Dream

Hello lovely earring friends,

A bit later than usual, but here is my post for today.

I so love the work of Helena Benkoczka. She is not only a lovely lady but also a very talented artist. Her polymer clay beads and charms are whimsical, colorful and just beautiful. She also creates wonderful faux tin components. And of course, I could not contain myself and had to buy some.

These gorgeous charms put me in a very romantic mood, which is a rarity lol. I layered the charms on brass links in which I wire wrapped some Czech flowers. The white polymer clay roses are made by Ira Vorobets. Some Czech glass beads compete the design. 

Thank you so much for looking and your support for Earrings Everyday :)
Share the love, don't be shy and leave some words. And do check out the other posts of my friends here. 

See you in a couple of week. Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of laughter, joy and lots of love.

Janine
Esfera Jewelry

If The Moon Were Made Of Cheese

So, I love destashes and usually check them out when I can on Facebook. For me, it's a great opportunity to pick up artisan beads that people bought years ago but never found a use for.  It's especially exciting when I find some from a retired bead maker or sometimes it's a series that an artist is no longer doing. 

That's how these earrings came to be! The porcelain beads on top were made by Mellisa Gabelle of The Clay Hen and I found them in a destash!  I really didn't have a vision for them right away, but I have a weakness for pale yellow and these had a matte finish (another weakness of mine) with a cool metallic shiny center.  I love the unusual and with the added holes all over, they are just that!  

My immediate random thoughts about these beads were:  Swiss Cheese; Moon; Wallace, of Wallace and Gromit saying - "Gromit, that's it! Cheese! We'll go somewhere where there's cheese!" 

Yes, folks - this is my creative process  -  haha!!

So who else loves cheese?  Kitties do, that's who!  The lovely faux tin charms are by Helena Benkoczka. I combined these two components together not only for their whimsy but also because I loved the proportions of the two shapes together as well as the colors.

My little cheesy moon story was starting to develop!  By luck, in my crazy stash, I had some great
steely matte vintage stars which pulled the colors from not only the grey kitty but, the moon centers as well.

Wallace would remind you:  "Don't forget the crackers!"

A little tip:  On Facebook, just type destash in the search bar and it should pull up some nice destash groups for you!  If you have a hard time finding some I'd be happy to share some; just drop me a note.

Thank you for stopping by my work table today, hope you found a little inspiration!!

Loralee XO

www.loraleekolton.etsy.com

craving for color

Hello friends, how are you all doing?

I don't know about you, but after winter I always crave for color. I recently bought 2 pairs of very, and I mean very, colorful shoes. My colleagues look at my shoes, look at me, look back at my shoes with a bewildered look on their faces. But then they see my tote bag (yep, very colorful), my chaotic hairstyle with curls everywhere, and sigh. Colorful shoes belong to me. As are colorful earrings. And nobody does colorful earring components better than Helena Benkoczka, with whom I had an interview in March. She is such an interesting lady and talented artist.
Her earring components always make me happy. I made these 3 pairs of earrings:

I combined the polymer charms with lampwork glass beads made by Lesley McIver, Czech glass and other bits and pieces.

And you can win this last pair :) Isn't that great. If you go to the interview you can see what you need to do to win this pair or win a pair of earrings made by Helena.

Thank you so much for looking and your support for Earrings Everyday :)
And you know I love to read your comments, so don't be shy and leave some words. 

See you in two weeks.Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of joy, an abundance of color and singing birds,
Janine
Esfera Jewelry

Foxy

Hello, hello,

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween. To be honest, I am not familiar with this event as it was not that common to celebrate this in the Netherlands, at least, not in the area where we lived.
So, no Halloweenie earrings from me today. Just a pair which features one of my favorite wild animals: the fox. I have never seen wild foxes when living in the Netherlands, but where we live in Greece we see them often. I know our chicken farmers are not too happy with them, but I always love the sight of them.

Recipe for these:
Faux tin charms by Helena Benkoczka
Copper earwirs by Lucy Haslam
Czech glass and brass disc beads.

Nice short and lightweight.

Thank you so much for looking and your support for Earrings Everyday :)
And you know I love to read your comments, so don't be shy and leave some words.
See you in two weeks.

Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of joy, laughter and beautiful nature,
Janine
Esfera Jewelry

Glide And Soar

I recently purchased 2 pairs of wonderful polymer clay feathers from Helena Benkoczka of Areto.  They were my first purchase from Helena and they turned out to be even prettier in  person than they appeared online.  I was so happy when I received them that I set right out to design a pair of earrings with the feathers. I forgot to take a picture of the feathers before I made the earrings, but here is a picture of the second pair that I received.  Cool, huh?

At fall Bead Fest I got some very cool chain that I was dying to use. I love that each of the links have such detailed textures.  My new feathers were the perfect excuse to try out an idea that had been floating around in my mind, since I got the chain.

I disassembled part of the chain and used two of the stick shaped links.

I very carefully bent the sticks into U shapes - I learned to shape them slowly and gently after I snapped the first stick link in half!

I attached the U shaped links to the feathers using some of the jump rings from the chain and then I used some smaller jump rings, from my stash, to connect the U shaped sticks to the ear wires. 

These feather earrings are so lightweight, that I picture them soaring upward on a gust of wind and then gliding gently back down to earth.

The Glide And Soar earrings are available in my shop.