My Generation

From 15th to 18th August 1969, 400,000 music fans descended on a farmers field in Woodstock, New York, for three days of peace, love and music. Probably the most influential music festival ever held, it became legendary. I'm of that generation - in 1969 I was 18, just left sixth form after my A Levels, about to get engaged and life was magic, with music playing a huge part of it. Many of the bands playing were favourites - The Who, Jimi Hendrix (I'd seen him on tour in the UK a couple of years before, lying flat on the stage, playing his guitar behind his back !) Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin - the list goes on.
This weeks earrings remind me of a 60's fad that I still love - tie dye. We dyed everything that stood still long enough - t shirts, skirts, shoes, you name it.  And of course, Jon Burgess components are recycled electronic bits with polymer clay - we recycled or re-used pretty much everything in those pre-plastic days. Anyone else make hippie necklaces from dried melon seeds? 
The beautiful mismatched lampwork in greens and blues is by Joanne Joyce, with African turquoise and raw rubies. I've played around with wiring them upside down.

 

 

 

 

 

A fun pair of earrings. Were you lucky enough to be at Woodstock? If so, share your memories with us!

These will be on sale in our Woodstock 50 show over on Facebook this weekend in The Very Nice Group - come and join in the nostalgia. 

 

Lindsay x

 

My Facebook page

 

My Etsy shop 

Summer Swing!

Hello!

Some very summery earrings for you today. The little polymer clay charms (so sorry to not remember the artist) started off life as part of another pair of earrings. But  I was never quite sure of them, so they sat in my box of half finished things (it's a big box). But something drew me to them again. Probably the colours. And the fact that I had some very pretty purple beaded beads by Sarah of Beadecked by Beads. They were a perfect match!

 And both components have beautiful textures as well as colours.
The little beaded beads sit on some simple copper headpins and the earrings have a certain amount of swing to them.

They'll be available in my showcase over on The Earrings Show in Facebook Land on 23rd August.

See you in a couple of weeks and thanks for visiting :-)

Sue x
Utterly Lovely Stuff

Summer Trees

Hello Earring Folk!

I treated myself to some enamelled charms by Carole Pons of Brum de Terre recently. They really are the prettiest things.

Love the bright sky blue colour, as well as the pretty tree design. Perfect for summer, don't you think?

When I have components that are this pretty, I'm always tempted to just pop them on some earwires and leave them as they are! I resisted this urge!

However, I didn't want to over-complicate things, so i added some very lovely chrysocolla rondelles, some brass hoops to sit just behind the enamels and some little leaves -to echo the the tree theme.

Hope you like them! They'll be available over on my Facebook page

See you in a couple of weeks :-)

Sue x

Utterly Lovely Stuff

The Colours of a Rainbow

I have one new pair of earrings to show you all today as I was busy all week preparing for a components show at the weekend. I felt like making a very bright pair and came across these beautiful glass feather components by Bea Stoertz. Then, looking through my colourful lampwork collection to find the perfect beads, these by Régis Teixera screamed out at me. I just added a few extra touches with the bead caps and spacer beads, a bit crazy I know but a perfect combo I think. What do you think? 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              They will be available in my FB show later this week and this is the link to my group - Nicola Morse Jewellery & Components.

Summer Dreaming

Spring is here but I'm thinking up excuses to indulge in as much colour as possible.  When it comes to colours...more is always more.  I've had these polymer drops framed by copper wire for ages, they never worked in my previous attempts.  I also came across these ribbed polymer beads that I've also had for years.  These were part of another pair of earrings which I took apart.  The colours in both sets of polymer beads matched up perfectly.  All I needed to do was create something to go in between...to break them down a bit.

I painted brass tubes, instead of going for darker colours I decided to go all out and match them with the polymer beads. I laid them out: polymer rounds followed by tubes and polymer drops.  They did not look complete. 

I sort of took the 'lazy' approach and wire wrapped some hoops in matching colours as I couldn't think of anything else.....hoping they would all fit together despite the explosion of colours. 

Here's a closer look.  I think the components look comfortable with each other - the oxidised copper wire acts as the 'softener'.

Polymer ribbed beads: Di Keeble

Polymer drops: Holly Stultz

These earrings are now in my Etsy shop.  Have a lovely weekend and I will see you in a couple of weeks. 

Suhana <3

My Etsy shop: Suhana Hart Jewellery

A blast of colour!

Hello!

Although it's December, I've decided against a wintry theme and instead have gone for gorgeous explosions of colour! All these beautiful charms were hand-painted and sealed with resin by the uber-talented Suhana Hart.

First up, these glorious hearts! The detail on these is just beautiful. I used oxidised brass hoops as a base, chrysocolla rondelles and some pretty oxidised black chain at the front.

Next up -these fantastic painted fiery daggers. Love the colour of these. However, making them involved much swearing. Quite a lot of expletives. Sorry. 

First, I started with a brass triangle frame. Then added some co-ordinating seed beads to match with the colours Suhana used in these charms, and added some pieces of filigree brass chain (lots of expletives at this point). Finally, some beautiful cerise lampwork spacers to finish these dangly boho beauties. 

The final pair, I'm hiding at the end, as they are a birthday gift for a fab friend's significant birthday! I don't think she reads this blog, so I'm safe...Beautiful circular charms with pretty purple, green and pink lotus flower patterns on double brass hoops, with African silver spacers and semi-precious rondelles (I've forgotten what these are! But they are from Sylvia Stungo's shop).

Hope you've enjoyed all the colour. These beauties (apart from the last pair!) will be available in my shop. I'll be back in a couple of weeks :-)

Sue x

Harlequin

When I've had a good couple of weeks making - wise I tend to burn out a bit - the ideas won't gel, I push beads aimlessly around my table and generally make a huge untidy mess with little to show for my efforts. This is when I find fashion magazines to be an invaluable resource.

I was having my hair done last week and asked for a magazine while the highlights were developing (and no, I'm not ready to embrace the grey!). My hairdresser always has Harpers Bazaar, my favourite. So with a coffee or three, a piece of chocolate, Harpers and an hours peace and quiet I'm in heaven.

This was the picture I was drawn to - it's a quick snap, so excuse the glare. The rich, vibrant colours, the shapes, just perfect. Lots of scope for textures - something I'm drawn to in the colder months. 

Ideally you'd have the magazine to work from but a picture will do. The elongated black triangles are coconut shell, nice and light, hung on links of vintaj black oval chain. The red fritty enamel circles by Kimberly Rogers, the plum greek ceramic rounds and beads above all from Smitten Beads. Black copper earwires are from my friend Lucy Haslam.

 

 

 

Try it next time you're stuck for ideas - it adds a different perspective to your design.

These will be for sale at the weekend in Kimberly's Facebook group Numinosity where a bunch of us are getting together to show a range of designs using her components. Here's the link https://www.facebook.com/groups/967164829979604  

 

See you here next week!

 

Lindsay

 

 

My facebook page

 

My Etsy shop

Colour Me Happy

I was lucky enough to snag some Regis Teixera beads recently and here is how I interpreted them.  In the last year or so I moved away from my usual bold colours to more subtle tones. I missed my colours and Regis' beads were a perfect excuse to start playing around with colours again.  I think I still held back but I like what I've come up with and hope you do too.

First up are these.  I had the opportunity to play with so many colours but I held back a little to make the beads be the focus.  I wire wrapped hoops in teal with a hint of black and purple, hanging from these are brass flower blanks which I wire wrapped using single rhinestones (in brass settings) in dark teal(ish) and purple seeds.  

For this pair I simply wire wrapped some hoops in turquoise and amber (gold).  Originally I had layered the hoops with resin charms.  They looked ok but I felt that the hoops needed to be smaller to make them look perfect.  Sorry I didn't take a photo of the original pair.  As I didn't have time to wrap a smaller pair of hoops, I decided to improvise.  I got rid of the resin charms and what I was left with is pictured below.  Short, simple yet statementastic (I think)

And lastly these.  I painted these brass wings last year in rainbow colours but never got round to using them.  I painted filigree brass bits in black, gold and Verdigris, wire wrapped hoops in purple and turquoise and assembled everything.  

These earrings will be available in my next online show in the FB group The Jewellery Show on Monday.  Hope you can join me.  See you in a couple of weeks time.

Suhana <3

My Etsy Shop: Suhana Hart Jewellery

❤💗💚 Colour Me Hippy 💙💜💛

Hello, how about a splash of colour this week?  Ok maybe not a splash, maybe a flood of COLOURS!!  You may need to get 'them' 🕶 on.

Here are this week's offerings in their group shot. Very colourful wouldn't you say?  I felt the need to brighten up everyone's days as I've been seeing lots of snow on my FB feed lately.  

1.  First pair features painted resin and brass charms by Martin Hart, layered (I used to do a lot of layering, now that I've re-discovered it....you will see a lot in this design) with vintage enamel flowers, topped with brass spacers (I have softened the colour on these a little, can you see?) and finished off with delicious sparkling rocks by Maryse Fritzsch-Thillens.

2.  Painted resin and brass charms by Martin Hart, layered with those stunning vintage flowers, sitting on top are Carolyn Saxby tyvek beads.

3.  Painted resin and brass charms by Marin Hart, layered with vintage flowers, topped with Roman glass discs, Maryse's sparkling rocks and sari silk.

4.  and a 4th pair in the same design.  I had these vintage flowers in 4 colours....didn't want to offend the cream/white pair by leaving them out 😁.

There we have it.  A riot of colours.  All of these are now listed in my Etsy shop.  See you in a couple of weeks. 

Suhana <3

My Etsy Shop: Buttoned Up Beads

The need for colour!

So January is done (hooray!) and I am feeling the need for colour!

For this blog, I revisited an old design which is a bit of a favourite. I got hold of some of Helena Benkoczka's folded copper bails. Helena is perhaps best known for her beautifully colourful polymer clay components, but is a very talented jewellery designer herself AND also makes some gorgeous copper components on occasion too. These beauties have a teeny tiny Buddha stamp.

I paired these up with some of my favourite recycled glass chunks in a vivid purple and wrapped some colourful seed beads onto some oxidised copper wire and looped them through the bails.

Bright, colourful and a bit boho. However, I was in a rush to photograph them before I lost the light today and spotted a tiny bit of wire that needed to be trimmed/tucked in! It has been sorted, but I couldn't take another photo, so it sits above, annoying me! Can you spot it? 

These will be available in my next showcase over on The Earrings Show on Friday 23rd Feb. See you in a couple of weeks!

Sue x 

www.etsy.com/shop/utterlylovelystuff

Bold Colours

Hello, today's earrings feature a number of artisan goodies.  I got carried away as the colours matched so well. 

Ceramic caps by Claire Lockwood

Enamel connectors by Cathleen Zaring

and polymer charms by Elsie Smith

I have also added a pair of my own wrapped connectors.  Short and sweet for today.  Hope you like them. See you again soon <3

Suhana

Mt Etsy shop: Buttoned Up Beads

Wire Wrapping

Hello!!! It's my first post as a regular contributor to the Earrings Everyday blog.  I'm super excited to be here :).  So I'll just get on with showing you what I've made.

I chose to work with these enamel charms by Darlene Fortier-House.  I have been wire wrapping a LOT these last few months and naturally these would feature a lot of wrapping.

I decided to wrap 6 brass rings matching the colours of those dots above - as closely as possible and arranged them as per the next picture. 

I've also added teeny brass seeds on to the jump rings. 

These earrings are pretty long at nearly 4 3/4" from top of the ear wire to the bottom of the charms so I decided to leave them as they are.  I was tempted to add more......

Thank you for reading. See you again soon.

Suhana :) <3

These earrings are now listed in my etsy shop Buttoned Up Beads