Stacked with cornflakes

Why not put some really attractive colours, textures and shapes together in a stack?

Art Beads:
Pink, gold, and black stamped and painted polymer clay beads - GracefulWillowBeads

Handmade Components:
Triangle tinned artisan headpins, antiqued patina - CrowsCacheSupplies
Oxidized Sterling Silver Earring hooks

Other Components:
Bronze/brown/maroon cornflake/keshi pearls
Bronze czech glass rondelle disk spacer beads
Pink rubber spacer beads
Ochre, light green and forest green seed beads
Square profile closed metal rings, rhodium plated, stainless steel coloured

--------------------------------------

All my best,
Malin de Koning

Longing For Colors

January. Where I live, in Stockholm Sweden, is very far north on our planet. We are on the same latitude as Alaska, Siberia and northern Canada (but our climate is much milder due to the golf stream). In the winter time we get very short days.  Oh, how I now long for brighter days, more daylight, sunshine ... and ... colors. Lots of colors. I really need it.

Beads and components are (from the bottom):

Handmade enameled yellow head pins by Barbara Lewis of PaintingWithFire

Copper heishi spacers (African)

Small copper tubes with circular pattern

Yellow opal Toho seed beads size 8

Opal white gilt lined seed beads size 6

Teal glass trade beads

Gaspeite rondelles (gaspeite is a rare and lovely semi-precious stone)

Again, yellow opal Toho seed beads size 8

Copper heishi spacers (African)
Swarovski Crystal facetted champagne colored rounds
Dark pink matte Matsuno seed beads size 8
Handmade oxidized copper earrings hooks

All my best,

Malin de Koning

www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com

www.etsy.com/shop/MalindeKoning

Please contact me if you are interested in any jewelry of mine that isn't yet listed in my Etsy Shop. (I am known for my delayed listings procedure. So sorry for that.)

Shady Sinner

I seem to be in the minority when I say that I really don't prefer jewelry/beads/components that include words. Which is an odd thing for me to say, being a self avowed word nerd, bookaholic, and walking dictionary. There's something about the bluntness (?) of it that doesn't appeal to me. It's hard to describe, other than you will 99.9% of the time never see these in my work. The same goes for beads and charms that feature humans or body parts. But that's another story.


HOWEVER. 

 
When my latest order of ceramic beads from the insanely talented and lovely Claire of somethingtodobeads arrived, she included a generous pair of freebies: grungy twirled smooshed ceramic beads stamped with two simple, devious, wicked words---SHADY and SINNER. 

Now, when I laid eyes on this pair, my first thought was oh, now that's cheeky. And my next thought was wait, those actually kinda go together. Followed quickly by a grin and an oh yes, challenge accepted. 

 
And, thusly, today's pair of earrings was born. I torched my own fat-bottomed copper headpins, strung each ceramic bead on, and then topped them with graduated stacks of rusty, crusty, patina-riddled bead caps---no two the same. I dotted the top loop of each with some silver solder, gave each earring a good oxidation bath, and then hung each from one of my long curvy copper ear wires. Swingy, potbellied little devils.

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Layers Upon Layers

 
I've always been fascinated by the layers in things. Nothing is ever black and white, most things are gray...meaning there are nuances, multiple factors, different sides. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time making decisions sometimes! 


Lately I've been on a big layering/stacking kick with my earrings. Taking lots of little bits and stacking them together haphazardly yet melodiously and then using wire to accentuate. 


It's been fun to experiment with stacking things both vertically and flipping them on their sides horizontally. Quite the challenge to dig through +20 bead boxes to find that one PERFECT missing element. But then again, that's the fun of assemblage jewelry. 


One of my latest pairs features several elements that I've really been digging on: muddy ceramic discs from Marsha Neal and blackened pewter charms from Inviciti. Married together with my beloved Roman glass, rustic wood bicones, and some pyrite. I love the browns and robin's egg blues of this pair. Very soothing and natural. And they have such fun swing to em!


Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy