Ancient Petroglyph Design

Hello. We have a new guest today! Please welcome Chris Kaitlyn.

I view making earrings as making a small sculpture or painting, blending elements together until I create a design that pleases my eye. I had so much fun putting these elements together to make a colorful bold earring design. Jill Stoffregen of Foxpaws Ceramics made the focus component for the design. Jill’s petroglyph of people outlined in blue against a brick red background goes well with the blue and red lampwork glass beads from Jody Brimhall of Inspire Glass Studio. 

Chris Kaitlyn Jewelry

Years ago while reading about materials in jewelry designing I came across black annealed steel wire. I tried some and fell in love with the product. It is a sturdy wire that supports any material I need to wire to other elements whether it is gemstones, ceramics or glass. It is also easy to find at my local Ace Hardware store. I also like that it is a black to steely black color and doesn’t compete with the various elements in the design. Currently I’m using a lot of 28 gauge wire as it bends and wraps well and doesn’t wear out my hands. 

Chris Kaitlyn Jewelry

The other element in the earrings is a new one for me. I have used black and antique copper Niobium ear wires from Tierra Cast for years now, but the colored ear wires are new in my earring designs. They really lend themselves well to colorful earrings and they are made so well. The Niobium is a non-allergic metal, being free of nickel, lead, or other additives. The color is applied through an anodizing process where the metal is dipped into an electrically charged solution making the color bond to the metal so it will not flake or chip. They also make head pins and jump rings in colors, but it is good to note that just as with yarn and fabrics, the color can change a bit from one lot of jump rings, to head pins, to ear wires, but they will all look beautiful together.

To avoid getting confused I put all of one order of a specific color in its own tray and do not mix them with the next order as they can be a slightly different shade. Today’s earrings feature blue ear wires. They also come in purple, green, teal, pink, and yellow and look even better in person than in the pictures.

Chris Kaitlyn Jewelry

Thank you to the Earrings Everyday Crew for the opportunity to be today’s guest writer.

ChrisKaitlynJewelry
Chris Kaitlyn Jewelry on IndieMade
Facebook Page

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.