Dear Heart ♡

Oh, deary, deer!  Winter came early here in the Midwest and I'm buried up to my neck in coats, sweaters, and scarves!  For this reason, and season, I like to create shorter designs ♡

These lovely little deer charms were made by Vincent Cav of Inviciti. I am drawn to matte finishes and these are a new favorite!  Inviciti makes charms in an array of colors and combinations.

I purchased the large freshwater pearls from Allegory Gallery.  They are the most beautiful and subtle peachy-pink with a slight opalescence.  Andrew has such an eye for choosing beads for his shop and this is a favorite haunt for me, even if it's only online.  Those lucky devils that live nearby - I'm so jealous!

The distressed finish also looks amazing with vintage faux pearls; there are so many directions I could have taken these charms.

 I was having just as much fun playing with the photography (if you haven't noticed) as making the earrings themselves!  It's been so overcast that I'm surprised I got as many good shots as I did.

Well, that's me for now!  I'll be back in two weeks, just before Christmas! 

 ♡ Stay cute and cozy! ♡

Loralee xo

www.loraleekolton.etsy.com

Let's go to the Fun Fair?

Scene: You have an extremely messy bead table. So many ideas and concepts tried out over a long period, which has left a myriad of beads and components just laying there. You sit and plainlessly fumble around with your beads. It's such an enjoyable process indeed. Then suddenly, you have something you didn't ever consider in the first place. But you like it somehow.

There is something about these earrings that make me think of some kind of fun fair or a merry-go-round from around the turn of the century 1900. Or a spinning top toy. You know the ones where you press a rod at the top and they start spinning. When I look at them I feel like I am happily swirling round and round.

Art beads:
White distressed matte glaze on dark ceramic cones - NadiaTerra
Green and lime glazed on edge raku fired on dark ceramic heishis - Jubilee

Other beads and components (from bottom):
Brass head pins
Brown 8/0 seed beads
Turquoise rubber heishi spacer beads
Gold and white distressed plastic bumpy heishi beads
Turquoise rubber heishi spacer beads
Red rubber heishi spacer beads
Red coral heishis
Opal white gilt lined 6/0 seed beads
Oxidized brass wire, messy wrapped
Brass square profiled rings
Vintaj brass earring hooks

All my best,
Malin

www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com

Vintage Velocipedes

Hi there, I hope you are all having a great summer whereever you are in the northern hemisphere, and a great winter if you are in the southern. I myself have been enjoying cosy day excursions so far, and sitting on the veranda in my back garden. Later in the summer I will be going away on a little trip to the south of Sweden.

Bicycling has always been a favourite thing of mine. As a child and teenager it was my major method of transport most of the year. If the temperature was more than 5 degrees Celsius that is. I could easily bike more than 20-30 km a day just to get to different places. I would still bike every day today if I could, but unfortunately since a few years back I have too much balance problems due to MS. I plan to get a tricycle for grown-ups though, in a not too far future. They are good, but a bit pricey, so I hope to get a contribution from a fund for people with MS.

Check out those old style bicycles on the earrings I made. High wheelers or penny farthings. They are super cool don't you agree.

Art beads:

Tag shaped ceramic earrings pendants with decals of old bicycles  - DonnaPerlinplim

Ceramic cone beads with a pale yellow matte glaze - NadiaTerra

Other ingredients:

Rustic glass beads

Heavily oxidized copper wire

Handmade Sterling Silver earrings hooks, heavily oxidized

---------

All my best,

Malin

www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.se

Shabby Chic Rustic Rococo

Hello there, 
November is here. And here's my latest earrings creation.

I started with the porcelain charms that I recently got from RoundRabbit, and pretty soon I knew I wanted to use the newspaper newsprint jasper heishis together with them. What a perfect match! But then the next step was the hard one. How to connect them? How to make a well proportioned whole? I tried a few solutions using thinner wire in different metals, and with the jasper beads sitting in different ways. Even trying to use more than one for each earring sometimes as a way of creating some boldness. But I rejected all of those attempts. Simply not good enough.

I knew the jasper and the porcelain charms were so good together, and I didn't want to give up on that gut feeling. So I let the thing rest for a week or so on my studio table. When I went in there the other day I realized what was needed was something with a much more rustic look to go with the other two. Hence the 20 gauge heavily oxidized copper wire. The doubled circles I created around a marker pen which made a perfect proportion of the rings. And then my ever so often occurring messy wrap. Now I was finally very pleased. 

(Handmade earring hooks by MetalFuze.)

All my best,

Malin de Koning

www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com

Shabby Chic and a Giveaway!

Hi Earring Lovers!



I have always been such a sucker for the Shabby Chic- pretty floral patterns, tea parties, pretty pastel colors combined together with lace or cotton. Such a soft aesthetic, and it translates well in any medium! Even Earrings!!!



Here's my take on Shabby Chic this week! A pretty riveted pale pink and floral tin dangling earring pair on bronze ear wires.

I am giving away a pair of these lovelies to one random winner! Please leave a comment here on this post to enter to win! I will pick a winner on my next earring post, which will be Wednesday October 2nd! You've got lots of time to enter. For extra entries, please pass along the giveaway info on your favorite social media sites and comment separately with each share- Facebook, Twitter, blog, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, etc etc.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Chic Shutter Display

I was at an art fair once some years ago, in a jewelry booth. The artist had cleverly used a pair of exterior window shutters, hinged together like a screen, to display her wares. Her earrings and some of her necklaces were attached to folded cards, and these cards were slotted in between the stiles. The shutters had a charming "shabby chic" paint finish (or maybe they were just old!). Of course you must use them upside down (as pictured above), so the slats are oriented the right way to get your cards in there. The pair of unpainted pine shutters above are from Home Depot, but you could certainly scavenge your own honest-to-goodness vintage shutters! Or pull them off your own house in a pinch. A little ventilation space in between the stiles (or slats) is important for slotting your cards in there, so if the shutters have been heavily painted and repainted you might have to ream that out a little bit.

These salvaged Victorian shutters from Capitol Salvage seem like just the ticket! You could flip them upside down and put them on an easel.

Posted by Capitol Salvage May 22, 2011

Stop by your local architectural salvage--you might find the perfect display!