New Directions

While I've made jewelry for most of my adult life, I only began working with clay about 5 years ago. I've been mostly offering my ceramic components for sale to other designers, via FaceBook and my website. But I feel myself moving in a new direction right now. I want to reduce my emphasis on selling my components to other designers and mostly focus on making jewelry using my own ceramic pieces.

I've opened up an additional shop that solely focuses on jewelry featuring my ceramic components, such as these delightfully rustic, sage green flower earrings. I also have some easy going post earrings on offer.

There are also some earrings that you may recognize from previous Earrings Everyday posts, such as the following.

My new shop also has necklaces and bracelets and a few jewelry components. I am adding new jewelry all the time. I hope you will come, visit and check it out. My original website will continue as always, with a wonderful array of handmade jewelry and components. Here are the links for both shops.

Linda Landig Jewelry at the ClayShare Market, (my new shop for my ceramic jewelry).

Linda Landig Jewelry (my original website, with a wide variety of my jewelry to choose from).

As always, thank you for visiting Earrings Everyday and I'll see you again in 2 weeks!

oh yeah. . . here it comes

Hello! I do hope this day finds everyone healthy and well and simply enjoying the day.

When I sat down on Sunday to make a pair of earrings for today, it had been a rough few days out there in the world, for all of us. As much as I say that creating is the time I am able to shut off my mind from the world and simply let myself "be," I don't always sit down and flick the switch and the thoughts stop. This was definitely one of those times. . . . . so much running through my mind. And it all felt so dark. . .

I didn't have a plan; I often have at least a vague idea, or I have them made in advance. I have different ways I use to inspire myself. Sometimes I don't need any; other times absolutely nothing will spark me. This day I decided to pull out, or bring closer, pieces from all of my favorite artisans. . . well, most of them, and only one pair each. I know that often simply going through my treasures will lighten my mood. After I lined up a whole lotta pairs, I realized I had selected all colorful pieces. It was a great assortment of styles and materials, ceramics, lampwork, pewter, copper, etc., but all of them colorful. It was an interesting exercise because it was not at all planned. The other interesting thing is that most of them were -- oh yeah. . . here it comes. . . . Autumn like! 😁

I don't mean to bring it up too early! At least I hope it doesn't offend. I know that summer is all too short in so many places, including here in Michigan, but these years, I don't at all feel sad that summer is ending. Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. I won't go into another whole slew of emotional things but in a nutshell I find it soothing, invigorating, melancholic, joyful, peaceful, all those things and more rolled into one.

And the winner of my rows of Artisan Beads were these gorgeous ceramic leaves by Petra Carpreau, ScorchedEarthOnEtsy. In person they have a beautiful glossy shine.

Earrings Available Here

I realized late last night as I was uploading the photos here that I had not photographed these to reveal their best. There are lovely areas of metallic coppery pink on the leaves, not revealed due to angle, light and the placement of the "berries." They were made so that they are situated more to the yellow/green side of the leaves when hanging. They aren't real floppy either so as I was handling them, I must've pushed them over a bit and ruined the pictures! lol I apologize. heavy sigh. . . it's always something. 😉

I used Czech glass beads of Gilded Whiskey, Coral Picasso, and Turquoise Picasso Tube Beads on waxed Irish linen, oxidized copper wire, 6mm flat, square Turquoise stones, a beautiful shade of Green Turquoise Picasso glass and the same coral, no metal except for the wire. 

As always, I sincerely thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoy the remainder of the summer. I'll be back just after Labor Day. 

Tomorrow you will be meeting and totally enjoying, I'm sure, another new regular contributor to the Earrings Everyday Blog. I know you will love her!

Norbel

She Flies Again                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

I really love these!

Hello everyone. I do hope your week is off to a great start.

This is one of those longer posts I find myself writing now and then. 😃

While making, every once in a while something magical happens and I remember very clearly what it is that I love so much about creating. Those of you who are makers will understand, I think, and I'm sure there are many other things in life that others can relate to, things that create the same feeling: maybe holding your grandchild; sitting with your favorite pet on your lap or at your feet while reading a great book; looking out at the water on a clear, crisp, fall day, trees filled with colorful leaves. That last one is another one for me. They are incredibly special times that create emotions that at least I don't live with regularly. But it's also something that is difficult for me to put into words.

I say every once in a while because for me that is how it works. It is not something that happens every time I create something, even if I love the result. There are many days where it is nothing more than a practice of habit. . . . . I sit at my worktable, pull out a hundred and one things and try to "feel" what works that day. And that can change from one hour to the next. Something I'm excited about can quickly turn to "what was I thinking" after frustration and a break away help me see things more clearly.

But this day, these earrings, the magic happened.

I had these sweet bell ceramic pieces fired with a glazed called "Poppy Fields" for only a week or two. They were made by friend-to-many and Ceramic Artisan Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy. These were not the only pieces I had out on my worktable. At least a half dozen others and I was not at all focused on anything when for whatever reason the rusted tin ceiling tiles that I cherish crossed my mind. And it simply took off from there.

I knew I wanted thin strips, not really sure yet what I was going to pair them with. I cut them out and as I was shaping and filing, the bells became the focus. My idea was to use white acrylic paint to give them a "whitewash" kind of look but pulled out colorants made by Vintaj instead. Testing the coloring on the back of one, in a split second I knew it was exactly what I wanted. It's a white/blue color named "marine."

The rest of the design went along smoothly but at this point the feeling was already there, and it lasted throughout the remainder of the making and far beyond. Even still, I get an unearthly tingle inside when I look at them. Now, I know that they are simply a pair of earrings, and they may not even be something that many will like. But the feeling doesn't depend on those things. It comes from inside. It's a joy that creating sometimes creates. It is what it is. And I am very grateful to be able to experience joy.

Like so many of us do, I spent many years of my life raising a child, earning a living, keeping a house, taking a bit of time now and then to visit with family and friends, dealing with illnesses and a whole host of other "life" happenings, and keeping so busy that I never slowed down long enough to let the mind and body completely relax and let this brand of joy come.

This feeling, this joy that I'm talking about, comes to a quiet mind. I had a brother just 18 months younger than I, until he left us much too soon at age 47, who told me how being on the golf course was the only time his mind shut down. I could not understand that because I had never experienced it, . . . until I began creating. Then I understood exactly what he meant, and what an incredible thing to be able to stop the mind from its constant meandering all over the place. It mostly ponders the past, the good, the bad and even the indifferent, things that mean absolutely nothing at the moment, rehashing old material and old emotions for no good reason whatsoever, or it ponders the future, the when this and when that, then I'll whatever. What a waste of all the brain power we have. Focusing on something one loves to do and that requires focus and concentration is incredibly healing, agree? I'm pretty sure you know exactly what I mean. :)

Back to the earrings, I debated for a bit putting the tiny, matte finish, faceted glass beads along the edge of the tin. They're a great pink with orange undertones, and I thought I would love it but was concerned about adding three more holes to the thin strip. After weighing the pros and cons, and deciding that re-making the strips was not that time consuming, that I could make them again if I had to, it was something I had to try and it worked so well. It was just another moment of "I Love These!!"

And I really do. To me they are very special. They will always be a highlight for me. . . . . at least until the next time. :)

Thank you! Thank you for stopping in; thank you for listening to the musings of my mind; and thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts with me, if you are so inclined.

I'll be back on the 4th of July! See you then.

Sincerely, and with wishes for joy to each of you, each and every day.

norbel

SheFliesAgain

You can also visit me on Facebook and/or Instagram

Earrings Everyday Subscribers receive a 10% discount in my Etsy Shop

Use Coupon Code EARRINGSEVERYDAY anytime

When simple might be best.

Hello! How are you all? Feels like a good while since I've been here.

I hope you enjoyed Jetta Sellers' post yesterday. She is a sweetheart, and her work is great. Loved the Lettuce Leaves!

So simple. . . . the word simple really means something like having only one element, not compound. So the word itself may be improperly used here, but by simple I mean not complex, not complicated. So although that is not the definition of simple, in the context we use it, I think it's still the right word. When you look for an antonym of complicated, you get simple! lol

I am the least likely person in this group to talk about simple. That's a good enough reason, I guess, to talk about it! It's likely come up before. Sometimes I lose sight of what I'm actually creating, get carried away, and a pair of earrings could be put together and become a necklace! So I do like to try to focus on simple sometimes.

But about 4:00 yesterday afternoon, I still had nothing made for this post, let alone wrote the post, so when I sat down at my worktable I decided I was going to do simple. . . . really simple. So that's definitely one time simple is best.

For me, it's the artisan beads. So many of them, ceramic, lampwork glass, metal, polymer clay, are so perfect as they are, that they often sit in my collection for a long time, maybe forever, because they're beautiful works of art to me. They are the art form I collect. And so many times, the thought of adding something to them seems really wrong. It's very difficult to enhance something that I see as perfect. You wouldn't dream of taking one of Monet's Lilies series and add to it, to "enhance" it. Yeah, that's an extreme example, but to me it's the same thing. The only difference is that the artist that creates them, makes them specifically for the purpose of us adding to them. So of course, it's what we do. So here are my earrings for today:

These earrings are available for purchase in my Etsy Shop here

The beautiful ceramic components in the earrings, by Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy, I've had for a good while now. I have worked with them on a number of occasions and nothing ever felt right. They are just too cool on their own. Knowing that this is a huge decision for me, I decided to simply add one dangle to the bottom connector AND NOTHING ELSE. Nothing! :) I might have done that another time, but would certainly have worked on the top, also. But I stopped. And I love them. Really love them. That was a great lesson for me. What I added were three pieces on each, two silver metal beads and one rustic, natural Turquoise disk nugget.

Previously when working with them I was picking up on both the periwinkle color that you see on the earring on the right -- it's  minimal but it's there -- and they both have a bit of turquoise around the edge of the bronze clay that Petra uses in much of her work.

So being in a crunch is certainly one time simple is good. But it does have other benefits if one is able to make simple. I say"able to make" because using only a few pieces and making a fabulous pair of earrings takes great talent. It's not easy, not for me. So it's an exercise I should take up more often.

The other benefits include keeping the weight down, which for me has become an issue. I can't wear heavier earrings any longer. They hurt and pull down my lobes. Another benefit is price. Less materials, less time, equals lower price. That provides more women the opportunity to purchase handcrafted artisan earrings, often made with artisan beads, at a lower price point.

That's it for me today. I hope you are all heading into a fun-filled summer.

As always, we thank you for stopping in and spending a few minutes with us.

Happy Days to everyone. 

All the best, 'til next time!
Norbel

SheFliesAgain

For Earrings Everyday subscribers

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will provide a 10% discount in my Etsy shop.

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kaleidoscope patterns

Hello. I hope this finds all of you well.

I looked at the glass beads in these earrings so many times before finally deciding to buy them. I often do that and often miss out, not just in Czech glass but in all handmade items as well. I've learned to be really cautious about what I buy, first because I have purchased many a bead that I will likely never use, mostly in glass but not entirely. I make some very bad choices. And then there is only so much money from sales with which to purchase supplies, so I need to be cautious; don't always trust my quick judgment. 😊 But I kept being drawn back to these gorgeous multicolored beads, and when FunkyPrettyBeads was down to the last two listings, I purchased them, and I was not disappointed.

The beads were custom-made for a friend of Deb, owner of FPB, and she was able to obtain a small amount to sell in her shop. At some time in the future she may be able to have more made. I'd keep an eye out for them because they are just that cool.

When I received the blue ceramic beads by Gail & Arnold of SandCeramicBeads. . . . . bingo! is what I thought. What a perfect complement to the beads I have dubbed Kaleidoscope. The swirls of blues, greens, purple, on a tan base are as mesmerizing to me as the time spent with my eye glued  to a kaleidoscope, the ever-changing patterns and colors compelling me to continue to turn the barrel one more time. Each bead is different, the colors swirling this way and that, making them much more interesting than if they were all the same.

I accented the beads with turquoise and blue rondelles and round green glass beads, brass toned petal bead caps on both ends of the kaleidoscopes, and tiny brass beads, all wrapped with deeply oxidized copper wire, giving them that bit of a funky feel I need, and three brass-plated rings dangle from the bottom of each. 

So that's that! If you haven't taken a look through a kaleidoscope lately, don't pass it up if you have an opportunity. Colorful, filled with unusual patterns, they're really inspiring. Most of the images I found were not actual kaleidoscope images, but art created with kaleidoscopes in mind. They're pretty, no doubt, but I like the real thing better. This post made me add a kaleidoscope to my wish list.  

Thank you so very much for stopping in. As always, we love your feedback, and comments are always welcome. 

Have nothing but happy days!

Sincerely,
Norbel
SheFliesAgain

If you use Instagram, give me a shout out so that I can follow you, and you me if you'd like. I do have FB pages also, one in my name, Norbel Cylkowski Marolla, and one for She Flies Again. 

The Love of Art Beads

Hello everyone and Happy April.

At the moment, this is feeling very surreal. Maybe it was meant to be, for whatever reason. 

I wrote a very long post. About my love of Art Beads. How I started making jewelry. My Art Bead Collecting, my passion for them as an art form, and a bunch of other stuff. 

Right now it's about 11:00 p.m. and I've had a really long day. My wrist is aching and my eyes are trying to close. Not complaining just setting the stage. :) I came back to my post to add the links for the earrings I just listed. I must have hit a Ctrl+A key combination and hit a key or the space bar and my whole post disappeared. I quick tried to Undo and I see that the Auto Save feature is saving it. The Undo did not work and it saved a completely blank page. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO. PLEASE NO. I tried to Undo yet again and it was hopeless. I looked around for somewhere there might be a backup but nada. 

There were six different photos in it, links to four or five different shops, links for the photos, all of which take a fair amount of time to complete, along with what probably amounted to three pages of blog. 

So rather than straining your eyes and maybe scratching your brain to read my lengthy narrative, this is it! Three new pairs of earrings made with Artisan beads by Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy and accompanying wheel beads by Jana Bliznakova of HappyFishThings. 

I am really very sorry but I just can't pull it together long enough to try to re-write it. 

Here are my earrings for today. With love and great big kudos to Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy.

Link to SheFliesAgain

Link to SheFliesAgain

Link to SheFliesAgain

As always, thank you so very much for taking the time to stop in and see what we've got going on, or maybe reading in your Inbox. We all appreciate it! Be back in two weeks. :)

With love, peace & happiness to all of you, each and every single day.
norbel
SheFliesAgain

insert catchy title here ;)

Hello! Happy February to all of you. I do hope this finds you and yours healthy and well, and enjoying the days.

I have a new shop to share with you today. Ceramicists, Gail and Arnold, husband and wife, who spent the majority of their lives in South Africa and are now residing in Germany. I would imagine at least some of you have stumbled into their shop. Its name is SandCeramicBeads. Their style is unique and rustic.

earrings are available here 

In the first pair I used two different focals. The top beads are made with a rich  brown clay and have a tribal design in aqua, and aqua bars that have two holes. They were made for and sold as "closures," toggles, but I could not resist using them off label as connectors. ☺

African Fabric Beads
can be found here

One of my favorite things made by SandCeramicBeads are these really lovely tiles that are inspired by African fabrics. I used a pair in the second pair of earrings; this is a small set in soft, muted tones of salmon pink, an almost wheat-like yellow, pale blue and a deep blue. Gail has a new series in the shop right now that have a bit different coloring and a wonderful story. All of the upper beads I used were handmade in Africa. Beautiful unusual bright peach recycled glass beads and blue beads from a strand of handmade African seed beads. All of those beads were purchased from a nicely stocked shop, RedEarthBeads.  

earrings are available here

The third pair has a southwest vibe. Beautiful blue leaves by Gail and Arnold; awesome and rustic, natural ceramic disks were made by Jana Bliznakova of HappyFishThings.


I had great fun working with these pieces, and will no doubt be using more. Here are a few of the others I have in my collection. They also make and sell many, many strands of beads. I'm sure you will enjoy browsing.

The earth and moss beads are calling me. :)

As always, I thank you so very much for spending a few minutes to check out what we're doing here.

If you have any questions about anything in the designs, let me know. I didn't discuss any processes, nor many of the accompanying beads. I was excited to share SandCeramicBeads with you.

Thank you! May your days be filled with lots of creativity! It is therapeutic and then some!

Gratefully,

norbel

SheFliesAgain

I am also on Facebook and Instagram :)

p.s. I hope everyone knows that when I share new shops the way I do, it is because I've fallen in love with their work. Etsy is what I call a "sea of shops." There often is no rhyme nor reason to why one shop sells and another doesn't. When I see unusual, quality work, made by caring artisans, I want to share it with anyone who might be interested so that the makers can potentially achieve the success they deserve. 

Scorched Earth, Inviciti, Numinosity & More!

Hello! I do hope everyone has had a joyful Christmas and is looking forward to a fresh, new year. It always seems to be a time of hope, regardless of what recent times have been like. There's no real reason to expect new and different, but to me a "fresh start" nonetheless increases the sense of change is in the air.

I have had a rough couple/few months. And the little girl of a muse that usually accompanies me seems to have vanished right before my eyes. I don't know what to think about that! :) But it has me bogged down in many ways, or rather, I suppose she's gone because I am bogged down in many ways. Onward and upward!

There are always one to three days at the end of the month that aren't covered with our regular twice a month schedule. That is when our visiting artists come in to share their beautiful creations. This month Kristi and I are picking up the two extra days at the last minute. Not having anything prepared, I decided to do what Lynn did yesterday and share with you some of my personal favorites from the last couple of months, and maybe a couple have been used as part of a post? Not sure! lol These have sold, but I believe some could possibly be available for custom orders.

BTW, you'll notice a new Artist Contributor appearing at the end of the column!! There are actually two; we don't have a design picture yet for the second. I'll wait and let you be surprised by who it might be. I, for one, cannot wait to have them both share their amazing work with all of us. They will be starting the second week of January! :)

Please note that the captions under the photos are links to the shops whose pieces were used in the designs.

NuminosityBeads
NomvulaCrafts
TheFickleBead

NuminosityBeads
EclecticPrairie
DyedBoneBead

DyedBoneBead

NuminosityBeads

HappyFishThings
DyedBoneBead

NuminosityBeads
DyedBoneBead

Inviciti
CrowsCache

ScorchedEarthOnEtsy

ScorchedEarthOnEtsy

My wishes are for all of you and all of your families and friends to experience a New Year filled with love, laughter, joy, and above all, peace of mind. I am honored to be able to share my work with you. Thank you!
norbel
SheFliesAgain

Girls just wanna have fun!

Making stuff is how I have the best fun! I feel very fortunate to have been able to share my fun with you for the last year! Thank you. Merry Christmas to you and yours, and my wishes to everyone for all good things in 2017.

Having been very inspired by Cindy Pack and her work with silver, I planned on making something with silver for this post but it didn't turn into anything "fun." :) So I switched tracks and decided that I would challenge myself somehow. Flexibility. After a few hours of pondering, I decided the challenge would be to work with Pearls. I've only used pearls twice, I believe. A friend, whose name seems to pop up in my posts often ☺, Susan Delaney, gifted me with four beautiful pairs of pearls, and I had a little stash of beautiful, small Keshi pearls from Debbie at TheFickleBead.

This post could be a veeeeeeeeeeryyyyyyyyyy long post with what went on during the time I worked to make these three pairs of earrings, but I won't; it'll be long enough as it is. ;) As an aside, I laughed out loud and read it to my husband while reading Erin's post last Friday. In no way was I laughing AT HER! She said she made 23 pairs of earrings in 2 hours! I was stunned! In awe! And jealous! lol Now, I am not exaggerating when I say that it takes me 23 hours to make 2 pairs of earrings. I truly am in awe, Erin! :)

The first pair is made with connectors that I purchased from Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy in the very FIRST order I placed with her on April 14 of 2013! I just haven't been able to give them up. :)

When I pulled out the pairs of pearls I received from Susan, I picked these first. It's likely difficult to see but they have a lovely texture and a very pretty white color. Oddly enough, I thought of these ceramic pieces almost immediately. And I love how they turned out. They are black stoneware finished with Bronze Gilders Paste. I added brass rings, the beautiful pearls, glass beads and brass at the bottom, with extremely oxidized copper wire.

The second pair also includes Petra's ceramics. I am not a fan of Picasso's work. But I loved it in this medium, and was thrilled to be able to get them. They're paired with wonderful rustic sticks of Rust and Blue Kyanite, purchased from Kimberly Rogers/NuminosityBeads, and another pair of pearls from Susan. These are smooth, glossy, round white pearls.

One of the difficulties I had throughout this project was that the teeny, tiny holes in the pearls require thin wire, 24-gauge. The lower connection was wrapped with 22- gauge on top of the 24. They sell large-holed pearls but these are not those, and they are much too beautiful to ignore.

The last pair was made with the Keshi pearls. An 18-gauge loop wrapped with 24-gauge. A separate piece of 24-gauge was used for the pearls, the

This pic depicts the purple beads
more accurately than the other

ends wrapped around the loop, wrapped a bit at the top of the dangle for stability. The pearls are thin, beautiful, peacock Keshi pearls, a lovely gray with metallic colors. The purple polymer clay beads were made by Jon Burgess of JBDRusticOrganic
and the accent beads are black, blue and green Vulcanite beads handmade in Nigeria.

   I do hope you had a bit of fun here with me today. I look forward to making the earrings and writing the post and simply being a part of this great group. When I say the "group," I mean all of you who enjoy taking a look at what we have going on. I am so grateful to all of you.

Once again, Merry, Merry Christmas
to you and yours, and all the best this life has to offer in 2017!

See ya next year!
Norbel Marolla
She Flies Again

In Space - Outer Space - Out of Space -

Full of Space

I feel as though I haven't been here in a long time. It's a good feeling to realize how much a part of my life this group has become. I've been with EE a year now. Time it does fly. I hope all of you had a peaceful Thanksgiving, and that you are now pulling out the Santa hats and getting in the groove. My husband does the decorating. Our home has become very festive this year. Now that he's retired, he has much more time to "play." He even has put up a pretty good-sized oval of track for the Lionel Trains he received as a young child. I love that. Movin' on. . .

So! I have another new shop for you! FullofSpace is the name of the shop where I purchased the focal beads for today's earrings. Once again, a good friend, Susan Delphine Delaney, is responsible for leading me to the shop. She has sent me so many inspirational Pins and leads that have led to real ideas and wonderful beads! Perhaps some of you have already found it as Carolina, the owner of the shop, has received a good number of sales since I purchased my beads on the 21st of November. I was surprised when I popped in last night to see all of the beads I had missed, but happy for her that she had been found by others. Her work is unusual, and I'm drawn to a lot of it. 

So here are the earrings I made. The beads came in a set of 8.

The hoop is not a heavier gauge and soldered hoop. It was made out of the same 20 gauge wire I continued on to the top, using the bottom strand for a few wraps at the top of the hoop, and then coming down one side. I did harden the hoop so that it's not wimpy. I did that by hand with flat-nosed pliers. I found that squaring off the bottom of the hoop made the beads feel more at home. 

The red bead is actually a natural, not-dyed, Red Sandalwood seed. I'm pretty sure I talked about this before, but if you missed it, these seeds are amazing in their color and gloss. I purchase them from TheFickleBead. And then of course the almost always present in my jewelry these days, hand-dyed bone beads, these in soft grey, are purchased from DyedBoneBead. 

These were a lot of fun to work on. I'm just finishing up a necklace with the rest of the cone beads. I love it. It's not listed yet; should be in the shop in the next couple of days. 

Thank you once again for taking the time to visit with us. We always appreciate it. Always grateful for feedback, too. Thanks so much! See you in a couple of weeks. :)

norbel
SheFliesAgain

how do things end. . .

. . . up the way they do?

Hello! Happy November, and thank you so much for taking time out of your day to give us a look.

I don't know how others design jewelry. I've never sat with anyone else while they were designing, nor had discussions about it. But for me, very often, I don't know what I am going to end up with. Sometimes it's great; other times not so much. But either way, it's a joyful adventure and a learning experience for me. And yes, I'll admit, sometimes a little bit, or more, of frustration. 

I hear people talk about sketching their designs, and that sounds so wonderful. They can visualize the beginning and the end. I do have some visual but it often ends up different. If I'm making wire or sheet metal pieces, those I do lay out on paper. Anything else generally starts with a lot of handcrafted components out on the table, and I take the ones that yell the loudest. "Me, me, pick me! "Nah, not me, I don't feel like working today." :)

From there, I ponder a bit where I want to go; I go through colors, textures, beads in my mind until something clicks, and then I might pull out many possible complementary things, glass, bone, metal, chain, linen, etc. I often do basic try this, try that. A lot of trying. And if after whatever amount of time I find reasonable, if nothing is working for me, I go back and start again with the other things I had out that are in their containers on my table, out of the way but close enough to pull them right back. Or something else entirely might pop into my head. That is basically how it goes. Not at all scientific. There are many times that I want to work with a specific something. Sometimes I can; sometimes I cannot. I think the bottom line is that it ends up being all about how I feel. My head doesn't get too involved. There are even the rare occasions when I'm not sure how it all got put together and all of a sudden it's done! Love when that happens. :) I would very much like to know if others work in this relatively haphazard fashion, or how do you generally work? 

Over the weekend I selected these sweet, little, pale blue handcrafted ceramic drops by Lorna of Balela Ceramics. She has a distinctive soft and muted style in much of her work, yet will also throw out the most gorgeous bright and shiny blue beads here and there.

You can find these earrings here

These drops were sweet and a bit whimsical. I wanted to "rustic them up" a bit so I selected stone-like ceramic beads, also by Balela Ceramics, and a simple handmade copper bead. That was all I had at that point. So I cut a long piece of copper wire and wrapped it around once, finished up the top, and then went back down to the other end of the wire and decided to wrap a whole bunch of it in a deliberately wide and messy fashion. I would have stopped there except that there was an ugly vacant space left below the wire, which showed only the bare loop at the top of the dangle and it all looked not so nice. But I didn't want to wire all the way down; I wanted the dangle to be able to move. So I added back in a bit of whimsy and created a series of "swags" with tiny 2 and 3mm beads along the bottom, sides and back of the wire. No more empty space, and I liked the result. 

You can find these earrings here

And that is how they ended up the way they did!

Thanks so much for visiting us. I hope you enjoyed my musings today, and I'll be back in two weeks' time. :)

Norbel Marolla
She Flies Again

The Weight. . .

of the world earrings on your shoulders ears ;)

A while back Kim of Numinosity and Numinosity Beads, mentioned some of her more senior customers have difficulty with heavier earrings. Me too. But I wasn't able to wear heavier earrings when I was younger. They're just not comfortable for me. 

I noticed my friend, Chris Kaitlyn of ChrisKaitlynJewelry, was showing the weight of earrings in listings. I talked to her about it, she shared info, and I decided it was a good idea. At some point I realized that, okay, the weights are there but they're in a vacuum. What do they mean? I know what they mean to me but there isn't a "chart" to help customers decipher what they mean. Honestly, it's not possible. Weight is relative, and involves too many factors. I do, however, have customers ask me from time to time, "are these heavy?" There will never be a hard and fast rule, but I'm going to share with you the guidelines I use for myself.

 My earrings today are designed with beautiful, slim and lightweight ceramic leaves by Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy. These pieces are fired with leaves embedded, given this gorgeous glazing and fired again. I paired each with three 6mm, Natural Apatite stones. Apatite has become my favorite stone. The color is a rich, muted teal. Purchased from TheFickleBead. There are copper and copper-plated beads up top, along with handcrafted ceramic beads by Barbara Hanselman of BHClaysmith, another unique and talented ceramic artist. I used 22 gauge wire, not my first choice, but I knew it would help to keep them lighter and I'd be able to wrap it the way I wanted to. 

Very few components are "too heavy" to use. It depends what you do with them. It's wonderful to create without thought! It's art! It's what I love to do! But then I often end up with a wall hanging, not an earring. (I think I heard that saying here before) I'll keep going and going and going until they weigh an ounce! Well, what's an ounce you say? Here we get to what the weights mean. One of today's earrings weighs 0.23 oz, 6.68 grams. Less than a quarter of an ounce. A good weight for most women, I think, but it is not featherweight. Lightweight for most, in my opinion, but it won't be long until it creeps up into an area that will be too heavy for me. If I want to wear something all day and not think about it, I won't go much higher than this, around a quarter of an ounce. When I let something get to 0.30 oz. . . . that is getting out of the comfortable range for me, certainly not all-day wearable, and maybe not wearable at all. For Me!

My MIL split her lobe all the way down in her 60s with a gold hoop, so it does happen, even though she'd worn those for decades. 

You are not going to find weights in most shops and websites; It's not a necessary thing for a large part of the population. My customers run the gamut from very young adults to women in their 60s and beyond. It was the questions about the weight that encouraged me to try to find a way to give them a meaningful answer. For designers, if women in the AARP age group (that's 55 and up ;) are in your target market, you might want to think about weight with them in mind.

I see many listings that give the earrings a featherweight, lightweight, or medium weight. If you aren't offered a weight, and IF this is an issue for you, ask the seller for their opinion. On a weight scale of one to ten, where would they put the earrings. Remember, though, that it's an opinion, likely based on what is light, medium or heavy to them. 

If you would like to have a little more detail regarding weights and what they mean to me, please just let me know. I will always address a comment/question left here, and you can always message me through She Flies Again, my Etsy shop, or Facebook.

Thank you for stopping in today! We appreciate it!
Norbel

"NeoTribal"

Hello! I do hope you are all enjoying the summer.

A friend I met through Etsy, Susan Delphine Delaney, sent a pin to me the other day with the title being NeoTribal, saying she liked the word as a descriptor. To my chagrin a few moments later, I said I don't really know what that means. She responded, oh, I just took it to mean New Tribal. duh. . . . right? Of course it's New Tribal! So that sparked the idea to make tribal-like earrings for today's post. As I was working I started to think about what really was traditional tribal jewelry, specifically traditional tribal earrings. I did not have a real vision of what it was. I did some searching (I admit, not a lot) for tribal jewelry. I expected it to be an easy search with a plethora of images. Not so.

Fulani 

Maasai

The two photos are of African earrings. Two very different styles. The colorful beaded earrings are 9 1/2 inches long, and were made in Africa by the Maasai people. The gold and cotton earrings, also from Africa, made by the Fulani people. These two photos are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They are early 20th century. 

I searched then for Native American Jewelry. This photo came from the website http://www.beyondbuckskin.com in a section called Ancient Southwest Jewelry. The dates of these earrings are, starting from the top, 1100-1200 CE, (common era), the 1800s, and 1978. Beautiful mosaic inlay of Turquoise. So a lot of Turquoise and Silver was mostly what I found, again, on a cursory search. 

So I now have some real curiosity to dig deeper when I have the time to see what I can find.

1.

2.

Just briefly then, my earrings today: 1. "Bone" ceramic sticks, as well as ceramic beads from the same strand, paired with Red Creek Jasper, various metal beads, copper wire and Niobium ear wires. Ceramics by Andrea Salkowe of Josephine Beads. I love this pair. . but I ended up not listing it. There was more I would have liked to do with them, a basic jumping off point, but they were getting too heavy. I will likely take them apart and start again. 

2.  I think these are my favorites. :) The ceramic focals are by Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy. Paired with Ceramics from the same strand as No. 1. Natural Sig-Id Vine beads are wrapped to the black dagger-shaped Sgraffito focals with waxed Irish linen. I didn't use any wire in this design, just the linen. There are natural, rustic Turquoise bi-cone beads, topped with a red glass bead. The linen was knotted to a Tierra Cast copper-plated spacer bead. The dangles at the bottom contain green turquoise glass beads, tea-stained bone beads, and vintage Kuchi/Kochi tribal clapperless bells.

3. The last pair, both ceramic elements were made by Georgia Neumann of AtHomeInTaos. I used various copper beads, ball-tip headpins I made from copper, Czech glass beads, more copper wire, Niobium ear wires, and a tiny brass teardrop.

3. 

If you ever have any questions at all about techniques and/or processes, please just message me through my Etsy shop. It's great fun to look at other people's work for inspiration, or when looking to purchase. But if there is anything I can help you with that you see in these earrings, please just let me know.

As always, I appreciate your taking the time to stop by. All feedback/comments are welcome. In fact, we'd appreciate it! 

Thank you! I'll be back the first Tuesday in August. I do hope the rest of July is joyful! 

Norbel
She Flies Again on Etsy
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