Discs

Hello earring friends, happy August 15.

At the moment we are actually on holiday. A proper holiday YAY. We are staying in a small mountain cabin, an hour drive away from the massive tourism on the campsite, where we normally live. And I brought my beads with me. Well, part of my stash, as there couldn't fit more in the car LOL. So basically I have created my own bead retreat. And I am so happy to finally have time to play with my beads for a complete day. A complete week.  Better still: two weeks.....
Most people we encounter think we are always on holiday, living partly in Greece and partly in the Netherlands. I wish this was true. Yep, we are living in a "holiday" country, in a camper on a campsite. But we both have a daytime job as well.

In the stash I brought with me I am rediscovering all the treasures I have been hoarding for quite some time. Having remade the disc earrings two weeks ago I came across a complete treasure trove of disc (and other) beads made by Debbie Sanders. I so admire and love her beads and craftsmanship. And what do you know... they go perfect with the gorgeous polymer clay beads made by Cindy Hinds.
What do you think?

These will be available in my coming Jewelry show on Saturday on Facebook.

Thank you so much for looking and your support for Earrings Everyday :)
You know I love to read your comments, so don't be shy and leave some words. And do check out the other posts of my friends here. Share the love.

See you in two weeks.Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of laughter, joy and lots of love.

Janine
Esfera Jewelry

Broken

Hello Earring Lovers!

No new makes from me today I'm afraid, but I made these recently for a showcase, and they were probably my favourite pair. They feature beautiful rustic ceramic drops by Nitta of Corvus Ceramics. If you haven't checked out Nitta's work -go take a look at her beautiful work on Facebook. So clever the way she's stapled the pieces together, don't you think? Adds to their rustic, delicate appeal.

There was a slight sepia look about Nitta's drops, which I wanted to complement. I chose delicious citrine -probably my all time favourite semi-precious stone. Apparently, it improves self esteem, and energises and stimulates creativity. What's not to love, right? I added a brass connector at the back of the ceramic drops, and finished these pretties off with a little co-ordinating czech glass briolette.

They'll be in my shop soon. 

See you next month!

Sue

Bold, Brown and Boho

Lately I've been making an effort to work through my mound of UFOs (Unfinished Objects). I have an embarrassing number of jewelry projects that I've never finished or pieces that I no longer like or which aren't in fashion anymore.  I'm determined to either finish them, rework them or cut them apart and use the beads for something else. Today I'm going to share a pair of earrings I made a long time ago, for Earrings Everyday, but which I never liked much.  In fact I never even listed them on my website, because I wasn't satisfied with them.  Here's the original version.

The dangly beads on the waxed linen always looked too bulky with the fat ceramic drops, and the waxed linen caused them to stick out awkwardly over the rounded drops. Also the drops have a beautiful glaze on them, which the beads pretty much covered up. The earrings look OK in the photo, but in real life - not so much.
Sooo...I cut them apart and tried a bunch of variations till I got what I liked. I love the colors of those little barbell shaped beads in combination with the ceramic drops, so I wanted to keep them. Here's what I came up with.

The new version was hard to photograph because the little dangles fall off to the side when the earrings are horizontal, but you can see how there are beautiful shades of caramel, chocolate and coffee in the glaze, (sounds like a restaurant menu!).  Here's how they hang when worn.

The mother of pearl hoops used to be part of a necklace that I also took apart and re-purposed. The earrings look so much more airy and uncluttered in their new form. Unlike the first version of these earrings, I have listed this remake in my shop.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Delightfully Dappled

Today's earrings were inspired by these delightfully dappled lampwork bicones by Sue Beads. I love the way the splashes of green, blue and lavender add an extra pop of color to the design.

A touch of silver adds a bit of shine and Irish waxed linen connects the glass beads and a pair of my own ceramic tiny teardrop charms. I left short bits of the Irish waxed linen by the knot and frizzed the strands out a little, adding a bit of boho charm. 

The Delightfully Dappled earrings are available in my shop now, and for those of you who design your own jewelry, I also have 2 colors of the ceramic Tiny Teardrop charms in my shop.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Rainbow Tassel Earrings

I've been wanting to experiment with leather a bit. I had some ideas for today, several of which did not work out.  You know how it goes sometimes.😉 But I did come up with this simple idea.

I had some silver, metallic leather that my friend Lindsay Starr had given me awhile ago. I cut around a teardrop shaped template that I usually use for making my ceramic earrings. Then I cut out an oval, inside of the teardrop.

I dangled some rainbow colored tassels in the center of the ovals and they're good to go!  Lightweight and breezy.  Perfect for a summer day.  Speaking of which - I hope you're having a fantastic summer!  See you next month,

Linda Landig Jewelry

Lilac

Well, we are enjoying beautiful weather here in the UK...so unexpected! Bright sunshine, blue skies and the flowers are blooming. Now, I love lilac. Really love it. The smell. The shape of the little individual trumpet flowers and the shape they make on the bough. Did I mention the smell? One of my favourite smells. I don't have any lilac in my garden. I keep dropping hints and hope that someone will buy me one, and plant it for me. But this hasn't happened. I think I had better get one myself

I got these beautiful ceramic drops in Petra Carpreau's recent update. The colour is just sublime -lilac and almost luminous. It's an intricate design too -a great combination of wire and ceramic clay -grungy and pretty at the same time

I've just added some textured silver plated jumprings and spacers and rustic silver plated brass textured tubes by Russian artist Anna Chernykh

I think these will be available in my next showcase over on The Earrings Show at the end of June. That's all from me. see you in a few weeks

Sue x

Utterly Lovely Stuff

In Praise of Color! 💗

I enjoy designing and making jewelry for a lot of reasons.  I love following the spark of a creative idea and enjoy learning and using techniques that allow me to make new kinds of things.  I enjoy the feel of wire-wrapping and, even more, the back-and-forth rhythm of a knotting project.  I also love scrolling through my favorite haunts on the net for new art beads and components (well, who doesn't?).

But, even though it's sometimes hard to point to exactly what inspires me to design something, it's almost always color or a colorway that grabs me first.  Color is powerful:  It energizes us, soothes us, nourishes the part of our being that knows and responds to beauty.  

I've had a wonderful relationship over the years with the talented jewelry artisan Helena Benkoczka of Areto Beads and Jewellery, who makes gorgeous jewelry and components in multiple media.  But I've particularly loved working with her vibrantly colorful polymer clay earring charms, and I thought for today's blog post I'd introduce my newest pair of earrings made with Helena's components as well as share a few of my earlier earrings made with her colorful earring beads.  It's a Feast of Color for the Eyes!

Blue-Sky Days

                                      

With components as colorful

as Helena's (including these, left), my urge is to really go with it by using beads (lampwork, glass seed beads, and copper), fiber, and even ear wires that play up the colors, in this case, the orange and teal. 

Pink Champagne

These earrings (above) were made with Helena's teardrop components, a shape I grew

to love because they're perfect for adding colored rings and bead dangles 

for movement and even more color.  These are some of my favorites. 💗 

Fruit and Vine

These teardrops (left) are such a blast of color, and the earrings were SO much fun to make.  With seed beads on top and dangling from the purple aluminum rings, Czech Saturn beads, and little lampwork glass slices in a grassy green to match the waxed cord, and green niobium ear wires.

Colored Feathers, Colored Stone

This pair (right), more recent, starts with a vibrant pair of Helena's teardrops that have so many colors that I chose just two colors to use in my earrings:  purple and magenta (magenta and purple lampwork beads, purple Czech rondelles, magenta cord, purple rings, and tiny magenta seed beads).

Summertime Mandalas

The vibrant floral earrings above are brand-new--I couldn't resist the lush colors of Helena's gorgeous mandala components!  I hung lots of little beads from sterling silver rings, including pink agate rounds, tiny faceted pacific blue apatite rounds, silver rondelles, faceted dyed purple jade rounds, and turquoise blue magnesite rounds, finishing each beaded dangle with tiny sterling silver drops.  They have a Summer of Love sort of vibe, I think.  ;) 

Thanks for reading, everyone!  I'll be back again in a couple of weeks.  💗

xo
Meridy

My shop

My FB page

Excavation

I was in the mood for making earrings this weekend, but was frustrated that there was no clear space on my table to actually be able to create anything.  Sigh.  I know many of you fight this battle too.

So I shoved some of the ruble off to the side and put some of it on the floor. I decided that I would begin excavating my work surface by just using the beads that were already on the table.  And I vowed to then put away any leftover beads from those that I used.  I ended up with three pairs of earrings and the start of a cleaner work space.

Orange Butterfly Earrings

These earrings use a pair of my ceramic butterfly charms, paired with lampwork glass spacers, Czech glass flowers and Swarovski crystals.  Although the design isn't technically difficult, I had the darnedest time finding beads that had a pleasing balance of shapes, sizes and colors.  I like these earrings now because they have "happy colors"!

Fan Earrings

I have found that many of my customers are wanting shorter, less showy earrings, but designs that are still unique and colorful.  This pair of earrings fits the bill.  The brick red beads are vintage Lucite and therefore very lightweight.  The rounded triangle shapes are higher on the sides, with a "valley" down the center.  I love these unique shapes.  I topped them with verdigris bell shaped bead caps.  They remind me of opened paper fans.

Lantern Earrings

The brick red and black glass beads I used here are vintage glass.  They are sort of cone shaped, but with flat faces all around, rather than being smoothly rounded.  I topped them with the same bead caps as in the previous earrings (successfully using up the last of those bead caps, thus adding, maybe 2 square inches of cleared space to my table!).  These earrings remind me of little lanterns that you might hang in the garden on a lovely summer evening.

 If I keep excavating I should have a lot more earrings to share with you in my next post.

I hope you and yours are enjoying the summer, even as the "Back To School" displays are filling the aisles in all the stores.

 Linda Landig Jewelry

Fiasco

fi·as·co
noun
1.  a thing that is a complete failure

Not a complete failure; it is reparable; just not in time for this morning. Suffice it to say that a cup of coffee, a sweet Lab's wagging-with-excitement tail, and earrings with polymer clay components are simply not a good combination. Maybe I will share them in two weeks with the replacements. :)

So instead of the pair I made specifically for EE, I selected a pair of very recently made earrings.

Turquoise & Red is always a great combination

The beautiful glaze on the Bronzy Drops made by Petra Carpreau of Scorched Earth On Etsy, with the perfect amount of pooling at the tip, is so compelling! I've had these for a long time and could never settle on a way to go. I recently found these groovy vintage copper knot connectors, oxidized them and decided I had a start for the drops. The rest is colorful beads; the top bead is enameled on copper made by MaryAnn Carroll of Artisan Beads Plus. The remainder is 3mm glass beads strung on waxed linen.

I like the length, 2 3/4" / 6.98 cm, and the rustic "dress-up" the copper connectors provided, yet the final package is something I'd wear every day. They're just my style! :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Have a peaceful day. Happy March!

Norbel Marolla

My Etsy shop is She Flies Again
She Flies Again Facebook Page

Stones And Swarovski

Hi everyone, I hope the beginning of the new year has been kind to you so far. Here in Sweden it's been cold and lots of snow.

Do you remember my latest post here, when I told you about the wonderful gift of stones and pebbles that I got from a friend of mine. Well, here's another pair of earrings made with another couple of stones from that lot. This time I've combined them with Swarovski crystals. Which probably surprises those of you who are familiar with my style. You haven't seen me use Swarovskis very often, have you. But in my bead stash I have a rather large collection of them in different colors and sizes. I haven't actually bought most of them myself, but received in different collaborations in the past. I keep them all together in a box, because I haven't known what to do with them. But, anything odd or uncomfortable challenges me creative wise, so lately I've been thinking more and more about ways to incorporate them in my jewelry.



I am rather pleased with the result. However it was difficult for me to capture the sparkle of the swarowskis in a photo. I hope you get the idea anyway. When you wear them and they dangle they constantly and beautifully catches light from different angles. Makes them rather suitable for a party or a night out in my mind.

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Drilled local stones from Ostergotland Sweden - Mia Christensen

Messy wrapped oxidized copper wire in two different gauges

Swarovski crystals

Handmade earring hooks in oxidized sterling silver

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All my best,

Malin

www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.se