Oh, I do like to be beside the Seaside

Thoughts are turning to seaside holidays so we set a challenge in The Very Nice Group for all our members; make something in a seaside theme. We have beaders, knitters, glass artists, metalsmiths, textile artists, painters and other crafters in the group, so I'm hoping for some exciting entries. Amongst mine are these two pairs of earrings; very different in style and colours.

The first pair are dark and tentacly (is that even a word?) - they remind me of a crab or lobster claw. Greek copper beads with a great patina are nested together with rustic biwa pearls wired inside. 

My second pair are colourful as a saucy seaside postcard; asymmetrical, with beautifully detailed bronze starfish and shell by Lesley Watt, a lampwork shell by Rita Bennett, lampwork bead by Jo Wadman, soft  pink freshwater pearls, and rustic Czech glass. Both ends of the seaside spectrum - the colour at the end of the pier, or moody windswept Welsh coastline. You choose!


Pop over to our group and view the challenge entries - on Sunday 7th July. Should be good!

                                                          See you in two weeks

                                                                    Lindsay x
                                                                                                                      
                                                                
                                                                  My Etsy shop

                                                               My Facebook page

Boxing Day Blues

The day after Christmas - Boxing Day. Why is it so named? In England and former commonwealth countries it was traditionally the day that servants were given the day off, and were given a 'Christmas Box'  from their masters to take home to their family.

The earrings I'm showing you today were the contents of a prettily wrapped box I gave to my sister Claire for Christmas. Not that she's my servant - the other way round, if anything - she's only a year younger than me, and we've always been very close, but she can still wrap me round her little finger!

I often make her a pair of earrings for Christmas but this year I wanted them to be extra special - she celebrates her 50th wedding anniversary on 4th January and she and my brother in law are going on their first cruise, to the Caribbean.  She's been a magpie since we were little and loves a bit of sparkle and glitter, so I bought some of  Suhana's crystal wrapped hoops in Claire's favourite aqua. She doesn't like them too long, and can only wear niobium earwires these days but the aqua niobium looks perfect. To keep them fairly short I wrapped swarowski crystal pearls in iridescent light blue underneath the top of the hoop.

                     Hoping she loves them, and has a great time on their cruise - they deserve it!

 

 

Take it easy today after all the festivities, and I'll see you on New Years Eve!

 

Lindsay x

 

My Etsy shop

 

My Facebook page

 

You're in my Heart

Hello Everyone! Here we are at the end of November, gearing up for Christmas and all that goes with it. No matter what the negatives may be, Christmas is undoubtedly the one time of year that brings a more active sense of Love that isn't as strongly present throughout the rest of the year. People seem to experience and express more Joy, more Kindness. Not the "buy her a diamond" kind of kindness we get from TV commercials, but genuine expressions of kindness, giving, caring. I guess it's up to each of us individually to keep it going the rest of the time. 💖

I was definitely feeling Christmas 🎄 when I put these earrings together. Petra Carpreau's gorgeous Gold Filigree Heart ceramic components were such a great canvas to work with! That's ScorchedEarthOnEtsty. 😊 The "cap" is two separate pieces. The bottom piece is part of the Lotus Cap from FallenAngelBrass. The tops are a pair of caps I've been holding onto for a few years, purchased from a Destash, and this was the design for them. Creamy Pearls and tiny oxidized brass beads, all wrapped in deeply oxidized copper wire finishes the design. 

I hope you have a great time as the next few weeks fly by! 

Happy Days!
norbel
SheFliesAgain

A little bit of art in your ears

Hello! I have a showcase at the end of this month over on The Earrings Show on Facebook, so have been busy creating some new things for this. I thought I'd share a design I'm enjoying making at the moment, using Petra Carpreau's (of Scorched earth) beautiful art decals. I love these Klimt decal droppers (someone correct me if I'm wrong! I think they are Klimt). They are teamed with beautiful gold nugget beads by Maryse Fritzsch-Thillens and brass hoops to give a layered look. I've added some gold and silvery seed beads to pick up some of the tones in the decal prints. These seed beads are part of a new range at Smitten Beads, and oh they are lovely! They match this design pretty well

Next up, some more of Petra's decals, except this time a bit of Frida Kahlo. I doubled up the brass hoops this time, and kept things simple with freshwater pearls and pretty little blue czech beads to pick up the colours in the decal drops.

So there we are. Little works of art in your earlobes! These will be available at my showcase at the end of the month (details on my Facebook page). In the meantime, get yourself over to Petra's shop. There's a whole range of decals with different artists -bliss!

See you next time

Sue :-)

Facebook page

etsy shop

Aegean Sands

This time next week I'll be on my hols in Greece. It's one of our favourite destinations; the Greek people are lovely, it's laid back and relaxed, very family friendly, there's great food for non meat eaters and, of course, it's beautiful and packed with history. What's not to like?

Thinking about at least some time relaxing on the beach with the Aegean lapping on the sand, or walking for miles collecting shells and stones, is my cue for this week's earrings. Brought up at the seaside, I'm a sucker for shells of any kind and have been admiring the work of Greetje Boor of Gloa Glass for some time. In her last show I couldn't resist a couple of pairs - just look at the intricate detail on them - and on both sides too.

The first pair are soft translucent sea green - I paired them simply with creamy rustic pearls and tiny Picasso beads that echo the striped detail in the lampwork.

 

The second pair I glammed up a little with gold ceramic shells from Petra Carpreau, glossy garnet and gold swarowskis. I like the symmetry of these.

 

 

 

 

 

Perfect holiday wear, for day or night. And if its summer where you are, I hope you all have super holidays coming up too - tell us where you are off to?

 

See you in a couple of weeks

 

 

Lindsay xx

 

My Etsy shop

 

My Facebook page

Ocean Turtles

A couple of weeks ago, I made some new cute polymer clay Turtle Charms using some of my favorite ocean and beach inspired colors. I made some extras so that I could design a pair of earrings for today's blog post :)

I had this design in mind for several days. I just had to put the components together.

And.... here's the result:

I have a few of these cool stick pearls that I've been wanting to use for some time. I thought they would go really nicely with my little turtles... what do you think? I added some cute little summery chunks of real Turquoise, and sparkling sunny glass seed beads, all strung on sterling silver wire.

My new handmade Turtle Charms are available in my Etsy shop HERE in a few different colors. 

I also have some nice Handmade Polymer Clay items in my clearance section at 50% OFF (yep!). Sweet deals, if you're interested :)

These earrings have sold within a few minutes of me showing them off on Facebook as I was writing this blog post, but I do have other one of a kind pairs of earrings listed in my Etsy shop.

Have a great Sunny weekend!
Cheers,
Nathalie

Visit my Etsy Shop for Handmade Polymer Clay Jewelry supplies: My Garden Of Love
Visit my Etsy Shop for my Digital Downloads Designs: The Craft Tribe

It's a boy

Sooooo much has happened since I last posted a couple of weeks ago. I had mentioned that I'd soon be a "grand-maman" later on in April. Well, turns out that this little cuddle monkey decided he needed to come out 3 weeks early (!!!)

My husband and our brand new grandson, wrapped in a soft baby blanket that I designed

We had a bit of a scare because of some late-pregnancy complications. His mommy was going to be induced to get him out last Friday, but he decided to come out himself without medical help... a few days earlier than planned.

Thank God everyone is now fine, healthy and safe. Little Harvey (and his mommy) ended up going on a 50 minute Air Evacuation Helicopter ride when he was just 30 hours old to get him ASAP to the big hospital on the South end of the Island as he was having difficulty breathing.

He is ever so precious and we're all very proud and happy of this new arrival in our family.

So, in his honor, I was inspired to make something in 'blue' to celebrate our new beautiful grandson:

I created this design starting with some cool 'iceberg' blue (gray-ish blue) Czech glass beads at the top, nesting them in some Bali silver bead caps.

I have a large collection of pearls - some of them I have purchased from one of my favorite Pearls seller on Ebay: Rainbow Island Pearls, and these large Keshei pearls with natural light shades of blue-mauve looked like a good fit. I love their uneven surface catching the light and adding movement... paired with a set of my small handmade polymer clay dagger drops.

These drops have specks of silver leaf, and swirls of greyish-blue. I used simple hypoallergenic Titanium ear wires to finish the design.

The polymer clay drops almost remind me of stars in the evening sky around here. They move a lot, and are really fun to watch. Very lightweight and versatile!

I think these earrings would be perfect to wear with a pair of jeans and a cool Summery tank top.  What do you think?

Have a wonderful weekend ahead!

Cheers,
New Grandma (Grand-maman) Nathalie :)
Visit my shops:
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Spring Flirt

I don't know about what's going on in your neck of the woods, but here, Mother Nature is messing with us these days! We've had warm weather (no snow/green grass) and then 10" of snow overnight that melted within a few days..... back to warm weather, and now we're back to snow!?!

When the weather starts to get warmer, and I start spotting little Spring flowers, I get that twinkle of Spring in my eye! We're a little bit behind this year. These little 'perce neige' (Galanthus nivalis) adorn the flower beds at the front of the house at my inlaws. This picture was taken last year (day for day) and this year, there's maybe around a dozen blooms (far less than last year), so we're running a tad behind.

Nonetheless, seeing just one of these in bloom, flirting with my senses, is enough to give me Spring Flower Fever :-) Enough so that I needed to see flowers RIGHT NOW.... so to satisfy my need (hey, we all got needs, right? LOL) I made a few sets of double-sided little Folk Art Spring Flowers in Polymer Clay, and used one pair (in dusty rose) to make these earrings that I call "Spring Flirt":

These very lightweight earrings are made using a pair of textured Sterling Silver oval hoops, on which I have wrapped a trio of sparkling glass seed beads on each side (yellow/pink/green) using Sterling Silver wire.

In the center at the top, I have some really cute (natural color) pink freshwater pearls dangling on a short piece of Sterling Silver chain, beautiful rose/pink Swarovski Crystals and lavender glass dagger beads.

I like to add an extra touch of color when I can with Anodized Aluminium jumprings - Today I used some "Lavender" colored jump rings (from The Ring Lord). I find their site a tad confusing, but they do carry some really nice colors there. With my daughter-in-law being allergic to metals, I like to offer/use hypoallergenic ear wires, and this time I used a pair of pretty Niobium Ear Wires (with a .999 Fine Silver accent bead) from one of my very favorite suppliers: Royal Metal on Etsy.

I listed these new earrings in my Etsy shop yesterday in getting ready to write this blog post, and they sold out within a few hours... ooops!! But if you'd like to make your own, I have a few pairs of these rustic folk art handmade flower drops (approx 12mm in size) left and I've listed them in My Garden Of Love Etsy shop:

Wishing you an early warm sunny Spring!
Thanks so much for stopping by!

Cheers,
Nathalie Lesage
My Garden Of Love on Etsy
The Crafty Tribe on Etsy

Girls just wanna have fun!

Making stuff is how I have the best fun! I feel very fortunate to have been able to share my fun with you for the last year! Thank you. Merry Christmas to you and yours, and my wishes to everyone for all good things in 2017.

Having been very inspired by Cindy Pack and her work with silver, I planned on making something with silver for this post but it didn't turn into anything "fun." :) So I switched tracks and decided that I would challenge myself somehow. Flexibility. After a few hours of pondering, I decided the challenge would be to work with Pearls. I've only used pearls twice, I believe. A friend, whose name seems to pop up in my posts often ☺, Susan Delaney, gifted me with four beautiful pairs of pearls, and I had a little stash of beautiful, small Keshi pearls from Debbie at TheFickleBead.

This post could be a veeeeeeeeeeryyyyyyyyyy long post with what went on during the time I worked to make these three pairs of earrings, but I won't; it'll be long enough as it is. ;) As an aside, I laughed out loud and read it to my husband while reading Erin's post last Friday. In no way was I laughing AT HER! She said she made 23 pairs of earrings in 2 hours! I was stunned! In awe! And jealous! lol Now, I am not exaggerating when I say that it takes me 23 hours to make 2 pairs of earrings. I truly am in awe, Erin! :)

The first pair is made with connectors that I purchased from Petra Carpreau of ScorchedEarthOnEtsy in the very FIRST order I placed with her on April 14 of 2013! I just haven't been able to give them up. :)

When I pulled out the pairs of pearls I received from Susan, I picked these first. It's likely difficult to see but they have a lovely texture and a very pretty white color. Oddly enough, I thought of these ceramic pieces almost immediately. And I love how they turned out. They are black stoneware finished with Bronze Gilders Paste. I added brass rings, the beautiful pearls, glass beads and brass at the bottom, with extremely oxidized copper wire.

The second pair also includes Petra's ceramics. I am not a fan of Picasso's work. But I loved it in this medium, and was thrilled to be able to get them. They're paired with wonderful rustic sticks of Rust and Blue Kyanite, purchased from Kimberly Rogers/NuminosityBeads, and another pair of pearls from Susan. These are smooth, glossy, round white pearls.

One of the difficulties I had throughout this project was that the teeny, tiny holes in the pearls require thin wire, 24-gauge. The lower connection was wrapped with 22- gauge on top of the 24. They sell large-holed pearls but these are not those, and they are much too beautiful to ignore.

The last pair was made with the Keshi pearls. An 18-gauge loop wrapped with 24-gauge. A separate piece of 24-gauge was used for the pearls, the

This pic depicts the purple beads
more accurately than the other

ends wrapped around the loop, wrapped a bit at the top of the dangle for stability. The pearls are thin, beautiful, peacock Keshi pearls, a lovely gray with metallic colors. The purple polymer clay beads were made by Jon Burgess of JBDRusticOrganic
and the accent beads are black, blue and green Vulcanite beads handmade in Nigeria.

   I do hope you had a bit of fun here with me today. I look forward to making the earrings and writing the post and simply being a part of this great group. When I say the "group," I mean all of you who enjoy taking a look at what we have going on. I am so grateful to all of you.

Once again, Merry, Merry Christmas
to you and yours, and all the best this life has to offer in 2017!

See ya next year!
Norbel Marolla
She Flies Again

Ancient

Women in Ancient Times loved Awesome Earrings like we do! And very beautiful ones. Although I would imagine that those who were lucky enough to wear them must have been the elite of their time. 

Hello, and Happy October to you. Fall is my favorite time of year. I find it energizing. It's fleeting here in Michigan; we're lucky to have a small handful of sunny, cool days, but they are the best of the best when they come around. :) 

I've always enjoyed browsing images of ancient jewelry. History intrigues me. I am amazed by the beauty some were able to wear. Gemstones and gold! 

This particular image is of a pair of earrings that were made/worn in about 500 AD, during the Byzantine era, "earrings with pendant chains". It's said they were very popular during that time, but only five (5) earrings are known to have survived. There is one earring "in Baltimore," and a pair in the "Farrell Collection," each with pendant crosses, pearls and semi-precious stones. This image and the info came from the "Christie's" website, and these little lovelies fetched $15,000. 

FYI "The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople." 

What an amazing find, in such beautiful condition. 500 AD! I kept the image in a folder I have titled "Design Inspiration," where I have hundreds of images of stunning jewelry, from all over, including all of our EE talents. This one I have been enamored with for quite some time. 

Rather than use them for inspiration only, I decided to re-create the design in my own way, in our timeline, :), with the materials I love to work with. And there's also the fact that gold is a bit out of my price range. :) Perhaps someday, hundreds of years from now, someone will stumble upon my earrings, and think they're a fun find. 

So here is my interpretation. 



 I chose to use a plain hoop rather than a hoop with ear wire attached. As the AEs (ancient earrings) have a pearl wrapped to the hoop, I did the same. These sweet rondelle-shaped Pearls came from TheFickleBead and I am in love with them. They're a soft peachy ivory and have decent-sized holes. These are wrapped in 22 gauge copper wire.

The beautiful, faceted blue/green stones are Apatite. The way the AEs have the emerald wrapped made me chuckle. If you look at the wire above the emerald, there appears to be a headpin wrapped around the wire holding the emerald, right? Yet at the bottom of the emerald the wire is rather wound and bunched to keep the bead on. Christie's refers to it as a "large granule above the spiral." To me it's a headpin! lol So I used headpins to hold the Apatite, and then used another to create the "spiral" and the "granule." I also chose to put it on the opposite side of the hoop as the pearl, rather than on the same side.

Rather than use a chain, I braided copper wire. I started out with a heavier gauge wire, but  it was too much. Everything I used was scaled down compared to the AEs, as far as the diameter of the wire, the hoop, the length and dimensions of the emeralds and their findings. It just looked better, and I love it. I have never braided wire before. I do know that it is something I will do more often. What a great way to change things up a bit. Hanging from the "chain" are pewter arrow charms, made by Vincent 'n Nooma of Inviciti.

So that's that! This was really one of the most fun projects I've done. Thanks so much for stopping by. We all appreciate it, as well as your comments and feedback. Have a great couple of weeks. I'll be back Oct. 18. Thank you!

Norbel
She Flies Again - my Etsy shop