Gradations...

There are times that I've bought beautiful components because I fell in love with them, and sometimes they've sat in a drawer for years.  And there are the "most of the time" purchases, the ones that are transformed into jewelry fairly quickly, though I don't always know immediately how or what to design with them.  And then there are the times when I know exactly what I want to do with something the moment I see it.

Seeing (and buying) these charms by Inviciti was one of those times.

The first thing I wanted to do with these charms was to paint the crescent moons a pearlescent white and then string 15/0 glass seed beads on 2-ply gray Irish waxed linen thread and wrap them around the charms.   

My usual modus operandi would be to search through all of the most rich, saturated colors I could get my hands on (because COLOR!), but for the Lady Moon and these lovely dark and rustic charms I wanted to stay with a palette based on moonlight, moonshadow, and the dark of the night sky, so I chose an ombre shading of pearl white, into silver, into dark gray, into black (and back again).

The earrings are lightweight, with backings of fine paper to cover the thread and ensure the strength of the earrings.

Many thanks to you all for reading.  I will be back on the second Thursday in February!  Love you all!  💗

xoxo
Meridy

My Shop
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Bubblegum Fun

Fun play with colours and lightweight components.

Ingredients:
Bright orange-pink 'ball in a ball' acrylic beads
Khaki green faceted acrylic rounds
Transparent with gold fluted glass beads
Silverlined transpaernt large seed beads

Pink waxed linen cord
Brass coloured large lucite rings
Vintaj brass jump rings and earring hooks

All my best,

Malin

Wired Butterflies

Hi, everyone!

I tried something a little different with these new earrings, which feature a pair of Cathleen Zaring's beautiful butterfly enameled-copper earring components: 

FYI, my usual go-to technique to use with components with top holes like these would be something like these earrings I made three years ago...

...and, believe me, I love these earrings and adore working with fiber and knotting this way.  But lately I've been having fun going back to playing with wire too.  

I'd made antiqued copper wire connector components before for necklaces (below is a detail) but had never tried to use them for earrings, and had never added beads to them. 

I thought it might be fun to see how the round connectors would work with this type of earring component, with just a few small beads in coordinating colors wrapped to them (and with a bead wrapped to each matching ear wire too!).  I didn't know what to expect, but they have a sleekness, a simplicity, and a modernity that I like--and I don't always end up liking my experiments.  😏  

They were also really fun to make.  I hadn't gotten my hands really messy in liver of sulfur in a while!  

These earrings can be purchased at Two Trees Studio.

Recipe for Wired Butterflies 

Enameled "handbag-shaped" copper earring beads by Cathleen Zaring

22 ga. round antique copper wire wrapped connectors

3 mm Czech glass rounds in amethyst and wine

15/0 Miyuki Delica yellow seed beads

Thanks for reading--I'll be back in a couple of weeks!

xoxo

Meridy 

My Shop

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Coronas, Crowns, & Diadems...

Lately I've been making earrings finished off with small crowns, or coronas...

These earrings can be purchased at Two Trees Studio, here.  

The earrings above, "Night Gardens," are new in my shop, made with gorgeous lampwork rondelles by Terry Turner and beautiful flower headpins by Pati Walton.  I'm not really sure what has caused my current infatuation with these little crowns in recent earrings.  I'm not sure we ever really know what moves us to create in our own particular ways, but I think that's part of the fun.  I like the idea of letting creativity have its way!  I do know that I love these little bead caps with their open-wire scallops--there's a gentle femininity to them--and I really enjoy using them to cradle colorful little beads, usually Czech glass rondelles in lots of colors.

The earrings above are brand new, also with beads by Terry and headpins by Pati.   I had an awful time getting a good photo of them because it had been raining here for days, and the gloom left me with not enough light to do justice to Terry's beautiful lampwork beads...but the rains finally stopped and the sun came out!    😊 

The pair above is also new, made with Terry Turner's beads and gorgeous copper pieces by one of my all-time favorite artisans, Kristi Bowman-Gruel.  This time my "crowns" are lavender-dyed jade beads with bead caps made like flower petals rather than scallops--though you might notice that my favorite scalloped bead caps still make an appearance!  😉

I hope you're all having a great start to 2018.  Love and best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year to you all, and I will see you in a couple of weeks!  💗

xoxo

Meridy

My shop

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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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Gift of the Mermaid

I recently came upon these gorgeous enameled components in Raida Disbrow's Etsy shop, Havana Beads...

...and a dialogue started between my head and my heart.

Heart:  Oh, my gosh, those are GORGEOUS.  Look at those colors!
Head:  Ohhh, but those can be such a pain to work with. They're handmade--those things are never even, you have to fight to get them to hang straight--
Heart:  But I've got beads the same color as those little violet-pink dots!!  And lots of pink rondelles--
Head:  --hey, come to think of it, there's that stash of rhodolite garnets that haven't been used in about seven years!




That argument didn't last long.


Since I did have a goodly stash of little Czech glass rondelles in various shades of pink, the garnets, and sterling silver beads, jump rings, and headpins, I gave in to the lure of the Boho chandelier earring--and I loved it. Now that my heart has helped my head get over its jitters, I aim to make more. 💗

And, funny thing--they do hang straight after all.  😉

Gift of the Mermaid

Thanks so much for reading!  I'll be back in two weeks.
 
xoxo
Meridy
My Etsy Shop
My Facebook Page

 

Turning Japanese

Art Beads:
Handmade Paper Beads Japanese Style - PassionForPaperBeads

Other Components:
Copper head pins
Copper heishi beads
Copper jump rings
Matte black seed beads
Handmade oxidized copper earrings hooks


All my best,
Malin de Koning
www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com

The Best Laid Plans

I had a vision. 

I was lying in bed--drifting, woozy, floating in that liminal netherworld where ideas come to us so fluidly. What I would do, see, is I would take a piece of copper and fold form it and beat it over some rocks, see, and then texture it and punch it and file strategic places and shape it just so and...

I awoke the next morning with vague recollections of my vision and headed straight to the studio to bring it to fruition. Fifteen minutes into the project when the copper buckled and snapped, I realized:

shit, this isn't going to work

See, sometimes our dreamy ideas seem perfectly logical and functional. And then we go to execute and we realize they could use a little more refinement. There is nothing wrong with this. Rome wasn't built in a day. There is beauty to be found in the process.

Today's pair of earrings features the salvaged results of this vision. I took the two snapped pieces of copper, trimmed them up, softened up the edges, oxidized, sanded, and turned them into simple lightweight earring tabs. And you know what? For being "failures", I'm really quite fond of them. Funny how that works. When life gives you lemons...well, you know.

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy