Renaissance Windows

Hello, lovelies!  It's good to be back--it feels like it's been a while!  💗

The idea for the earrings I'm writing about today started quietly, when I found these beads at Arte Bella Surplus, one of my long-time favorite supply shops:      

I didn't buy them for any particular project, but rather because I like window beads and because their cross-like shape reminds me of certain Renaissance (or Renaissance-style) earrings I've seen in photos and in museums.  

Below are examples of variations of the same cross motif.  The first pair (left to right) is a simple quatrefoil shape, not unlike the window beads pictured above.  The second pair below also reflects the cross motif, in two ways:  with the petals and the pearls. And the third pair is obviously a cross. Each of these three examples also have a central focus where the arms of the "cross" would meet: the first pair has a tiny quatrefoil flower at its center, and white pearls sit at the centers of the other two pairs.     

                                                         

I had a beautiful pair of small rainbow Goddess charms by KristiBowmanDesign, and just for fun I laid them on my work table next to two of the blue-green window beads, and I had a feeling I might have something special.  💗

I added a pair of beautiful three-sided iris-colored Czech glass window beads, and small gleaming lights of glass and crystal.  

Thanks so much for reading!
I'll be back again on September 12.

xoxo
Meridy 💗
My Shop
😊

Color Play

Early on in my life as a jewelry designer, I learned that my favorite part of designing was working with color, with line/shape/proportion coming in as a close second, followed by texture.  It's true to this day.  It's probably not too surprising--who doesn't love color, after all?

But I found that I enjoyed the study of color, of what colors complemented what others and what colors really didn't work well together.  For instance, in the earrings below, the beautiful dagger charms by Inviciti were a gently dissonant pink-and-orange, as were the streaky little glass rondelles by Beth Mellor, and I very specifically chose the tiny aqua-green rondelles to go with them, in direct complement to the rest of the color palette.

In contrast, these cityscape earrings, left, are an example of color matching, using lampwork glass, Czech glass, and Swarovski crystal beads in the same colors found in the vibrant charms by Marlene Kazor Quigley that are used in the earrings.










The earrings below, however, started out with a lot of color.  The first items I had to start my earrings were Kristi Bowman's rainbow-painted copper charms, which are so colorful that they could almost be the earrings' entire focus of color.  But I wanted more color. 😄💗

The wonderful Beth Mellor helped feed my color craving by making these gorgeous encased lampwork beads, with their ripples of color and little dark sine-wave-like scribbles.  She also made the beautiful orange glass rondelles.  💗

So...I got a little more color, and I think it works.  In fact, it feels autumnal, and that was a surprise.  Interesting...  

These earrings are available at Two Trees Studio.

Thanks so much for reading.  💗

See you in two weeks!  

xoxo

Meridy

My Shop

My FB Page