JUST DUCKY!

Thank goodness March has finally arrived because I am more than ready for Spring! In deciding what to feature in today’s post, I thought I would start with one of the pairs of colorful copper enamel charms that I’ve been making for an upcoming components show. Although Spring means pretty flowers, puppies, bunnies, and chicks, I wanted to do something just a bit different while still keeping with my theme. I thought of my daughter’s HUGE rubber duck collection and found that to be the perfect inspiration!

I started with these unique, copper enameled black rubber duckies, covered in brightly colored POLKA DOTS (LOVE me some polka dots). The next step was to go through my ever-growing bead stash to decide which of the polka dot colors to choose for the matching beads. I was leaning toward a pair of bright orange hollow beads over a pair of sparkly lime green donut beads, when I spotted another pair on my bead table that I knew would be the winner- a totally fun pair from Petra Marikova – a black base, completely covered in tiny colorful bumps – like falling in a bucket of candy sprinkles!

The only thing left to do was add a few colorful wavy spacers, some Vintaj black metal caps, copper caps, and a pair of fancy copper ear wires…WAY TOO FUN! What do you think? Too many polka dots? (said no one, EVER!)

 

These earrings will appear later today in my etsy shop, TwinklingOfAnEye.

You can find other earrings in my fb group.

Thanks for spending a part of your day with me - see you in a few weeks! :-) 

craving for color

Hello friends, how are you all doing?

I don't know about you, but after winter I always crave for color. I recently bought 2 pairs of very, and I mean very, colorful shoes. My colleagues look at my shoes, look at me, look back at my shoes with a bewildered look on their faces. But then they see my tote bag (yep, very colorful), my chaotic hairstyle with curls everywhere, and sigh. Colorful shoes belong to me. As are colorful earrings. And nobody does colorful earring components better than Helena Benkoczka, with whom I had an interview in March. She is such an interesting lady and talented artist.
Her earring components always make me happy. I made these 3 pairs of earrings:

I combined the polymer charms with lampwork glass beads made by Lesley McIver, Czech glass and other bits and pieces.

And you can win this last pair :) Isn't that great. If you go to the interview you can see what you need to do to win this pair or win a pair of earrings made by Helena.

Thank you so much for looking and your support for Earrings Everyday :)
And you know I love to read your comments, so don't be shy and leave some words. 

See you in two weeks.Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of joy, an abundance of color and singing birds,
Janine
Esfera Jewelry

Whirlwind

Hello hello.
Today I am showing you earrings I made last week. You should have seen me, my little bags of tiny colorful beads spread all over the bed, me frantically looking for The Perfect Bead combinations. My  sari silk ribbons haphazardly thrown all over the couch (hubby barely had space left to sit). Yes, making these earrings were kind of a whirlwind process.
For these earrings I wire wrapped the sari silk with a combination of Czech glass, crystals and delica's in a whirlwindy fashion. Hence the name :)

Glass head pins by Linda Newnham Copper ear wires by Lucy Haslam

Glass head pins by Karen Klomparens
Copper ear wires by Lucy Haslam

Glass beads by Grace Ma
Copper ear wires by Lucy Haslam
















These will be available in my Etsy shop shortly.
Thank you so much for looking and your support for Earrings Everyday :)
And you know I love to read your comments, so don't be shy and leave some words.
See you in two weeks.

Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of joy, laughter and whirlwinds of positive energy,
Janine
Esfera Jewelry

Welcome Wild Woman Beads!

Our first-time guest today is Meredith Jordan, designer and creator behind WildWomanBeads. Thank you for joining us, Meredith!

Pulling thoughts together to write this blog, I  had a good laugh as I tried to describe the almost whimsical way I go about creating a pair of earrings. Some of you are sure to laugh along with me as you recognize yourselves in my process. Let me start with the search for components.

There are so many gifted component artists in our bead community who keep upping their game at what they make for us to use in jewelry designs, and, most often, there’s  considerable competition to claim some for our own designs. I recently watched a show in which one component artist sold every component pair seconds after they posted. There must have been twenty or more designers following the show with trigger fingers itching to BIN.

As I have watched wonderful, colorful, creative components come into view and vogue, I made a decision that I would choose only components that truly made my heart sing. I knew I would never be the fastest person to BIN. I need to look at a component and pay attention to the colors, textures and design. If they make me come alive, gasp or jump for joy, I go for it and sometimes come out the winning binner. If they don’t make my heart sing, they weren’t mine to work with, no matter how much I may want something from that artist’s collection.

This takes time. Sometimes, to be true to my own ideas and designs, I have to pry my fingers off the keyboard before buying something just because it was beautiful. I have to train myself to listen for the “still, small voice” inside me that says, “Oh, yes, these are for you!”

This is my nature as an artist. I’m an introvert, and my reference point is necessarily an internal one. I simply ask myself, “Do these beads (or charms) bring me joy?”and wait for an answer. Doing this, I sometimes pass on some glorious components because, if I don’t swoon at the sight of them, they are obviously intended for someone else. On the other hand, I might come across something that rings my chimes, and I’ll leap, even if I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. It may sit in my collection for weeks or years until a day I open a box to find I already have the perfect bead for my next project.

Which brings us to a project. I have to be moved to create something by the intrigue of the components themselves (which is why choosing which components to use is such an important first step). I rarely carve out designated time to create. I can be in my nightgown, on the way to bed, when I take a last look at my table, and suddenly, it’s one in the morning, and I’ve just finished a new pair of earrings. Or I could be stumbling into the kitchen in the early morning, thinking about breakfast, when I glance at the table and discover that a new pair of beads is a delicious match for charms that have been sitting on my table for weeks.

It’s lunchtime before I look up again, and the pup is begging for a walk. It’s not this way all the time. Sometimes I brood over someone’s new beads, charms or headpins, trying to force myself to design something fresh. But the best of my designs come from those times when I just wait patiently for that inner voice to sound out. 

(This is also one of the perils of having an in-house studio through which I must pass to reach any other part of my sweet little home.)

If I’m making a pair of earrings, the beads will talk to me. I hear a very clear “No, that’s not it,” when I put something together that’s “good enough” but not quite what sets my heart to dancing. I’ll hear a sigh of relief when I take a piece apart and move the beads around until I find that sweet spot where it’s “just right.”

Here’s what I’ve learned in my 15 years as a designer: There’s a voice inside that guides my work: an inner compass, a muse, my True North. If I fall into a rabbit hole of wanting whatever is popular at the moment, whether components or designs, I may turn out something good, it may even sell, but I’m left without the sense of delight I feel when I’ve paid attention to the components that sing to me, listen to the beads speak, and find my way to a final design that I’m truly proud and happy to send off to a customer.

Of course, we all create in order to sell our wares, and I don’t mean to trivialize that as important to our lives and our families. I just mean to say the deep satisfaction found in living the artist’s way, or life, comes (at least for me) when I remain true to my own true creative nature, when I follow as it speaks to me, and when I humbly bow to honor the joyful artist that lives within.

I'm ending with a happy shout out to some of my favorite component artists, whose work inspired the earrings you see here: Cathleen Zaring, Kelly Luttrell, Kristi Bowman, Paula Kroft. Vincent and Nooma Cav, Emily Ciaurro, Jana Severin, Sasha Crow, Kristin Louthan, Jeni Houser Alasad, Sabrina Koebel, Carolyn Driver, Helen Backhouse and Nicola Morse!

Thank you for stopping by today. 

Meredith Jordan - Wild Woman Beads
Wild Woman Beads on Facebook
Meredith Jordan on Pinterest

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

Classic Bohemian Girl

I've been on "Standby Service" for the Sacramento Superior Court all this week and have been checking the court's website every evening after 5 p.m. to see if they want me to report to Court the following day.  So far, I haven't been called in, so I've been catching up with projects I haven't finished and have been digging into the serious mess that is my studio.  It's like a treasure hunt when you clean up, and I struck gold when I found a little bag containing these meltingly pretty polymer clay teardrop charms by Helena Benkoczka of Areto Beads and Jewellery.  

So, with an eye to an imminent spring (and then a hot summer), I decided to use Helena's pretty charms to make one of my favorite fiber-wrapped designs, one I've made many times.  I love this design and enjoyed gathering the ingredients:  pretty purple Czech glass Saturn beads, turquoise Czech glass discs, little purple faceted rondelles (also Czech glass), and 8/0 purple-lined seed beads.

I hadn't made a wrapped design in a while, so I especially enjoyed the wrapping part of making these earrings: the tension needed to keep the beads at the top straight and strong, then the precise wrapping at the tops of the charms, adding the tiny 15/0 beads that nestle inside the teal rings, tying the thread off at the back, and covering the thread with matching colored paper and glaze.

Interestingly enough, as I'm finishing my blog post, I find out that I have to report to Court tomorrow morning at 8 a.m.  I guess duty calls!

Thank you so much for reading!  I love you guys, and I'll see you all again in two weeks.  💗

xoxo
Meridy

My shop

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Oh the possibilities - Sari Silk

I hope this finds all of you healthy and well this flu season! 

Both pairs of earrings I'm showing today were made using handcrafted Sari Silk components by Anna Pierson of SagaHus. 

I have lots of silk to work with. . . . large amounts of it so generously gifted to me by a friend. . . .and prior to that I had a few ribbons of my own here and there. Never have I been able to pull it together, not for lack of trying. I have tried and used and used and used a fair amount of silk trying. I have managed small areas of an earring design, and have also used different kinds of ribbon over the years successfully. So although I will continue my efforts at some point, I was delighted when I managed to snag these components to work with. Fun, colorful, unique. Thank you, Anna! 

SheFliesAgain

This gorgeous pair of silk components is paired with various Czech glass beads and Greek bronze castings in a column-shaped design. They're all wrapped with waxed Irish linen and attached to soldered copper metal rings. 

SheFliesAgain

The second pair includes handcrafted copper ovals by Shannon German of MissFickleMedia, and wonderfully crackled recycled glass shards made by Emily Cohen of CatFishStu. Again, wrapped with waxed linen and attached to soldered rings.

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Both pairs are amazingly lightweight, at only 0.10 oz / 2.83 grams, and 0.15 oz / 4.28 grams respectively. 

Thanks for checking us out today.

Always with Love and Joy,
norbel
SheFliesAgain

Ancient Petroglyph Design

Hello. We have a new guest today! Please welcome Chris Kaitlyn.

I view making earrings as making a small sculpture or painting, blending elements together until I create a design that pleases my eye. I had so much fun putting these elements together to make a colorful bold earring design. Jill Stoffregen of Foxpaws Ceramics made the focus component for the design. Jill’s petroglyph of people outlined in blue against a brick red background goes well with the blue and red lampwork glass beads from Jody Brimhall of Inspire Glass Studio. 

Chris Kaitlyn Jewelry

Years ago while reading about materials in jewelry designing I came across black annealed steel wire. I tried some and fell in love with the product. It is a sturdy wire that supports any material I need to wire to other elements whether it is gemstones, ceramics or glass. It is also easy to find at my local Ace Hardware store. I also like that it is a black to steely black color and doesn’t compete with the various elements in the design. Currently I’m using a lot of 28 gauge wire as it bends and wraps well and doesn’t wear out my hands. 

Chris Kaitlyn Jewelry

The other element in the earrings is a new one for me. I have used black and antique copper Niobium ear wires from Tierra Cast for years now, but the colored ear wires are new in my earring designs. They really lend themselves well to colorful earrings and they are made so well. The Niobium is a non-allergic metal, being free of nickel, lead, or other additives. The color is applied through an anodizing process where the metal is dipped into an electrically charged solution making the color bond to the metal so it will not flake or chip. They also make head pins and jump rings in colors, but it is good to note that just as with yarn and fabrics, the color can change a bit from one lot of jump rings, to head pins, to ear wires, but they will all look beautiful together.

To avoid getting confused I put all of one order of a specific color in its own tray and do not mix them with the next order as they can be a slightly different shade. Today’s earrings feature blue ear wires. They also come in purple, green, teal, pink, and yellow and look even better in person than in the pictures.

Chris Kaitlyn Jewelry

Thank you to the Earrings Everyday Crew for the opportunity to be today’s guest writer.

ChrisKaitlynJewelry
Chris Kaitlyn Jewelry on IndieMade
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FaeryLights

Hi, everyone!  💗

Lately I've been making a lot of chainmaille jewelry, which I really love.  It's precise, sleek, and meditative and also beautiful, intricate, and versatile.  But after so much time working ring-by-ring, I was ready for festive, vibrant color...and glass.

FaeryLights can be purchased here.

Pati Walton, one of my favorite glass designers, made all the lampwork glass beads in these brightly beautiful earrings.  And, oh, the COLORS--fuchsia, yellow, orange, blue, purple, and green "painted" in ribbons across Pati's glass head pins and added as bubbles on the little lampwork beads.  Even the  little Czech glass rondelles and Swarovski crystal bicones I added to the mix are rich and vibrant. 

I love the way the light filters through the colored glass and crystal, turning the beads into their own kind of light. 

Color is nourishment for our creative hearts, I think.  And I'm so glad I made these little FaeryLights at this magical time of year.

Thank you so much for reading!  I wish you all a wonderful (and heart-nourishing) New Year, and I'll see you all again in 2018!

xoxo

Meridy

My shop

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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                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Second Guessing

I guessing that I'm not the only jewelry designer who holds on to components for long periods of time before making something (beautiful!) with them.  I mean, there are always good reasons for not immediately making something as soon as a gorgeous bead or headpin comes into my eager hands.  Maybe I have a bunch of other designs stacked up on the runway.  Or perhaps I can't find the perfect components to complete what I envision.  Or--and I confess this does happen from time to time--I may not have the vaguest notion what to do with my beloved purchase...and the lovely little piece of art has to sit with me for a spell while I figure it out.  :)

In this case, the lovely pieces of art were Pati Walton's amazing headpins.  I at least knew what I wanted my earrings to be:  long, lean stackers with a ceremonial tribal atmosphere.  Since Pati's headpins were so beautifully decorated already, I thought that I should probably keep the rest of the components fairly neutral.  But nothing "neutral" I tried worked.  Black beads, pink beads, even purple beads on top were just kind of...there.  They were too neutral.

I HAD considered a pair of beads, cute little things by Deborah Crow Roesly that I'd been saving for just the right thing...

...and I kept taking them out of the drawer where they lived and looking at them, then putting them back.  No, I thought each time, they're just too busy paired with those headpins.  So more time went by.  

Then one day I picked up the headpins and pulled Deborah's dotted purple beads out of the drawer again and started putting them together with some of my favorite copper beads.   When I was finished, they looked pretty much the way they do in these photos, minus the little pale pink Swarovskis at the top.  And I set those prototypes aside again.

But by the time I pulled the nearly finished earrings out to look at them the next time, weeks later, I realized that I couldn't really imagine them any other way.  The dotted purple beads looked like they'd always belonged with the amazing, colorful dotted headpins.  I'd finally stopped second-guessing myself, so then I finished the earrings...my kind-of-amazing ceremonial tribal stackers.  :)   

Thanks so much for reading!  

I'll see you all in a couple of weeks!  

xoxo

Meridy

My Etsy shop

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Scraps. . . continued

I didn't think Nathalie would mind if I picked up on her "scraps" idea. Her recent post really gave me pause. It was a good challenge for me, to pay attention to what I'm throwing away or simply tossing aside, without giving thought to what it might become rather than trash. I recycle many things in different areas of life, but I am quick to pitch loose odds and ends without thinking about it. The opportunity came up very soon.

The first pair is made from a small piece of tin I still have left from a vintage container. So in a way they're scraps. . . . but they're not really the pair that in my mind were made from scraps. :) The scraps are the second pair.

Earrings Available Here! 😊

These were made from what was left after cutting out the teardrop shapes in the first pair of earrings. It took some Dremel work to get the shapes nicely edged, inside and out. They were not joined at the top; that was where I made the first cut to begin the teardrop shape. I used a brass metal coating on the backs. They are too narrow for me to try to apply the backing I regularly use. 

I punched holes at the top of both ends. I used an aqua/green dye-oxide on vintage steel wavy disks. ***For whatever reason, those appear much deeper and brighter a color than they actually are. Strange. . . . as everything else is quite accurate. I tried lightening the photos at one point trying to soften the color. But the disks are simply not that bright.*** 

Using waxed Irish linen, I strung a single coral Czech glass bead and put both ends of the linen through the center hole in the disk, then one end through each hole in the tin, then knotting it. Pulling the strands tight caused the tin to bow ever so slightly and it looks great that way. Gives it a little bit of depth.

 I considered leaving the entire empty space empty after having tried at least two dozen different things to hang. Nothing worked. It was an odd feeling. I had all this empty space and couldn't fill it. It was baffling, actually. Frustrating too. I am not opposed to leaving empty space. Often it is what I would rather do, but in this situation I felt they really needed something.

I hung them up after finishing and left them as is. Later in the day I was looking for something for another project and stumbled on these Vintage very thin brass-plated findings. They worked, so I left them on. They are attached with waxed linen also, wrapped around the backs of the disk.

So my thanks to Nathalie for her post the other day, for making me stop to think about what I was throwing away, and giving me a new way to look at bits and pieces.

 Thank you for stopping in! I'll be back the 1st of August. Hope you are all enjoying the summer.

norbel

SheFliesAgain Etsy Shop

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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

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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 Tree of Life

Tree of Life, Azerbaijan, 17th century

I've always been drawn to the symbol of the Tree of Life.  It seems to have been around forever in one form or another, in every culture.  It's an archetypal image, a constantly recurring motif in literature, painting, and mythology, symbolizing (among other things) the union and balance of the upper and lower worlds and all they represent.

It's taken countless forms, of course, as each culture in each period of time has expressed it based on whatever beliefs they had, in whatever mediums they had to use.  It's timeless--perhaps even eternal.  The Norse called it "The World Tree," and given its ubiquity and its many faces, it really is.

Tree of Life, Aberdeen (Scotland) Bestiary, early 12th Century

By the 12th century, in the West the Tree of Life was most often depicted in Christian iconography of the time as The Tree of Jesse, illustrating the lineage of Jesus.

Tree of Jesse, late 12th century.  The head of the House of Jesse was considered the royal forebear of Jesus and in these depictions was most often shown lying down beneath the tree itself, with Jesus and Mary in the center and other relations on the spreading branches.

Celtic Tree of Life (one of so many!)

Tree of Life, Spain, modern day

These are just a tiny sample of the endless ways the Tree of Life has been interpreted over the centuries.  I would never claim to have created anything iconic in my earring offering today; instead I created a very simple and colorful tribute to the Tree of Life, less than 2 inches long.  

  

Kristi Bowman-Gruel made the beautiful Tree of Life charms, and sky-blue lampwork rondelles, small green Czech glass rondelles, and tiny Swarovski crystals echo their colors. 

The earrings can be found here.  

I loved spending this time with you all--for one thing I got to share some seldom-used knowledge about Medieval iconography--yay!  I hope to see you again in two weeks.  :)

 

xoxo

Meridy

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