the overflowing drawer of little goodies.  Often one offs in the batch, but they can sure come in handy when looking for a unique addition to a creation.  Over time I have collected, "sets" to speak of these little porcelain hearts.    

So what did I do to them you say?  Just couldn't use them in their natural black state, so of course I had to jazz them up a bit. Sometimes you need to create change to your materials to make the design work.

I've always been in love with rock Mandala painting like the one you see below from Digs Groove.  The patience and work that goes into this art is beautiful!  This is what inspired me to paint on the hearts.  What a difference, don't you think?  Although my earrings are much more organic, I think they turned out pretty good and it fits with their rustic aura.

So if you sitting on a little porcelain mine of Petra's left overs, explore, you never know what what you might come up with. ☺

Thank you for visiting friends, see you again in two weeks!!

My Etsy Shop- Yucca Bloom

Sexy Solder

So okay, it's not really sexy; I was looking for an S word! :) But it does make me feel powerful!

I would never have believed I would enjoy anything that had to do with fire, beyond that in a fireplace. But I really do like soldering. It does give me a feeling of power! almost. Makes me feel as if I could build things!

The earrings I have to show you are not what I intended to. The Sterling hoops below are what I planned to share. But when all was said and done, I wasn't happy with them. They're a little too rustic, even for me. I have to do some work on the copper, and then there's something missing. I worked with them trying to add different things here or there and eventually just put them aside. They are my first soldered Sterling pieces. Big Sterling Hippie Hoops is what I envisioned. Who knows where they'll end up.

So I pulled out a pair of copper teardrops I had soldered at the same time. I like making plain shapes, rounds, teardrops, triangles, and soldering a bar across, generally not straight across, on an angle, and the angle may not be the same on each earring. And then I select a group of beads and wrap the daylights out of the bars. The picture below shows a few I've done in the past.

They are challenging to wrap. I have wrapped and re-wrapped and re-wrapped many pieces. Some never to be completed. I used to use wire until it finally occurred to me to try waxed linen! Much kinder to the hands!

hand-forged copper teardrops

The top beads are ceramic by Nadia Karapencheva of Nadia Terra.

Thanks for stopping by! My wishes to you and yours for a year filled with Love & Laughter, Peace & Joy. Happy New Year! And enjoy a little fire!
I'll be back on 01/05/16.

Norbel Marolla
She Flies Again - My Shop on Etsy
She Flies Again on Facebook

Rustic Gemstone Hoops

Copper Gemstone Hoop Earrings

It's not often that I have the patience to sit down and seriously attempt anything this intricate, but I managed to overcome my tendency toward ADHD and finish these wire wrapped hoops just in time for today's post. I used a new jig to form loops for the bottom of these teardrop shaped copper hoops, and then added a little more embellishment with the wrapped seed beads. My goal was to make a pair of gem laden hoops that aren't too heavy or overwhelming.

It can sometimes be difficult to capture all of its beauty in photos, but I have always loved using labradorite in jewelry. It has a lovely iridescent quality along with its tantalizing flashes of blue. Here the dangles are faceted onion brios wrapped in oxidized copper wire. As a contrast to the labradorite, I use London Blue Topaz for the center drops, wrapped in the same style as the labradorite.

The result is a boho southwestern mix of rustic copper and glittering gemstones.












Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy