Dragonflies and Faux Australian Koroit Opals

One thing about suffering from a chronic illness, I end up spending a lot of time (sadly) laying down, thinking and designing things in my head. One of things I do is work through various creative ideas in my brain, and try to work out all the kinks so that when I feel well enough, then I can actually implement things quickly. Kind of like hitting the ground running.

So, among the many ideas swirling around in my coconut, the idea of making some 'faux' Australian Koroit Opals had been swimming in there for quite some time. I figured it was time to try it out, and see what happens! Yay!!

So this is what I ended up with. I made several oval-shaped faux opals (some smaller, and these slightly larger ones), and picked a pair to use in these dragonfly earrings:

Faux Koroit Boulder Opals Sterling Silver Dragonfly Earrings by Nathalie Lesage

I'm also fond of charm necklaces, but wanted to make some 'charm earrings' since we're all about earrings here. Extremely lightweight (gotta love Polymer clay for reducing the weight on our earlobes!) these cuties are ready to play and explore the world with you! These measure 2.5" tall x 1" wide.

I used some 20g Sterling Silver wire to make the hoops, added a bit of textures while cold-forging, and decided to go with a pair of fun twisted sterling silver jump rings to suspend my faux opals. I kept the rest simple (truth: I made these quickly before running out of light to take pictures and write this post..... haven't been well at all lately)... so fun little Sterling dragonflies, and a few sparkling Czech glass beads became part of this little party.

I'm happy on how these turned out, but I want to try again and go a bit finer on the chunks of host-rock (the brown areas) I think. It's definitely fun, and I'll keep at it. Practice makes perfect!

I have a showcase planned on FB for October 1st. I'll be selling some faux opals and other polymer clay handmade jewelry components (Search for the Handmade Beads and Findings FB group to discover lots of great handmade jewelry components makers!).

In the meantime, these earrings can be found in my Etsy shop HERE, along with other jewelry supplies. I've started to list some of my personal gemstones collection on Etsy too. I'm just too unwell to make much jewelry, and I need to part with some of my stash.

Have a wonderful weekend! I can't believe September is almost done already...

Cheers,
Nathalie
Visit my Etsy shops:
My Garden Of Love
The Crafty Tribe
Nat Lesage Designs

Rocking Out!

 Do you remember collecting stones as a kid?  Maybe you had a favorite tin or a child-sized shoe box where you kept some of your favorite rocks.  Now that we are more or less grown up, we can still collect rocks.  Here's my latest collection.

One of my online bead buddies, Jeannie Dukic, of JKD Studio, sent me a sampling of her new line of polymer clay faux stone and faux pebble beads and and pendants.

Each stone is just as unique as real stones are, but instead of being a burden on your earlobes, these faux stones are as light as a feather.

 

I topped the "stones" with some rustic, faceted Czech glass and a bit of wire wrapping.

So show some rocker chic attitude!  I think these earrings would be fun to wear with this outfit, now that things are warming up a bit (at least it's getting warmer here, in Washington state).  The Rock Out earrings are available here: Linda Landig Jewelry.

Boho.com

Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry on Etsy

Linda Landig Jewelry on ArtFire