Red Creek Goddess

You know how you sometimes get ideas for a design from things that are tangentially related?   :) 

A while back I made a pair of sterling silver earrings using an ancient Japanese chainmaille weave...

...and just recently I began making a copper bracelet using the same weave.  Here it is in progress: 

It occurred to me that the first segment of both the earrings and the bracelet (the large ring + the two small doubled joined rings + the larger ring) resemble a goddess figure (do you see it?).  So I thought it might be fun to create a pair of goddess earrings that could be offered to customers with a number of variations.  

I decided to make my first version in copper antiqued to a gleaming, warm brown, with sterling silver highlights (the ear wires and the rings that connect them) and 4-mm Red Creek jasper and Swarovski crystal beads dangling from the bottom ring.  

These earrings can be made in sterling silver, bronze, or colored anodized niobium rings, and with just about any semiprecious stones, pearls, or whatever else you can imagine.  They're only about 2 inches long and very lightweight, so they're a good everyday earring too--pretty but not fussy.  

As always, thank you so very much for reading!  I will be back in two weeks' time.  :) 

xoxo

Meridy

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Waiting...and Waiting...and Waiting for Spring

Why, oh why, does it seem to take forever for spring to arrive?  Is it the old "a watched pot never boils" syndrome?  Maybe it's just me.

I can't complain about the cold and snow, because I live in Sacramento, California, which has pretty nice weather, actually.  It has a Mediterranean climate, rainy in the winter (no snow), hot and dry in the summer, and spectacular in the spring.  Seriously, in the spring, virtually everything blooms here.  Having moved to Sac (as we say) from Colorado, I wasn't used to that.  Colorado has its own stunning beauty, but here everything grows fast, gets large, and blooms--all sorts of flowers, bushes, and even trees, from huge magnolia trees to ornamental trees that fill the skies with beautiful blooms of red, fuchsia, baby pink, or purple.

And spring comes early here.  Our first flowers usually start peeking out of their beds in mid-February, maybe a crocus or a dwarf iris.  The warm weather usually follows along gradually, getting a little warmer each week.  This year, however, California had heavy rains caused by "atmospheric rivers" that parked themselves over the state, causing floods and mudslides.  We were happy to have the rain because California was in a five-year drought, but these heavy rains caused real problems.  The cold, heavy rain lasted for almost two months, with only a few short breaks of blue skies and sunshine here and there.  We were starting to really feel the lack of sun!

Anyway, since it's been such a cold, wet winter, I decided to make these golden-sun, grass-green, and blue-sky earrings using Cathleen Zaring's beautiful enameled copper earring charms and a pair of lovely green

These "Bringer of Spring" earrings are available here.

lampwork discs by Terry Turner.  It's only recently started to warm up here, and I'm really feeling the quiet arrival of spring, with its fresh energy.

Who knows--maybe my earrings will help move things along a bit.  After all, the Spring Equinox is only about ten days away!  ;)

As always, thanks so much for reading!  I'll see you in two weeks. 💙

xoxo
Meridy

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The Bringer of Dawn

I love it when I can find earring components with the graceful curves of a goddess, and Kristi Bowman Design's beautiful copper components never disappoint.  Whether the components are slender or zaftig, dramatic or delicate, it always makes me happy to make a beautiful pair of goddess earrings with Kristi's copper pieces.

Here are just a couple of examples of goddess earrings I've made over the last couple of years.  

These earrings, with Kristi's richly textured shield-shaped components, have an ancient, feminine, Tribal Goddess feel to them.  I also had a lot of fun playing with fiber. (Lampies are by Magdalena Ruiz.)

These earrings with tapestry-textured copper points are also tribal in tone, but they have a more modern and casual spirit, mostly because of Julie Sontag's colorful, fun enameled lampies.

Given my penchant, you have to know how excited I was when Kristi made some new goddess components recently:

They're graceful and shapely and beautiful--and of course I bought a set of them.  When they arrived and I had a chance to run my fingers over them, I knew what I wanted to make and what goddess I wanted to celebrate:  Aurora, the goddess of the dawn.  This goddess offers dawn's hopeful, renewing energy and is known for the elements of love, joy, beauty, health, and fertility.  

You can find Aurora here. 

As the goddess of the dawn, it stands to reason that her colors are the bright, warm colors of a beautiful sunrise: pink, red, magenta, gold, lavender.  I added to the beautiful copper components hot pink Czech glass flowers, magenta Czech glass rondelles, and copper accents and then wrapped and knotted everything together with magenta waxed linen cording.

Shapely, graceful, lovely...the Bringer of the Dawn.

May you all have a wonderful dawn, no matter what time of day (or night) you're reading this.  I'll see you next time!

Meridy  

xoxo

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