Feet of Clay

As we close the curtains on one hell of a year, I'm reminded on how very important it is to be humble. When everything is going right in your life and you can do no wrong, well, that's an amazing feeling and a great place to be. But it's also an easy place to be. It's the trying times, the dark times, the times when you're weighed down by a 2-ton pile of boulders---those are the times that shape us and show us who we are. And motivate us to work harder on who we would like to be in the future.
 
Staying humble---remembering that we are all human, finite, imperfect...that we all have feet of clay---is an essential component to emotional and mental health, and ultimately, happiness. 

Today's earrings seem to have resonated with quite a few people, so I'd like to share them with you, dear readers. You know how much I love to discover old, obscure bits of anthropology. One of my latest finds are pumtek beads. Dating back as far as 400BC, the Chin people in Burma created pumtek beads from opalized wood indigenous to the area. They were worn as protective amulets, prized as heirlooms, and are signature for their striped and zig zag "lightening" patterns. Incredible.

I have used two of these precious pumtek beads to create little bud earrings using graduated stacks of rusty bead caps topped with dots of blackened silver solder. Time-worn, humble, and of-the-earth.

Thank you to each and every one of you for reading this year. Your support, uplifting words, and kinship are rays of sunshine to each of us on this blog. May your 2017 be full of light!

Happy Wednesday,
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

The Most Humble of Finds

Never trust a person who doesn't appreciate a good walk, hike, or meander through the woods.

My day job involves working from home, which is a huge blessing, but it can also mean that I work up a hell of a case of cabin fever every now and then. Not being a hugely social person, at these moments I tend to flee the house in search of parks instead of humans. And what does a girl like me do when she's taking these hikes? Well, she collects bits, of course. Sometimes it's just one or two things, sometimes it's a couple handfuls wrapped in the front of my shirt and weighing it down like a sagging potbelly. I'll come home with any number of natural wonders: hawk feathers, flaming red maple leaves, shards of bone, a squirrel-gnawed walnut, a rusted-out nail, or--if I'm really lucky--a trilobite fossil. 

Here in southwest Ohio we are rife with fossils from the Ordovician period---that's 450-500 millions years old! Whole cliffsides are just stratified with them. Erosion and time ensure that our creeks are always teeming with brachiopods, bryozoans, crinoids, gastropods, and horn coral. Talk about treasures!

Several weeks ago I was taking a hike at French Park, one of my favorite local parks. Being autumn, the leaves were turning and falling and the tree nuts were doing the same. I came across a grove of massive oak trees and the forest floor was littered with--you guessed it--acorns. I'm sure no one will argue that an acorn cap is quite possibly Mother Nature's perfect bead cap. Now, I've always seen jewelry makers dabble with cast metal or ceramic or polymer clay acorn caps. But what about using actual acorn caps in designs? I picked up a handful, inspected, checked for hardness and durability, and then decided to take some home to play around with. 

Back in the studio, I drilled a hole in each top and gave them a healthy coat of wax to help preserve and waterproof. It seems so elementary and so obvious, but it feels so...right. Here's the first pair I came up with, featuring a pair of deliciously grungy sawdust fired ceramic beads made by our own Claire Lockwood of somethingtodobeads. I strung everything on a couple of my fat pitted copper headpins and topped them off with wee black filigree bead caps and a dot of blackened silver solder. 


Just goes to show, art can be found in and created with just about anything, even the most humble of finds. 

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Shady Sinner

I seem to be in the minority when I say that I really don't prefer jewelry/beads/components that include words. Which is an odd thing for me to say, being a self avowed word nerd, bookaholic, and walking dictionary. There's something about the bluntness (?) of it that doesn't appeal to me. It's hard to describe, other than you will 99.9% of the time never see these in my work. The same goes for beads and charms that feature humans or body parts. But that's another story.


HOWEVER. 

 
When my latest order of ceramic beads from the insanely talented and lovely Claire of somethingtodobeads arrived, she included a generous pair of freebies: grungy twirled smooshed ceramic beads stamped with two simple, devious, wicked words---SHADY and SINNER. 

Now, when I laid eyes on this pair, my first thought was oh, now that's cheeky. And my next thought was wait, those actually kinda go together. Followed quickly by a grin and an oh yes, challenge accepted. 

 
And, thusly, today's pair of earrings was born. I torched my own fat-bottomed copper headpins, strung each ceramic bead on, and then topped them with graduated stacks of rusty, crusty, patina-riddled bead caps---no two the same. I dotted the top loop of each with some silver solder, gave each earring a good oxidation bath, and then hung each from one of my long curvy copper ear wires. Swingy, potbellied little devils.

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Repeat Offender

For those of us who gravitate toward art beads---and who doesn't, really?---we tend to have favorite bead artists that we keep going back to, time and time again. Can't seem to shake em. And just when you think that 1.5 trays of their beads are going to satisfy your hunger, they list new components and you find yourself going back again for another fix, like a zombie in the endless pursuit of BRAAAAAAAINS. 

One of the bead artists on my short list is Marsha Neal. I remember buying from her years ago when I first started designing jewelry and I still buy from her to this day. Her abstract, organic shapes and earthy glazes have captured and held my fascination through quite a lot of creative growth on my part--through it all, her beads have always played a note in my cumulative song.

Some of my favorite beads are her twisted horns. It's clear that she takes great care in forming them but still lets them take on their own unique, evocative shape. I have yet to find two that match perfectly--that's part of the magic, for me.

For this pair, I used a slate blue-gray matte glazed pair of horns, stacked them with vintage German pressed wood beads, and capped them with rusty petal bead caps. Throw in some blackened soldering to fill the gaps, hang them from some of my extra long ear wires, and you've got two edgy pieces of art for your ears.


Happy Wednesday!
Nikki 
LoveRoot on Etsy

En Tiempos Antiguos

Our color palette for today: blush, cream, pearl, coal. 

I'm not the type of girl who gets dolled up often. It's been more than 10 years since I wore makeup. It takes me just a few short minutes to fix my hair out of the shower. Manicures? How about serial nail-biter? Although, I do admit to loving dresses. So what is it about wearing pearls that automatically adds elegance to a look?

I don't design often with pearls because so many of them are too "clean" to suit my preferred aesthetic: grungy, organic, old-looking. So when I came across this strand of wonky etched Tibetan pearls in Tucson this year, I snatched them up. They have the perfect mix of soft pearliness and aged texture---yum! 


When designing around these, I wanted to utilize beads with a matte finish to balance out the smoothness of the pearl. I went with barrels of fossilized stegadon bone (I know!) and two wee ivory colored lampwork glass beads from Karen Elmquist, fashioned to resemble old bone beads. Add in some pitchy black filigree bead caps and cheeky little wire spirals at the bottoms, and I don't think you'd ever miss the fact that the design is so simple. 

They dangle, swing, and sing from your lobes. And they BEG to be worn with your favorite little black dress: you've got class, but you've also got grit. Git em, girl...

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Take It Eeeeeeasy

Ever feel like you're taking a cop-out easy route with one of your designs? But you really don't care because the end result turns out so perfectly that you wouldn't change a thing? 
 
I had some of that guilt when I made this pair a couple weeks ago featuring some more of Kimberly Rogers' deliciously mismatched lampwork glass headpins. The glass itself is a very soothing, neutral, streaky birch color---I've been gravitating more and more toward neutrals and earth tones over the past year. I wanted to highlight the fact that Kim deliberately made one headpin twirled like a horn and left the other drippy. What better way to do that than to make one of my soldered caps twirled and the other smooth? And the "I feel so clever" moment: I switched up the swirls. Oooooo, gettin' tricky!


Ok, so it's not a complex design. I could have hung these headpins beneath stacks of grungy precious bits, like I'm wont to do. I could have hung them from gnarly hoops or used them as focals in a chandelier-style pair. But lately I've been craving stated simplicity. 

To be honest, it's almost more difficult to reign yourself in when designing. At least for me, anyways. Plus, I always try to be sensitive to the wearability of pieces. It's one thing to create a masterpiece for a gallery or a competition, but it's another thing to make pieces that people are able to wear and love every day of their lives. That's the miraculous thing about creating art---every artist has unique goals for their work. There's never a wrong or a right answer. It just is. And that's a beautiful thing. 

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

My Favorite Things

Favorites---we all have them. 

Whether it's your favorite color (olive green), favorite food (garden-fresh tomatoes), season (autumn), author (Cormac McCarthy), shoes (black biker boots)...the list goes on. We can learn so much about a person by looking at their favorite things. See, look how much you just learned about me? Of course, we as humans are much more nuanced than a condensed list of favorites, but these are great starting points. 



One of my most favorite stones---and honey, I've worked with a LOT of stones---is chiastolite. A form of rosy brown andalusite and otherwise known as "cross stone", this wicked material features completely naturally occurring black graphite crosses or Xs at its center. The iconography of the cross goes back thousands of years across untold cultures. I love the provenance and fluidity of such a symbol.

So any time I see a nice piece of chiastolite, I tend to snap it up like a hamster---hoarding it away for future use. These little teardrop pieces weren't in my hands very long before they spoke to me. I gave them wee soldered caps and dangled them simply beneath vintage wood beads and ratty pronged black metal bead caps. Ever so slightly industrial and gothic (see aforementioned proclivity for black biker boots) with a crunchy earth goddess vibe thrown in for good measure. Hey, that pretty much sums me up.

OK, now tell me some of YOUR favorites!

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Rough Around the Edges

I'll be the first to admit that I'm rough around the edges. I like things that may be considered ugly or junky or taboo.  I like being a black sheep. I like my jewelry to have some bite.

I'm big on re-purposing elements in my jewelry---not from a tree-hugging recycle-hound standpoint (not that there's anything wrong with that), but from a "I really love the look of this old bead/rock/found object" standpoint. Stuff may be busted or have a crust on it---a patina of time, if you will. I like that.

Along these lines, one of the things I love playing with are vintage industrial metal bits.  They're old, they're beaten up, they're rusty, they may be broken and unusable in any other application. I like the challenge of looking at an object and then figuring out how to bring it back to life in unexpected ways.

Like this pair of earrings that I made for myself that feature some old industrial metal rings. What they were used for at one time, I have no idea. But they're pitted and corroded and covered with a layer of dark green verdigris patina...and I love them. I kept it simple by hanging them with two unusual lightweight vintage German wood beads. Each bead sports a little filigree bead cap to add some verve, plus my own headpins, ear wires, and soldering. Blackened metal because YES, please.

These are the kind of earrings that I wear everyday. They make a confident statement without clubbing you over the head. Some people may call it an "industrial chic" trend, but I just call it ME.

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki 
LoveRoot on Etsy

Fundamentally Me

For anyone who asks, I tell them that my work is just as much about finding unique components as it is about fancy technique. I'm by no means the most widely accomplished jeweler in terms of depth and breadth of skills. But I do have a keen eye for beads, stones, fossils, and random found objects that have artistic potential. I'm not going to divulge how many hours of my life have been spent surfing the web for strange items or pawing through bead/rock show tables. Let's just say it all goes "into the soup". 

I'm especially fond of stocking up on treasures that I know I'll most likely never ever find again. Seems like a smart approach, right? Until your hoard starts to cast shadows on the floor...I digress.

Something that I found a few years ago and have been greedily holding on to are these fossilized echinoderm "petals". Echinoderms include sand dollars and sea urchins---so when you look at these fossils, imagine their spokes or arms. I saw these fossils and snapped up more than a few pairs, knowing that they were fundamentally ME: rustic, old, organic, neutral earth-tone. 

A couple weeks ago I bravely decided to cut one pair loose. Continuing with the soldered bead cap concept that I've been working lately, I added in a rustic spiral to each cap to give some energy and movement to the metal. I think it helps accentuate the shape of the fossils, as well. A healthy dose of oxidation and buffing really help to bring out the underlying texture and pattern. Add in some of my extra long ear wires and you've got versatile, crunchy, dark, edgy little twins for your ears.

Hope your week is a delicious one!

Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Mirror / Mirror

As you may well be aware of by now, our own Claire Lockwood happens to make some of the most deliciously unique ceramic beads, in addition to her inspired jewelry. I've missed out on quite a few new sets because they tend to sell so quickly---wonderful for Claire and maddening for me! 

However, on her latest batch update, I was able to snag some beautiful "naked" fluted porcelain rounds. Claire carves the grooves into each bead before firing once, and then used oxide to color them in a second firing, giving them that smoky velvety texture with slight minty green overtones. 

I'm just crazy about these beads! So crazy that I knew as soon as I took them out of the package that I was going to make something for myself using them. No equivocating here, no sharing, just MINE!

I'm a big fan of mirroring shapes, textures, and colors of the various component in my assemblage pieces. And I'm also a big fan of old wood beads. So when I saw the fluted grooves of Claire's beads, my mind immediately jumped to a pair of wood "pumpkin" beads that I've been saving up for a special occasion. The textures of the two sets play beautifully off of each other, but they still manage to maintain their own individual flavor and flair. 

I tend to wear simpler styles, myself, so I kept these earrings minimal using wee crusty metal bead caps and some decorative blackened soldering for effect. The result makes me squeal every time I wear them---earthy, swingy, dark little baubles.

Thank you, Claire, for sharing your beads with us!

Happy Wednesday :) 
Nikki 
LoveRoot on Etsy

Raiding the Sewing Cabinet

Let's talk about thimbles. 

They're wee, they protect our precious fingertips, they are passed down from generation to generation of nimble-fingered women. Even the word puts a smile on your face. I'm not even sure if thimbles are used much anymore? Then again, I'm not a seamstress. I'm sure if they made finger protectors for metalsmiths, I'd be all over it. 

I enjoy incorporating oddball found objects in my earrings, so antique shops can be a treasure trove when it comes to sparking my muse. One of my favorite Etsy supply shops sells lots of vintage, old, crusty, imperfect artifact bits from Eastern Europe. These items range anywhere from 100 years old to a few decades old. 

During one order (read: binge) I came across these vintage brass thimbles and the first thing that came to my mind was BEAD CAP! The edges are ragged and they have a dark green verdigris patina on them, and a lot of people may look at them and think "junk, gross, why would you want to wear that?" 

But to me, they bring to mind previous generations of strong, make-do, self-reliant, hard-working women. Women who tended and cared for those they loved. Women like my grandmother who lived through the depression and still mends towels and undershirts and socks to this day.


To turn these thimbles into wearable art, I carefully punched holes in the top and hung them with natural spotted jasper stones in complementary hues of sand, terracotta, army green, and vermillion. I then gave the stones blackened silver soldered caps and hung everything from my extra long ear wires. They dangle freely beneath the thimble, making for really unique nostalgic statement pieces.

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Ubiquitous Retro Minty Green

Isn't it odd how some colors go through trendy ups and downs? Some colors are classic and are always in style - denim blue, bold red, chic black. And then there are other more ubiquitous colors, like burnt orange, pastel pink, and neons (of any kind). Who is it that actually decides what color is going to be "hot" this year, anyways? 

I've noticed the past year or two that pale mint green---you know, the color of your grandma's refrigerator, telephone, and/or toilet back in the day---has been experiencing a real resurgence. I can't say I'm completely nuts about it. I'm just not really a pastel kind of gal to begin with. 

BUT...

It is spring, and we just had Easter, and the tender leaves are all budding on the trees, so that got me in a bit of a softer mood. So I decided to finally use these wee raw chrysocolla drusy drops that I've been holding on to forever. I gave them some messy primitive beads caps with globby solder and hung them beneath stacks of precious bits: antique wood beads, crusty metal spacers, and powdery shimmery ancient glass beads. They make a perfectly light sweet dangley slim set for these springy months - or any month, really.

Hope you're all enjoying spring this year...even if it is a little late :)

Happy Wednesday!

Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Tender Greens

It's finally here - that time of year when trees start to take on a misty green hue. Buds appear, swell, and burst into leaf. Skeletal gray branches come back to life, filling out and reaching toward the sky. It seems like this past winter was more brutal than most for those of us in the US - you can certainly tell by the recent posts here on Earrings Everyday! It seemed like Spring would never get here, but that's the beautiful thing about nature, you can't stop her...

Coming off of a 70F degree day full of warm sunshine, daffodils, and singing birds, I thought I'd post about a recent pair of earrings that celebrate the tender, sweet, young green of Spring. 

 


This sweet, simple little pair

features a pair of my own polymer clay "bud" beads that dangle lightly from the bottom of two amazingly craggy raw green garnet stone nuggets. I textured and painted the poly beads and then kissed them with a little gold on top for some warmth. Each bead has been crowned with wee etched nickel bead caps from Maire Dodd.

 

I hope everyone is able to pause and soak up the season this week <3

Nikki 

LoveRoot on Etsy