Wired Butterflies

Hi, everyone!

I tried something a little different with these new earrings, which feature a pair of Cathleen Zaring's beautiful butterfly enameled-copper earring components: 

FYI, my usual go-to technique to use with components with top holes like these would be something like these earrings I made three years ago...

...and, believe me, I love these earrings and adore working with fiber and knotting this way.  But lately I've been having fun going back to playing with wire too.  

I'd made antiqued copper wire connector components before for necklaces (below is a detail) but had never tried to use them for earrings, and had never added beads to them. 

I thought it might be fun to see how the round connectors would work with this type of earring component, with just a few small beads in coordinating colors wrapped to them (and with a bead wrapped to each matching ear wire too!).  I didn't know what to expect, but they have a sleekness, a simplicity, and a modernity that I like--and I don't always end up liking my experiments.  😏  

They were also really fun to make.  I hadn't gotten my hands really messy in liver of sulfur in a while!  

These earrings can be purchased at Two Trees Studio.

Recipe for Wired Butterflies 

Enameled "handbag-shaped" copper earring beads by Cathleen Zaring

22 ga. round antique copper wire wrapped connectors

3 mm Czech glass rounds in amethyst and wine

15/0 Miyuki Delica yellow seed beads

Thanks for reading--I'll be back in a couple of weeks!

xoxo

Meridy 

My Shop

My FB Page

Easy Breezy Summer

When I sat down yesterday to make something for today's post I gave myself guidelines, not at all what I usually do. But the requirements were, only a Few Components (Easy), Lots of Movement (Breezy), Colorful (Summer), and Lightweight (back to Easy ;). Lightweight to me is anything under 0.22 oz, 6 grams and under. Once the earring gets up to around 0.20, it is definitely still lightweight, but the older I get, the less tolerant my ears are for weight. Something we've talked about here before. So I'm really happy when I can keep them around 0.18, all of which these are. But it does really limit what I can do.

Weighing the components in the top pair, I knew it wouldn't work if I used wire, so I wrapped them with teal waxed Irish linen. They still swing because the linen is wrapped onto soldered jumprings, so they move a lot. The other two pairs I used wire, using the X wrap that always adds a bit more of a rustic/edgy feel to me, and I was able to kept them all within the lightweight limits.

I also planned to make lovely, light and airy pictures to go along with the Easy Breezy vibe, but by the time I had them ready to photograph, it was 8:30 last night and we were in the middle of a thunderstorm. So quick-on-slate pictures is what I ended up with, and gratefor for them I was! :) I hope you can use a little imagination.

See what I mean about the imagination? The pics just don't do the summery, colorful earrings justice.

Top left: Bird Wing Manified Ceramic Slices by Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy - Lampwork Glass by Terry Turner of SilverFishDesigns - Raspberry Enamel Copper Beads by Alison Page of AlisonPageStudios

Center: Enameled Copper by Alison Page of AlisonPageStudios - Lampwork Glass by Julie Burgard of Outwest

Bottom Right: Summer Sunrise Ceramics by Jana Bliznakova of HappyFishThings. The other pieces are vintage acrylic and Indonesian glass.

I do hope you are all having a wonderful Spring. . . . . it's been Summer Weather here for a while now. Weather we used to have in July, maybe, for a few days, seems to have become the norm, and months earlier. 95 in May, in Michigan, is just weird! lol Lots of people love it, so for all of you I am very happy. :) I wish everyone the Best Summer Ever!

Thank you for stopping in and letting me share my stuff with you.

norbel
SheFliesAgain

Brick and Mortar

Once again, I'd like to welcome our lovely friend and wonderful designer, Meridy Migchelbrink, of TwoTreesStudio, and thank her as well for giving us her time to design and create these earrings special for today. I love Meridy's style, her work; she is also one of the loveliest women you will ever meet. She works color expertly! If you have not yet, a walk through her shop is joyful.
norbel

I love well-crafted, beautiful, and whimsical earring components, so when I found these beautiful, playful enamels by Marlene Kazor Quigley of Markazo, I knew I wanted to make something with them! 

The enamels begged for RUSTIC, so I went looking in my stash to see what beads I might have that would work with them (I’m trying to cut back on my bead spending—yes, you may laugh now, I’ll wait).  After no immediate success, I remembered that I still had a pair of Leese Mahoney’s, GlassByLeese, gorgeous crusty-rustic cones in a perfect shade of green. 

So I started to play.  I needed a bit more red, so I pulled out some chunky 10mm red horn discs, which looked great with the cones and the enamels.  I also wanted motion, so I made small wire-wrapped dangles in red and olive green and hung them from matching green niobium jump rings (thank you, chainmailling habit—I always have plenty of rings to choose from!).  Since I wanted to use my signature fiber-wrapped earring technique, once I got the cones and horn discs onto the linen cording, I had to weave the cording through the holes in the enamels AND through the rings, making sure the linen was wrapped tight enough around the area between the enamels and the beads (so that all was secure) before I started the decorative wraps that drape over the tops of the rings.  

When I was happy with the look of the earrings, I trimmed the cord ends and made backings from red handmade paper and glued them to the backs of the enamels to hide the cord ends.  

 

And the finished product.  Pretty, whimsical, swingy, and definitely fun. 

And they’re even a tiny bit Christmas-y—which hadn’t even occurred to me until I had finished them!  ;)

Thank you for inviting me to sit in here at EE again—I always enjoy being here with you all.  J

Meridy Migchelbrink

Two Trees Studio on Etsy  -- 

Two Trees Studio on Facebook  --