Vivid!

Hi, everyone!  This past month has been a tough one, with a major household upheaval and the death of a beloved family pet.  💔   So I'll keep this short, but I'd love to show you all some recent earrings.  

The focus of the first pair (below) is a classic polymer clay design by Helena Benkoczka, pretty stylized feathers in violet, fuchsia, purple, and gold.  I paired the feathers with deep-blue lampwork glass rondelles, fuchsia Czech glass rondelles and Swarovski bicones, and gold accent beads, and tied the earrings together with fuchsia linen thread.

Kristi Bowman-Gruel's vividly colorful dotted-and-swirled painted copper charms (below) are so colorful all by themselves that I couldn't resist adding even more color and texture.  Even the little green Czech discs are dusted with gold, and Beth Mellor's rosy rondelles have subtle little dots.  A little over the top?  Well, maybe...  😉💗

Thank you so much for reading!  I'll be back in a couple of weeks.  💗

xoxo
Meridy

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Teal Tassels

I have a small hoard collection of enameled cones from Sue Beads and thought I'd use a pair for today's earrings.

The cones are enameled in teal, with hints of green and maybe even a little golden yellow. I paired them with mint green and light turquoise crystals. They turned out quite elegantly, with their sparkling crystals and silver lined teal seed beads.

The Teal Tassel earrings are available at Linda Landig Jewelry.

See you in two weeks. 

Springtime, at the Edge of Winter...

It's nearly Winter Solstice, but I'm still loving florals, especially 

when they're as pretty as the flowers created by

Beth Mellor and Raida Disbrow, here and below.  

These earrings can be found and purchased here.

Such gentle beauty and color from Beth's glass tulip beads (with their blue petals laid over

 underlying green) and Raida's lovely floral enameled copper charms!  I complemented them

 with small blue Czech glass tulip beads, 4-mm olivine Czech glass discs, tiny rosy bicone 

Swarovski crystals, and small leafy copper bead caps.   

Thank you so much for reading!  I'll be back soon. 💗 The happiest of holidays to you all!

xoxo
Meridy
Two Trees Studio

Gratitude and Joy

In the U.S., today is a day officially set aside for giving thanks.  Thanksgiving Day was designated a federal holiday in 1863, during the American Civil War, to be celebrated each year on the fourth Thursday in November.

Well, as it happens, the fourth Thursday of the month is one of my regular blog days here at EE.  So I thought I'd share a few thoughts about thankfulness and gratitude...and maybe show off a new pair of earrings too. 😊



Long ago I was taught the benefits of an "attitude of gratitude," being grateful for the good things in your life, no matter how small, instead of focusing on the negative.  Being actively grateful takes some effort and retraining of the mind. Meditation is, of course, an excellent mind-trainer (and mind-quietener), but I learned that even just making lists of things I'm thankful for is a good (and easy) way to start.

So on this day I'm thankful for all of you EE readers and writers and for creators and appreciators of beauty in all its different forms. And I'm sharing these joyful, whimsical earrings on this day because I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to make them. 

Recipe for the Earrings

Colorful dotted charms by Nicola Morse

Dotted golden hollow glass rounds by Beth Mellor  

Orchid lampwork glass discs by Beth Mellor

4-mm faceted purple garnet coins

Gold-filled bead caps, Swarovski crystal rondelles

Gold-filled ear wires

💗 Thank you, Nicola and Beth! 💗

Thank you for reading...and Happy Thanksgiving!

xoxo
Meridy

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Wings and Orbs 💗

These beautiful glass wings and beads by Pati Walton and Beth Mellor have been waiting a long time to be made into earrings.  😊  It's funny, though, that I'll be posting this the very day after Lindsay's "Winging It" post.  💗

Sometimes it just happens like that...you have beautiful components and beads that sit quietly in a drawer for a while.  Then you find just the right elements to go with them, pull the beads out for the first time in a while...

...and the earrings come together with such ease that you wonder why you let those beautiful beads languish in that drawer for so long.  

These earrings are rich in twilight colors that are perfect for the coming season of shorter days and longer nights.  They'll be available in my shop soon. 

Thanks so much for reading!  I'll be back again on September 13. 

Meridy

xo

My shop, Two Trees Studio

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Jewel Tones (with Caramel)

Hey, everyone! It's good to be here.  I'm still alive...still coughing, but feeling almost normal.  My husband (who caught bronchitis when I did, the lucky man) and I have been babysitting our almost-3-year-old grandson this week, but even so I managed to get a pair of earrings made.  YAY!  ❤

I've been wanting to use these wonderful textury pewter components by Vincent and Nooma Cav of Inviciti for a while, and once I got my hands on these beautifully color-dappled lampwork beads by Terry Turner of Silverfish Designs I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them.

I hadn't made bead-wrapped earrings like these in a long time (and none exactly like these), so choosing the tiny beads was a treat.  I had the tops of the earrings finished, with just the wrapping of the beads around the pewter triangles to go (using the cords left from wrapping the top part of the earrings together).

I picked out a couple of seed bead colorways and tried them out; one wasn't quite right, so I slid the beads off the cords and put them to one side.  The other set was almost right, but again, not quite.  I ended up combining parts of each seed bead group to get the colorway I finally used:  15/0 3-cuts in Rusty Orange Gold Luster, 15/0 Transparent Dark Lilac, 15/0 3-Cut Cranberry Gold Luster, 15/0 Magenta-Lined Gray, and 15/0 Transparent Dark Magenta AB.

The rondelles in the little silver caps at the tops of the lampwork beads are rosy-gold Czech glass, and the tiny rondelles at the neck of the charms are 4mm Swarovski crystals in Crystal Copper.

I really love the richness of all the colors in Terry's lampwork beads and the tiny glass beads

that echo the colors.  I hope you enjoyed them all too. ❤

Thank you so much for reading--I'd love to hear what you think!  

I'll be back on June 14.  

xoxo

Meridy

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Glass Mosaics

It's good to be back here at EE!  Things have been hectic around Casa Meridy for a while now, but I finished these color-drenched new earrings just a couple of hours ago (as I write this on Wednesday afternoon) and wanted to share them with you. 

I'd had these beautiful Cathleen Zaring (Blue Hare Art Wear) charms for a few months, but it wasn't until yesterday that a design idea came to mind.  I probably would never have remembered the gorgeous lampies used here if they hadn't just happened to be on my work table, in a bag paired with something else.  I'd had the beads for quite a few years and had never found the right design for them, but they sure make magic with Cathleen's charms--serendipity!  ❤️

I wire-wrapped the beads and charms together with some pretty copper bead caps, little iris Czech rondelles, and tiny orange-gold Swarovski bicones.  Given the rich colors and the lush detail of both main components, keeping everything else simple seemed right. 

And:  I don't know what happened to March, but clearly I missed a posting here one Thursday and didn't even realize it until much later.  To quote the great Thomas Dolby, "My brain is like a sieve."  My humblest apologies!  ❤️

Thanks so much for reading.  I'll see you in a couple of weeks--have a wonderful Thursday! 

xo

Meridy

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Bead Soup Celebration 💗

Spring comes early to Sacramento, here by the beautiful blue American River.  Things start to bloom in February--sometimes even earlier--and I've been getting the urge to make something colorful.  And bright.  And Boho.  And swingy.  And long.

Really long.   Shoulder-sweeper long.  😊  

So I pulled out some small, brightly colored beads and searched through my box of chain and came up with the perfect bead soup ingredients:  turquoise rice beads, dyed jade rondelles, faceted purple agate rounds, ocean blue jasper, multicolored faceted agate rounds, bright fuchsia Czech glass rounds, tiny brass hexagons, Japanese seed beads, and Swarovski crystals.  

I especially liked this soldered brass chain, with its large and small twisted links, because of its airiness and the way the shape of the large links mirrors the shape of the turquoise beads:

I've been busy lately with several custom orders, but these  earrings wouldn't let me rest.  They insisted that I finish them--and who was I to argue?  

The Celebration Earrings can be found
 at Two Trees Studio.

Cheers, my friends!  Happy creating, and thanks for reading!  I'll see you again in a couple of weeks.  💗

xoxo

Meridy

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FaeryLights

Hi, everyone!  💗

Lately I've been making a lot of chainmaille jewelry, which I really love.  It's precise, sleek, and meditative and also beautiful, intricate, and versatile.  But after so much time working ring-by-ring, I was ready for festive, vibrant color...and glass.

FaeryLights can be purchased here.

Pati Walton, one of my favorite glass designers, made all the lampwork glass beads in these brightly beautiful earrings.  And, oh, the COLORS--fuchsia, yellow, orange, blue, purple, and green "painted" in ribbons across Pati's glass head pins and added as bubbles on the little lampwork beads.  Even the  little Czech glass rondelles and Swarovski crystal bicones I added to the mix are rich and vibrant. 

I love the way the light filters through the colored glass and crystal, turning the beads into their own kind of light. 

Color is nourishment for our creative hearts, I think.  And I'm so glad I made these little FaeryLights at this magical time of year.

Thank you so much for reading!  I wish you all a wonderful (and heart-nourishing) New Year, and I'll see you all again in 2018!

xoxo

Meridy

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Red Creek Goddess

You know how you sometimes get ideas for a design from things that are tangentially related?   :) 

A while back I made a pair of sterling silver earrings using an ancient Japanese chainmaille weave...

...and just recently I began making a copper bracelet using the same weave.  Here it is in progress: 

It occurred to me that the first segment of both the earrings and the bracelet (the large ring + the two small doubled joined rings + the larger ring) resemble a goddess figure (do you see it?).  So I thought it might be fun to create a pair of goddess earrings that could be offered to customers with a number of variations.  

I decided to make my first version in copper antiqued to a gleaming, warm brown, with sterling silver highlights (the ear wires and the rings that connect them) and 4-mm Red Creek jasper and Swarovski crystal beads dangling from the bottom ring.  

These earrings can be made in sterling silver, bronze, or colored anodized niobium rings, and with just about any semiprecious stones, pearls, or whatever else you can imagine.  They're only about 2 inches long and very lightweight, so they're a good everyday earring too--pretty but not fussy.  

As always, thank you so very much for reading!  I will be back in two weeks' time.  :) 

xoxo

Meridy

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✨ Bringing the Bling ✨

Hi, everyone!  This week, I made earrings that pushed me right out of my comfort zone.   Yes, I did--and on purpose too!     

Helen Backhouse's hand-painted polyclay leaves always take my breath away, and these particular leaves are so long and stunning that they seemed to call for something dramatic.

So I went for it!  These earrings are looong (a little over 4 inches).  They feature AB rhinestone rondelles, sparkly 12-mm aqua blue crystals topped by small leafy bead caps and little blue zircon crystals, fabulous spiky double bead caps, and clusters of blue zircon and bright yellow Swarovski crystals, dangling from teal anodized niobium jump rings.

One wonderful thing is that, being made mostly of thin leaves of polymer clay, the earrings are very lightweight and kind to tender earlobes.  Another wonderful thing?  I absolutely loved making these!  Who knew bringing the bling could be so much fun?  💗

Thanks so much for reading!  I'll be back with more to share in two weeks.

xoxo
Meridy
My Etsy shop
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Colored Feathers, Colored Stones

It's so great to finally be over the flu--and it felt so good to finally be able to sit down and make some new earrings (five pairs in all--I did say it felt good to get back to making things, right?).  ;)  It's also wonderful to be back here at EE with all my beady friends.

You can find these earrings here.

These earrings are a variation on one of my favorite styles.  I made them with these pretty little bumpy purple-and-fuchsia lampwork rondelles by Deborah Crow Roesly, paired with vibrantly colorful polymer clay tribal feathers by Helena Benkoczka.

Complete "recipe" for the earrings:  Deborah's rondelles, Helena's feathers, 3-mm fuchsia Swarovski crystals, scalloped copper bead caps, 3x5-mm tanzanite Czech glass rondelles, small copper jump rings, 15/0 dark fuchsia seed beads, dark fuchsia anodized aluminum jump rings, fuchsia waxed linen cording, and dark pink anodized niobium ear wires.  

The earrings are extremely lightweight and easy to wear.  The backs of the feathers are covered with glazed paper to keep the cord ends tidy and out of sight.

Thanks so much for reading!  I'll be back again in a couple of weeks with some new earrings.  :)

xoxo
Meridy

Two Trees Studio

My FB page  

Vintage Blackberry

I've always liked the jewelry of earlier centuries, which I guess shouldn't be too much of a surprise given that my formal education focused on the Medieval period.  Oddly, though, I'd never really been interested in making vintage-inspired jewelry until now.

You see, a while back I was in need of beads, and I found some beauties in Serena Thomas's Etsy shop, Taneres. Though I usually don't use this type of bead, these lovely, vintage-looking violet-pink-and-yellow beads...

...really appealed to me, so I bought them (well, of course I did!).  Then a week or so later I found these porcelain earring components by Mari Carmen Rodriguez Martinez:  

It was the proverbial match made in heaven!  The colors of Mari Carmen's beautiful charms worked perfectly with Serena's beads, and their shape provided a lovely frame for some very pretty Swarovski "Blackberry" pearls.

Also featured in the earrings are TierraCast antiqued copper bead caps and Swarovski Crystal Lilac Shadow bicone beads. 

I'm really enjoying exploring new things these days.  I hope you're having a wonderful time with whatever creative path you're on.

I'm heading out of town tomorrow, but I'll be back in a few days.

Love to all...and I'll see you in two weeks. 

xoxo

Meridy

My Etsy shop

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Love in the heart and in the air

As we were just wrapping up a beautiful Easter weekend spent with our loved ones, I felt a lot of love and kindness in the air. Family, Friends and strangers are smiling more, the hint of warm sunshine and the light scent of fresh new flowers blooming creates a palpable positive shift in the energy around here.

Do you feel it too where you live? How about at home? With your family and friends?

This loving vibe and this sentiment is what inspired me this week:

I've designed a romantic 'vine' inspired design, because we're all intertwined by our feelings, our own vibrations and energy, as well as those of others around us. As my eyes were admiring the beautiful flowers blooming around town, my heart was also more open to see the beauty in others, even in total strangers I interacted with...

I've used the long 18 gauge copper wire with which I've created a pair of my Mokume Gane polymer clay headpins to not only set the beads on the earrings, but also to wrap around everything like a vine would do, coming on the way back down. It lovingly gently hugs the beads and rests on the drops, waiting for more places to go.

For these earrings, I've actually used one part of some pretty TierraCast lead-free pewter clasps. I'm not a huge fan of the bar-toggle type of clasps, but I liked the design of these with the 3 vine leaves, and I thought they could be a cool part of this design.

On my copper headpins, I've wrapped some sparkling yellow glass seed beads, as a repeat of the flecks of gold metal leaf found in my polymer clay drops. I've also added in some rustic TierraCast copper tone flat spacers, and a pair of Cosmic 12mm Indicolite Swarovski Crystals. The ear wires are non-allergenic Niobium ear wires (copper color with a copper bead accent), also from TierraCast.

I'm not feeling well enough to make elaborate time-consuming designs at the moment, but, as my dear friend Monica of TG Bears (her handmade bears are absolutely LOVELY) reminded me, I've come a long way since almost a year ago when I became very ill.

I'm feeling impatient at times with myself as there's so much more I'd like to do, but I'm thankful for my friends who love me and remind me to look at myself with more loving eyes, and to be thankful to do what I can at the moment. I'm definitely able to do far more than a year ago (and than most of last year). It's progress!

Thank you all for being here, as well as on FB/IG, and for all your lovely comments. It really helps me keep my chin up, and try to do a bit more despite having been so ill this past year.

More tests are coming with a neurologist (to confirm what we're 99.9% sure of what I have). It hasn't been easy, but creating art is healing, even if I'm not feeling well most days.

May you be showered with love and romance this Spring season xoxo

Cheers,
Nathalie Lesage
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