Juicy Grapes

These pretty chainmaille earrings do look a bit like clusters of shiny purple grapes.  Made of blue, purple, teal, and fuchsia anodized niobium rings, their back-and-forth European 4-in-1 weave drapes from a 10-mm ring and finishes with a 4-mm ring at the bottom.  They hang from ear wires of matching niobium and are great fun to wear, lightweight and swingy in your ears.   They're also fun to make, easy and quick to come together.

 

I'll be back again in two weeks with a bit more to say.   (It's just been one of those weeks.)   Thanks for looking!

Meridy
xoxo

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A Postcard from Greece

Yesterday we paid the balance for our holiday this summer. When I ask him indoors around February each year

'where do you fancy going this summer?'

his reply is invariably monosyllabic.
                                                                    'Greece'.

Then we check with our elder grandson Connor (who's been coming with us on this one since he was two, and isn't about to be left behind just yet, even at almost fourteen). Equally monosyllabic. Well, almost. At least he says please.

                                                                    'Greece please'

                  Although last year this was all we saw of him most days, till he surfaced for food!

 

Inevitably once we are booked my thoughts turn to sun, sand, long beach walks to tiny neighbouring villages, collecting stones and shells along the way. Cool glasses of wine and meze in the evening  at beach tavernas, watching spectacular suns go down behind craggy mountains.  And greek music. I was brought up in a northern seaside fishing port so I'm never happier than when I can smell and hear the sea. And the Greek people are so warm and friendly - ask Janine, who has chosen to live there! One day we will get near enough to visit her.

Today's earrings are all about the sea. Like Janine, I've been trying to use some of my stash and I had these lovely soft pink ceramic shells from Teresa (Bo) Hulley - she's on  a hiatus at the moment, having moved home and packed away her kiln for a while. We all miss her like mad.

The colours in the ocean jasper beads on top are just wonderful - storm grey, creamy white and pink, with tiny crevices. I like to juxtapose crusty with shiny and mix up the shapes, so those grey criffles from Kimberly Rogers are perfect, along with the gleaming biwa stick pearls. Blackened copper earwires from Mrs Haslam complete nicely.

 

 

 

 

So tell me your favourite holiday destination. Beach or city? Adventure or a rest?

 

See you in two weeks

 

Lindsay x

                                                             
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Welcome Anvil Artifacts!

I’d like to thank the women of the Earrings Everyday blog for inviting me to contribute a guest post to one of my favorite blogs. I’m delighted to have this opportunity to rub shoulders with this talented group of artists.

Let me introduce myself to those of you who might not be familiar with my work.

I’m Janet Loomis of AnvilArtifacts.

I suspect that I was born with an innate love of jewelry.

I began making actual wearable jewelry (as opposed to daisy necklaces, etc) in my teens

and started selling jewelry in my early twenties.

There are countless styles of jewelry that I admire and enjoy making but today I’ll focus on one particular aesthetic that I especially enjoy.

My work is strongly influenced by a fascination with found objects and historical artifacts.

I’m not sure if I should attribute this to my Viking roots (as my husband refers to it) or to my

childhood wanderlust searching for mineral specimens or mangled rusty treasures while exploring my home state of Colorado. It’s my natural tendency towards objects with historical significance that drives me to explore re-creating the unique textures and rich patinas found in ancient and aged objects.

I hope you’ll enjoy these examples of my quest.

s.

Love this natural blue and green patina on these shield earrings. 

At times I pursue a feeling of age rather than a literal historical design. A botanical design roller imprinted into brass pairs beautifully with with unusual ceramic drops by

Petra Carpreau.

River tumbled copal, landscape jasper and organic beads by Lorna Oosthuizen that remind me of hypertufa pots.

Baltic Amber, acanthus leaves and lampwork by Raida Disbrow combine into earrings that look as if they might have been

excavated from Ancient Pompeii.

Ancient faces adorned with fossil blastoids and Ethiopian opals.

.

These earrings are from my “Ancient Hoard” series. So named due to the treatment of the metal. Ceramic fossils by Jill Stoffregen.

And finally…”Jubilation Dance of Our Ancestors” from my “Fragments of Antiquities” series.

The legs were created from fragments of

ancient Kievan Russ Viking fibulas and rings. Ceramics by Georgia Neumann and

Nadia Karapencheva.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed a peek at my ancient inspired earrings.

Thank you for spending a bit of your day with me.

More of my work can be seen at my two online Etsy stores;

AnvilArtifacts and AnvilsAttic,

on my Instagram and Pinterest pages

and on my blog.

These can all be accessed via my website 
www.anvilartifacts.com 

I’d be delighted if you stop by and say hello.

Shades of grey with a pop

Hello friends, I hope you all have enjoyed a wonderful weekend. Here in Greece if was warm enough to officially “open” the swimming season… we hiked in the mountains and ended the day with swimming in the sea. Wonderful.

As you might know I have set myself a challenge this year for Earrings Everyday: making earrings with long hoarded beads. The beads have been hoarded for various reasons: I could not part with them, I just had to have them without any idea what to do with them, or I bought them with an idea in mind which I had forgotten about once I received them, some I completely forgot about (yes, that happens) etc.

Today I set myself an even more difficult challenge: make three sets of earrings with the same beads.

I picked these wonderful handmade polymer clay beads in various shades of grey. I bought these in 2011 from a shop on Etsy called Peak View Creations. Sadly, this shop doesn’t seem to exist anymore. I then picked bright yellow handmade lampwork glass beads made by Amy. I am an official hoarder of the amazing muse packs from a great friend Claire Braunbarth from SmittenBeads, so I picked a pack and use some of the beads in them.

Here are pictures of the earrings. Let me know which design is your favourite.

 

Thank you so much for looking and I hope to see you in a couple of weeks. 
Here on Earrings Everyday we appreciate and love to read your comments. So don't be shy and let us know your thoughts.  Wishing you a wonderful day, full of joy, flowers and sunshine.

Janine
Esfera Jewelry

We're All Ears :: May Inspiration :: Trash Transformed

trans·for·ma·tion

/tran(t)sfərˈmāSH(ə)n/

noun

1. a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.

   
   

   synonyms:

   change, alteration, mutation, conversion, metamorphosis, transfiguration, transmutation

I think we can all agree that there is far too much waste in this world.

Litter on the highways, trash on the sidewalk, overflowing trash heaps and floating barge dumps in the ocean.

Earth Day is celebrated in April, but for me there is no time limit on loving the earth.

I don't throw a lot of things away, and recycled as much as possible, which explains why I am a clutter-a-holic. But sometimes that tendency can serve me well.

There is a local art gallery that had an exhibit back in 2013 called "Re-Art: Trash Transformed." I had a piece in that (although I can't for the life of me remember exactly what it was!). There were some really ingenious pieces of art, all created from 75% recycled, repurposed, found or trash objects. They are mounting this exhibit again, entitled "Re-Art Revived" and I have been working on ideas that have to be in early next week in time for the jurying for prizes.

This challenge has me looking at those things I throw away so easily in a new light, and my favorite part of the challenge is to disguise the trash or alter it so that you would have no idea what it was to begin with. So since I am taking on this challenge, I thought it might be fun to see what you would do. Are you game?

Take a look around you. See what sorts of items you might have in your daily life that would normally get discarded. Stop and think about it a minute before you toss it away. Paper, plastics, metal....think outside the {jewelry} box! How can you transform these everyday things we take for granted and throw away into something special? After Easter I started keeping a baggie of those colored eggshells that I dyed, cleaned and ready for....something.... Hmmmmm.....that gets me thinking!

If you don't feel like clawing through your trash bins, why not look in your drawers....junk drawers, that is! I have at least two junk drawers in my kitchen (and one cupboard!). And my whole studio is a junk drawer at times! What objects can you find in there to give new life to? I stumbled upon a whole stash of used up gift cards. Wonder what I could make with those?

For me, a trick is to make the trash that is transformed truly something unrecognizable from its former state. Another tip is to mix materials....found objects with new beads, art beads with upcycled treasures. I plan to dip into my vast stash of art beads and gemstones to pair with the....oops! Not telling you!

Taking something that no one would expect in jewelry and elevating it to the level of adornment is exciting. I love when someone cannot figure out what the material is, and when I tell them they have that 'aha' moment! And it feels good to give new life to something that would otherwise sit in a landfill for the next 100 years.

A little upcycled eye candy to kickstart your Muse....clockwise from top left:
Nespresso pods - dollar bills - buttons and hose clamps - newspaper - magazines - soda cans - plastic bottles - tin cans

Be sure to take a BEFORE picture of the object that you are upcycling. I might even throw in a few process shots to show how I get it from its previous life to a new revised state.

If you need a little prodding about how beautiful castoffs can be, check out this collection of recycled jewelry from www.RecycleArt.org. Who knew trash could be so beautiful?

Join me on Friday, May 19th for the reveal of our Trash Transformed!

Around the Galaxy

What does the sky in your area looks like at night? Do you see the stars? Do you see the space station?

We live in a small quiet cul-de-sac where there's not much light pollution. We're very lucky in that. We're surrounded by large spruce trees (mainly). It's peaceful and quiet.

Each Summer and Fall, we enjoy sitting outside by the fire pit, camping style, and quietly gaze at the stars in the night sky. I have my lounge chair, my blankets (so the mossies don't bite me!), and I lay back and look at the night sky.

It feels so wondrous to me to look up and catch a glimpse at the vastness of our Universe... I love the energy and ethereal beauty of it all. I remember fondly a visit to NASA when I was around 8 years old. It blew my mind. I loved it! I also remember going to the (then) Planetarium Dow in Montreal to learn about the planets and the stars. It's was so beautiful and so inspiring!

That's how I try to live my life - Nathalie Lesage

It's not quite warm enough here yet to sit by the fire pit, and so I dream of what's to come. This is what inspired my "Galaxy Collection", based on the patterns created when I did this pack of Mokume Gane with polymer clay and silver metal leaf, recently:

I wire wrapped the top portion of my polymer clay drops with sterling silver wire, and added in a round 'moon' by the way of a smooth round Czech glass bead. It's half-clear, half-silver, and sparkles a lot in person.

The rings and metal beads all around, to me, are like various space stations. Think far away bases where space travelers all around the Galaxy can stop to get supplies, and meet others on their journey.

Soon the weather will be warm enough so that we can go explore the night sky. I can't wait!

I will be listing these earrings and other jewelry components from my Galaxy collection in my shop over the next few days.

Live long and prosper.... and enjoy the stars in your sky!

Cheers,
Nathalie Lesage
Visit my Jewelry & Handmade Components shop on Etsy: My Garden Of Love
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Plastered

A very good friend of mine is about to move. And not into any old house, but a >150 year old rehabbed work-of-art house in historic downtown Cincinnati. When they bought the property nearly two years ago it was trashed. Not just trashed, but DECIMATED. A hub for a wide variety of unsavory activities, to put it nicely. Floorboards were rotted out clear through to the basement. Stairs to the second and third floors were missing. No running water, no electricity, no legal occupants for decades. It smelled. I toured the property when they first purchased it and my jaw was on the floor.

My friend's husband is a very talented contractor---some would say he's an artist, although I'm sure he'd balk at that, being the "man's man" that he is. He takes old, dilapidated, historic buildings and materials and gives them new life. Over the past two years, I've been fortunate to witness his work on this house at various stages:



We have a front door!
We can walk to the third floor!
We have working lights! 
We have toilets!

My favorite part of their new home is the plaster walls. These original walls, they're gloriously scratched, coated with layers of layers of paint and wallpaper, stained from years of water and smoke damage. Rather than patch, sand, and paint over all this history, they chose to expose it---strip off the paint in some areas, let a patch of color pop through here, maybe a snippet of brick there. They sealed the walls with quality sealant, not unlike what I use when sealing ceramics, metal, or polymer. And now they are breathtaking. 

The amount of work he put into this place has been dizzying. He has turned it into a glorious, sexy, rustic, urban-industrial piece of art, all while honoring its roots. The time has finally come for them to leave their current home and move into this labor of love, so they've been on my mind this week. 

I tell this story because today's earrings remind me of those plaster walls. The ceramic drops at the bottom are made by the lovely Claire of somethingtodobeads. They have been sawdust fired, giving them that smoky, fumed, earthy look. Some of the outer layers have crackled away, exposing other layers, just like with those walls. I love them and have been saving them for a special pair. I capped them with wee bead caps and hung them from old two-toned striped African glass trade beads and big blobs of blackened silver solder. Delightfully swingy, edgy, and tribal. 

Love you, Susan! 

Happy Wednesday,
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy