Scraps

Last week I mentioned that I had been going through my photos of years of jewelry designs I had created. And, I came across a few that touch on the subject above: These earrings are all made with scraps that were on my bench. Since I wasn't well this week, I didn't make anything new, but I wanted to talk about scraps and leftovers.

Do you aim to re-use everything leftover when you make jewelry? What do you do with all the scraps and odds and ends? Whether I work with metal, or polymer clay, precious metal clay, etc...  I re-purpose/re-use/transform scraps into new components and pieces. There's basically zero waste in terms of materials in my studio and I'm quite proud of that :)

Here's some earrings I made using scraps:

Tribal shields: Scraps of Sterling silver wire balled up, flattened, soldered to leftover pieces copper from another project, and everything is soldered to the sterling silver wire frame, and decorated with  two small Turquoise stones:

Tribal Sheilds by Nathalie Lesage

These Moonstone Moon Earrings are not made with scraps, but there's a part of these that ends up in other designs - I use a sterling silver round disc blank, and I offset it in my disc cutter to quickly cut out a crescent moon shape to make these earrings:

Moonstone Moon Earrings by Nathalie (Girard) Lesage

So when I make these, I'm left with 'eye shaped' or 'marquise shaped' pieces of sterling silver. Some of those scrap pieces ended up in these designs:


Mother Earth Earrings: The textured sterling silver piece (shaped like a marquise a bit - vertical) is soldered on top of the 'dome' in this pair. I textured the pieces and soldered them to the base round disc shape.

Mother Earth Lampwork & Sterling Silver Earrings by Nathalie Lesage

And in this pair of Kyanite Chandelier Earrings, I used that same leftover cut-out shape from the Moon earrings, but this time, I used them horizontally to make the foundation of this unusual pair of chandelier earrings:

Kyanite Sterling Silver Chandelier Earrings by Nathalie Lesage

So how do you like 'scrap' earrings? Are you happy with how much you can re-use and re-purpose in your own studio? Can you share some of your re-using tips with us? We'd love to hear what you do!

I will be back later on this month with new earrings to show!

Cheers,
Nathalie
My Garden Of Love Etsy Shop
The Crafty Tribe Etsy Shop

Hammer Therapy

Copper Earrings with Labradorite

When I have a bad day and get discouraged because sales are slow, I can't find what I need to make something, or two components on my brand new computer fail within a month of each other, I pick up the hammer. No, not to inflict injury on Etsy, harm myself for being disorganized, or take a whack at the computer demons; instead I vent my frustrations on copper.

The earrings pictured above are a smaller scale chandelier design, stamped and hammered, then heated to get the glowing patina. I really like the combination of labradorite with copper, and these faceted brios are the perfect size to wrap and use as dangles with the trapezoid shaped copper bodies.

Arabesque Copper Hoop Earrings

These big and bold hoops began with Arabic shaped blanks from Supply Diva on Etsy. Again, I hammer the bijeezis out of them and heat them to add some warm color. The wire wrapping with tiny copper rounds was kind of an experiment. I knew it would be difficult to hold the wire in place on a curved piece like these hoops, so I added some Permalac to see if it would hold the wire in place and not show. It worked!

I feel so much better now.


Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy
Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry on Amazon Handmade

Take a Risk

In a departure from the usual format of focusing on the inspiration for my idea, I would like to probe into the selection process for blogging about my earrings. I'm sure each of the participating artists on Earrings Everyday has her own method for building a post around their earring creations. Maybe you are curious about mine?

Detailed advance planning doesn't work as well for me as spontaneity. Please don't interpret that to mean I'm just being lazy! The truth is I cannot decide which direction to go until the last moment. So I usually have three newly made earring pairs from which to choose, one being a variation of a signature design of mine, in other words "in my comfort zone". The pietersite earrings below fall into that category. The other two pairs are the risky ones. This time, I have one pair of very rustic hammered and hinged copper earrings with a red patina (pictured below). I also have the pair I chose to feature above that are the most risky of the three, out on the edge in a primitive style. For the body of these earrings, I used my own bone shaped polymer clay connectors. The roughly wrapped oxidized copper wire emphasizes the primitive character, as do my handmade copper ear wires. The dangling beads are Czech glass with an aged Picasso finish.

"Comfort zone" wire wrapped matched pietersite stones with leather.

Medium risk, relentlessly hammered copper earrings in a 2-part hinged design with less than precise stamping and a red patina.









Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy

Here Comes the Sun

Copper Sun Earrings

I am hearing the old Beatles song in my head right now, and I will be hearing it all day. I tested a couple of different color combinations before committing to this blue, green and yellow ochre combination that just happens to match a necklace I recently finished. The copper clay suns I am sure you recognize as the work of Kristi Bowman. My thought was to have the accompanying beads showering down casually from the focal pieces, so I chose beading cord in blue and teal green for stringing the seed beads.

These fun earrings would work well with anything casual, perfect for your warm weather winter vacation wardrobe, or if you're betting that the little rodent was wrong (Punxsutawney Phil) and spring is really right around the corner.

Gloria Ewing
Chrysalis Too on Etsy
Chrysalis Jewelry on Artfire