Heat Wave

Dear friends, we are having unusual weather here in Sweden. It's been a heat wave since more than a week back with extreme temperatures. And before that ever since the month of May the weather has been unusually hot for Sweden. And hardly any rain at all. This has caused much more dryness in nature than normally. And now with the heat wave on top of that the risk of fires is extreme.

Below is a map of Sweden from yesterday afternoon. All the dark orange areas are high risk areas. Basically all of Sweden as you can see. And there are 69 wood and grass fires going on all over the country. 69!

I live just outside the city of Stockholm. So no fires going on near me at the moment thankfully. But the heat is so extreme it is impossible to function as normal. I basically spend all time inactive just sitting or laying, and panting, trying to find ways to cool down. It is impossible to sit in my studio and make jewelry. Way too hot in there.

So I've looked through my files for pictures of earrings I made before but haven't shown you here yet. I found three different ones I believe suitable for everyday Earrings. Hope you enjoy!

And please keep your fingers crossed that the extreme weather is soon over and that all the fires will be extinguished sooner than later.

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All my best,

Malin

Bubblegum Fun

Fun play with colours and lightweight components.

Ingredients:
Bright orange-pink 'ball in a ball' acrylic beads
Khaki green faceted acrylic rounds
Transparent with gold fluted glass beads
Silverlined transpaernt large seed beads

Pink waxed linen cord
Brass coloured large lucite rings
Vintaj brass jump rings and earring hooks

All my best,

Malin

Leaves on a Stem

A simple yet effectful design, all in the combination of the components.

Ingredients:
Large faceted acrylic leaves
Sari silk, slightly wrapped by 24 gauge heavily oxidized copper wire
Handmade oxidized sterling silver earring hooks



All my best,
Malin

Cube With Facets or a Wrecking Ball

Large faceted acrylic beads. Over the years I've managed to collect quite a few of them. In different colours and shapes. So attractive I just have to buy them whenever I come across them. However, so far they have rarely come to use in any of my jewelry designs. So the stash of them has gradually built up. With many of them I have only just a pair. So suitable for making fun and exciting earrings.

And finally, over the last few months I have been on a roll with them. Having so much fun. Each pair of earrings in this 'series' has it's own distinctive character, still with the common factor of large faceted acrylic beads. 

Which ever style you use or method of designing the main purpose should of course be that the earrings shall look great when being worn. These ones do I think. To me they are everyday earrings, but with a touch of boldness. Simple and dramatic at the same time. They are long and dangling yet still light weight. Handmade earrings hooks in heavily oxidized sterling silver. I have a feeling I will wear them often over the coming period.

On another note:
If you have read many of my blog posts over the years you might have noticed that my designs often mirror something going on in my subconciousness. This connection I always discover firstly after the design is finished and I take a step back and look at them. It's rather fascinating. Almost like a sort of diary in design.

With these earrings I think it is rather obvious that they could be a version of a wrecking ball. Like in the song by Miley Cyrus. It's not a style of music I generally listen to and the video is a bit too much in my opinion, but that aside some of the lyric lines in that song I can definetely relate to. But mostly there are some things in my life that could do with ...  deserve some serious treatment by a wrecking ball ...

ALL MY BEST,
Malin

A sense of direction

At this particular time in my life I feel I could use a stronger sense of direction. And a stronger aim. A kind of "just go for it". I suspect my subconciousness has had an effect on my design. As if it wants to push me a little harder.

In these earrings I've used beads and components that have been waiting for many years to come to use. Things I love but haven't been able to combine well with other things. I hope I managed with these earrings.

I think they would be suitable for for instance an opening night for a furniture designer, or perhaps a fancier dinner party with close friends.

Ingredients (from bottom to top):
Bronze drop bead
Green magnesite triangles (possibly partially man made)
Lovely white magnesite squares
Matte golden colour covered lucite squares (super light weight)

Strung on doubled 26G oxidized copper wire
Handmade earring hooks in oxidized copper

All copper is free from traces of allergenic metals such as nickel for instance.

All my best,
Malin

Semi precious and semi asymetric

Ingredients:
Carved Honey Quartz
Orange Sodalite (Matte) Rough Face Freeform Flat Oval
Super glittery hematite colored glass faceted ovals

Silver headpins
Heavily oxidized copper wire
Handmade heavily oxidized Sterling Silver Earring hooks

All my best,
Malin

Corrugated Brass And Beaded Beads

Ingredients:

Beades beads by Malin de Koning

Corrugated hollow brass beads

Brass findings

Vintaj brass earrings hooks

All my best,

Malin

Seed Bead Tassels

Seed beads. Don't you just love them. They come in so many various colours, shapes, finishes and sizes. Just makes my mouth water.

Ingredients:
Seed beads of various colours and sizes
Tassels are strung on FireLine beading thread
Brass coloured large acrylic closed rings, light weight
Brass jump rings
Handmade Sterling Silver earring hooks, heavily oxidized

All my best,
Malin

Long with large acrylic or resin

I am happily continuing on the path I've been on lately with long eye catching earrings with large light weight resin or acrylic beads. Varitions on a fun theme that I very much enjoy working with.

Ingredients:
Large black and brown faceted acrylic beads
8/0 matte metallic bronze seed beads
Black faceted glass beads
Vintaj brass large jump rings
Vintaj brass earring hooks
Strung on 4 ply walnut brown waxed irish linen cord

All my best,
Malin

Gala

What jewelry would you wear if you were invited to the Oscars?

The dream would perhaps be if you could borrow some really exclusive jewelry. Like the movie stars do. Something dramatic, bold and utterly glamorous. With diamonds and saffires.

Or would you wear something of your own make? Or made by a friend? You could of course still choose something bold and glamorous, but also fun, quirky and exciting. Something unexpected and unusual so that it would no doubt catch everyones eyes.

Like these ones for instance. They move wonderfully when you move your head. Super light weight and so very easy to wear. Because you would of course like to party like crazy all night without having to be worried about anything else.

Ingredients:
Orange large acrylic facetted bicones
Bright red silky covered polyester chains
Oxidized copper wire and large jump rings
Oxidized Sterling Silver handmade earring hooks


All my best,
Malin

Zesty Lemon Curd

Snowstorm outside my window today. I am so happy I don't have to leave my home. As a contrast I have instead played with those large and bright yellow facetted acrylic beads. I love them. Got them very cheap at a clean out sale in an online Swedish shop some weeks ago. I only wish I had bought more of them. Aren't they great. Sometimes I don't understand why things are not popular with other people.

I am very into larger and longer earrings lately. These fulfill those requirements. The materials make them still very lightweight.


Ingredients:
I strung the yellow acrylic beads on 4-ply ochre waxed linen cord together with size 11 matte gold  metallic sead beads and egg shaped white distressed resin beads. They are attached to the handmade earrings hooks  in heavily oxidized Sterling Silver via square profiled pewter rings.





All my best,
Malin

Shell Lantern Brass

Wishing everyone a very happy new year 2018.



Ingredients:
Lovely lucite beads in a milky very pale blue with gold/brass
Small firepolished facetted brass/bronze colored beads
All the other components are in brass

All my best,

Malin

Ideas and experiments

Due to my illness MS I suffer from something called fatigue. It is a common thing for many chronic illnessess. One way of describing it could be brain-tiredness. Sometimes I just collapse and must sleep. At other times I am awake, but lack the capability of doing anything useful at all. At these times I must come up with things to do of a more simple or automatic nature. Like for instance over the last couple of weeks I've been using some of that kind of 'spare time' for sorting my digital photo library of my own made jewelry. For me this is a kind of meditative work, with the extra benefit that things will end up being much more organized.

Due to reasons I have had storage on a few different units and libraries which have caused in many doubles, triples and in some cases even six or seven copies of the same image. Basically it's been a messy area. The goal is of course one single library with a clear and obvious system. Hopefully I am soon there :-).

Anyway, in this process of sorting I have also come over snapshots or photos that are not of finished jewelry. Most of the time I do not take photos of my ideas or experiments before I discard them. But sometimes I do. So today I thought I'd share some of those ideas with you. More or less good looking. And I think we can all undertand why they never became a finished piece of earrings. Still there are often particular elements of the design that could be inspiring in some way. I hope you enjoy :-)




I used that square chain in another pair of earrings which I have shown here on Earrings Everyday. With pink gemstone nuggets hanging from the bottom. They sold quickly.


Oh my lord how hidious!!!


Some kind of knotting idea. I want to explore this more at some time.


This could perhaps become something nice. I think I haven't used those large wooden squares for anything else yet. I might look into it again.




Nice Golem long stripey charms. They are still waiting to be used.



Lampwork Wing Dings. I love those art beads by Genea. Think they might have ended up in something else. I also love them golden filigree beads. Doesn't show here but they are really nice quality.


Like I said in the beginning, some of the ideas are less nice looking, some more ...
I think I should take photos of my ideas more often. From now on I will. In fact that will be my new years resolution. And I challenge you to do the same :-)

All my best,
Malin

Blue For You

Hello dear friends,

Todays earrings are made from a pair of lovely ceramic disks I have had in my stash for a very long time. I believe they were among the first batch of art beads I bought from Round Rabbit, aka Nancy Adams, back in 2010 or 2011. They are rather big, 3 cm diameter, but very thin, so they are super light weight.

I've assembled them with the earring hooks via some pewter square profiled rings and one of my favourite materials, waxed linen cord. I have a small box of scrap bits of cord that I just roamed around in and soon found the bits of these three perfectly matching colours.

The whole equipage comes to about 15 cm and will just barely touch the shoulders when being worn. These are a kind of everyday yet statement-kind-of earrings. A style that I myself am very fond of. I am looking forward to taking them out on their first excursion in the city any day soon.



Art Beads:
Blue rustic thin ceramic disks - Round Rabbit

 Other ingredients:
Waxed linen cord
Pewter square profiled rings
Handmade heavily oxidized sterling silver earring hooks

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All my best,
Malin