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! :-) 

Something blue

Hello lovely friends. I hope you are all enjoying Christmas with family and friends and that you are having a wonderful time. In the Netherlands Christmas is celebrated on December 25 and 26.  Here in Greece Christmas is celebrated on December 25, so only one day. Do you celebrate a second Christmas Day?

 As you might have noticed I haven’t been around since the beginning of November. I like to thank my wonderful friends and colleagues from Earrings Everyday for their support and taking the time to step in for me. My mom passed away November 4 and I still have to come to terms with that loss.

At the moment my beads are not “talking” to me so I hope you don’t mind me sharing a pair of earrings I made a while back. I am a huge fan of the beautiful enamel charms made by Cathleen Zaring from Blue Hare Art Wear. Here I paired them with lampwork glass beads from Desert Bug Designs, Czech glass and copper findings.

Thank you all so much for supporting me and my bead friends here on Earrings Everyday and I wish you all a joyful New Year’s Eve and a happy, healthy 2017 full of sunshine, joy, peace, success, laughter and beautiful earrings of course.

Thanks for looking!

 Janine

Esfera Jewelry

My etsy shop

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Brick and Mortar

Once again, I'd like to welcome our lovely friend and wonderful designer, Meridy Migchelbrink, of TwoTreesStudio, and thank her as well for giving us her time to design and create these earrings special for today. I love Meridy's style, her work; she is also one of the loveliest women you will ever meet. She works color expertly! If you have not yet, a walk through her shop is joyful.
norbel

I love well-crafted, beautiful, and whimsical earring components, so when I found these beautiful, playful enamels by Marlene Kazor Quigley of Markazo, I knew I wanted to make something with them! 

The enamels begged for RUSTIC, so I went looking in my stash to see what beads I might have that would work with them (I’m trying to cut back on my bead spending—yes, you may laugh now, I’ll wait).  After no immediate success, I remembered that I still had a pair of Leese Mahoney’s, GlassByLeese, gorgeous crusty-rustic cones in a perfect shade of green. 

So I started to play.  I needed a bit more red, so I pulled out some chunky 10mm red horn discs, which looked great with the cones and the enamels.  I also wanted motion, so I made small wire-wrapped dangles in red and olive green and hung them from matching green niobium jump rings (thank you, chainmailling habit—I always have plenty of rings to choose from!).  Since I wanted to use my signature fiber-wrapped earring technique, once I got the cones and horn discs onto the linen cording, I had to weave the cording through the holes in the enamels AND through the rings, making sure the linen was wrapped tight enough around the area between the enamels and the beads (so that all was secure) before I started the decorative wraps that drape over the tops of the rings.  

When I was happy with the look of the earrings, I trimmed the cord ends and made backings from red handmade paper and glued them to the backs of the enamels to hide the cord ends.  

 

And the finished product.  Pretty, whimsical, swingy, and definitely fun. 

And they’re even a tiny bit Christmas-y—which hadn’t even occurred to me until I had finished them!  ;)

Thank you for inviting me to sit in here at EE again—I always enjoy being here with you all.  J

Meridy Migchelbrink

Two Trees Studio on Etsy  -- 

Two Trees Studio on Facebook  -- 

"Esnorkeling"

Caribbean Copper Enamel Earrings

I can't help it! Those of us who haven't already been on a winter getaway are yearning for warm sunny beaches and clear blue green waters where we can play and forget for a time that winter is not yet over. My husband and I like the Riviera Maya, south of Cancun, where there are so many old Mayan ruins and beautiful places to go snorkeling, or as the natives tend to say "esnorkeling".

My earring design captures the colors of the Caribbean with tropical blue recycled glass, rugged turquoise and gorgeous enameled copper drops by Cathleen Zaring of BlueHareArtWear on Etsy. I used bronze accents and copper wire to wrap the stacked beads and blend the textures together.

Gloria Ewing
Chrysalis Too on Etsy
Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry