Moons of Jupiter

At the end of last week a friend shared a Facebook post about the four largest moons of Jupiter, which could be seen this week in the night sky much more easily than normal - for some, with the naked eye, for others with binoculars.

 

I got all fired up with ideas for earrings, and spent the weekend dreaming up designs to represent the moons; called the Galilean group, because they were discovered by Galileo. Europa and Io were easy, as I had a large stash of silverleaf and picture jasper - earthy and rocky.

Callisto and Ganymede though, proved somewhat more difficult as I could see those sparkly bits quite clearly, and no natural stones quite hit the mark. Cue some fabulous ceramic pieces from Natalie Fletcher-Jones of Peruzi. I originally bought them because they reminded me of Van Gogh's painting Starry Night, so they were more than apt for Callisto and Ganymede. 

 

The brighter pair of drops I matched with black hand cut tourmaline and picture jasper. Black copper earwires and twiddlers are by Lucy Haslam.

The softer coloured pair of rings I attached to some of Lucy's 'punkies' - hand formed copper soldered with silver bits, wired with milky swarowski crystals and topped with beautiful kyanite.

 

Have any of you managed to spot the moons yet?   

 

See you in two weeks

 

Lindsay x

 

 

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Moongazing.

A couple of weeks ago I was meeting my sister in town and had an hour or so to spare, so I dropped into our city museum for a coffee. They had an exhibition on entitled Museum of the Moon. There was a replica of the moon hanging from the high, domed ceiling which could be viewed from three levels - this was the central one. The exhibits included a scaled down Apollo rocket, a spacesuit circa 1968 and lots of artefacts detailing the significance of the moon to ancient civilisations. I was so fired up by all this I have been instagramming it like mad. I felt a tribute in jewellery was warranted!

 

I had several copper pieces by Helen Backhouse at home with the same sort of surface pattern - some from a wormcast rock I brought her from Greece last year, and some  from a piece of rose quartz she used as a mould.  In the end, I made a necklace, bracelet and earrings - and here are the earrings. 

 

 

With the textured copper pieces I have used glorious, galaxy-like lampwork bicones by Angelika Schott and wrapped them with copper wire and little satellite swarowski crystals.

Here's the view from below - while I was having a latte and a toasted teacake for breakfast! Life doesn't get much better. If you are in the UK, this exhibition is touring the country so do try and catch it if you can. You won't be sorry.  

 

 

 

Hope the weather is being kind to you - its unseasonably warm here and the plants are shooting up fast. See you in two weeks.

 

Lindsay x 

 

My Etsy shop

 

My facebook page

 

After the Show is over

It's been a long week. Birthdays, funeral, too much going on in life. And I'd booked an on-line  show with my three friends Helen Backhouse, Lucy Haslam and Jeni Houser Alasad. We had big ideas, a theme going - so the show must go on. Not a long one from me then, this week - I'm just going to share a few of my favourite pairs from the show.

Our theme was Mother Earth, morphing on the second day into Middle Earth and snippets from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Helen and I both live very near Stonyhurst, where Tolkien was a schoolmaster during WW2 and wrote a great deal of his trilogy; the landscape around there is believed to have been his inspiration for Middle Earth. Close to home then.

The first pair represent the Leaves of Lorien, given by the Elven queen Galadriel to the Company of Adventurers to safeguard them on their journey to the Lonely Mountain. The leaves are of course by Helen  and I added sterling connectors and silver earwires by Lucy.

Next we have the Dark Tower of Mordor - ceramics by Mari Carmen Rodriguez Martinez with mooakite chunks, black lampwork and Lucy's copper earwires.

And last - from the Mother Earth - these fabulous faces from Jeni with Laura Souder raku discs, lampwork by Juliette Mullett and brass chain. Queen of the Night - the moon, tied in orbit to the Earth.  Speaking of which, I'm off to bed after two very late nights. If you caught our show, I hope you enjoyed it, I know we did.

                    Have a lovely Easter time, however you celebrate. See you in two weeks!

                                                                              Lindsay x

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🌟Shine like a star🌟

⭐⭐⭐Hello⭐⭐⭐

Have you guessed this week's theme yet?!  Clue is in the title ;). 

So today I bring you several pairs of star studded ear candy.  

Group shot of some of them.

This was the first pair I made featuring Invicit pewter stars.  I blinged up the stars with rhinestones, added vintage brass triple star stampings on top for that mixed metal look that I absolutely love.  They are finished with lampwork caps (GlassNatalyaDarlin) and brass hearts.

Second pair features Inviciti's Lady in moon charms along with lampwork butterfly lentils by Helen Chalmers and my wire wrapped hoops.

I made a third pair with Inviciti hands (those Invicit charms are addictive!), added teeny brass stars to keep with the theme, finished them with antique silver plated brass leaves, crowns and lampwork caps.

And finally this pair with Scorched Earth discs.  I didn't add much to these, they looked pretty glamorous just with sari silk and cup chain so I resisted the urge to add more.

 I also made this pair with my painted resin daggers but I'm not too sure about these.  They may need a makeover. 

You can find out if these did undergo a makeover in my show on Monday where I will be listing this star studded lot.  My show will take place in The Jewellery Show FB group.

Thanks for stopping by.  See you again soon. 

Suhana 💖💖💖