Autumn Leaves

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Kristi Bowman Gruel, of Kristi Bowman Designs, sent me these delightful copper connectors that she colored and sealed with ice resin. I love how vivid her colors always are. I added polymer clay leaves, little ceramic flower shaped bead caps, agates and glass, along with my handmade copper ear wires.

 I'm in love with these! They are perfect for fall - but I'd wear them throughout the winter too, because these are my favorite colors to wear! You can find these earrings in my shop now. 

Linda Landig Jewelry

How I Learned to 💗 Holiday Jewelry

I have a confession to make:  I have never been a fan of holiday-themed jewelry.  In fact, the thought of making anything even vaguely "holidayish" always filled me with dread...and if that sounds a little hyperbolic, let's just say I was always less than enthusiastic about the idea.   Maybe it's just that I'd never seen much holiday jewelry that I liked over the years, but I have always avoided making anything for Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's...well, you get the picture.

But this past Christmas season, I saw a few pieces by other designers that truly knocked me out.  Monica Pryor made an exquisite wintry bracelet that was so ethereal and beautiful it could have been worn by the Queen of Winter Herself, and our own Lindsay Philipson made several pairs of Christmas-y earrings that were just plain stunning.  I began to rethink.  Could I have been wrong all these years?

So when I saw these rustic red hammered copper hearts by Shannon German when I was browsing Miss Fickle Media one day a while back...

...a strange, unfamiliar thought came to mind:  "Hmm, I could make some Valentine's Day earrings..."  I know--shocking!

But once I had the hearts in my hot little hands, I wasted no time.  I got out some red linen cording and knotted tiny copper spacers and little Czech glass rondelles (in the most luscious red!) into the cutout spaces in the hearts and then added rustic copper hearts by TierraCast. 

Happy Hearts.

I hung the earrings from my hand-formed copper ear wires and--boom--they were done!  My first holiday earrings--simple but (I hope you'll agree) kinda pretty.  :)

Now I think I might make a Valentine's Day bracelet.  (And I think I'd better hurry!)   

Thanks for reading, everyone!  See you in two weeks.  

xo  Meridy

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Nothing Ventured- Nothing Gained

Do you ever get the urge to go out on a limb and try something new? Oh if only I had a torch!!! I can only imagine the possibilities at my finger tips.  Unfortunately my living space does not accommodate this venture, but someday I hope.  Nevertheless, I fall back on what I can do, and that's paint.  I was trying to come up with a cool finish on the surface of metal.  Really loving the crackled look, I Googled how to achieve this.  Turns out you can do it with Elmer's glue, dang...that sounds easy!!  Doesn't it???

I applied enamel paint over the surface of copper, adding two different colors, one over the other.  After drying, I applied crackling gel, ( I did not use Elmer's this first go around).  The results were not as I expected so I tried to sand it off thinking I could start from scratch- NOT!!
As you can see, this removed the shiny crackle and brought out both colors of the paint as I sanded through the finish deeper. I kept going until I reached an affect I was okay with.  

They were looking a little plain, so I jazzed them up with a strip of stamped copper and some tiny copper rounds.

Not quite sure how these were going to be perceived in my shop, but I thought what the heck. Nothing ventured, nothing Gained, right?.  To my surprise they both sold right away ☺

Thanks for taking a peek and would love to hear which finish resonates with you most. 
Bye for now!  Lynn

My ETSY Shop

Yucca Bloom on ETSY

Copper Spiral Earrings

I love spirals.  They are found throughout nature, art, mathematics, space and more.  Its fun to keep your eyes out for spirals as you walk through a city or in nature.

From an apartment door in Seattle.

By Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17114028

Spiral Galaxy

So naturally I fell in love with these copper spiral charms by Kristi Bowman Designs.

The charms look so pretty with these faceted prehenite beads, but their oblong shape looked awkward with the shape of the copper.  So I tried several versions of what you see above.  First I discovered that 6 prehenite beads made the circle too large. I tried using 4 beads on Fireline, but the Fireline wouldn't hold a round shaped.  So I tried 4 beads on thin wire and found they were hard to shape nicely. They made sharp angles with gaps between the beads that left the wire exposed.    When I added some matte crystal seed beads between the prehenite, I was able to bend the wire smoothly, without gaps between the beads.   Sometimes it is surprising how much fiddling around it takes to get things just right.

I'm pleased with these now, and I'll probably try this same approach with some other earring charms and a different gemstone.

If you'd like to add these earrings to your spring and summer wardrobe, you can find them here.
And now I'll leave you with one of my favorite nature spirals: A sunflower.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Copper Love

I do love copper more than other metals. I always admire the jewelry others make using Sterling Silver, and have worked with it in wire form a very tiny bit, as well as brass, but they just don't feel as "right" to me. I have decided to expand my horizons once again and go back to trying both more silver and brass in the future; today it's still copper.

These copper "Ripple Slim Sticks" started as two small pieces of left over sheet. I played with them for a while pondering whether I wanted to use them right then or not. Then I grabbed a few high-tech devices, a slim pen, a paint brush, stepped pliers. :) That was the fun part.

Ripple Slim Sticks

was a bad day for picture taking ;)

The edges were ground and polished. As an aside. . . . have you ever used the polishing wheel on a dremel? I just recently tried it. It's an off white, small wheel attachment that looks like felt. Amazing! Doesn't seem to me as if it could do much of anything but it smooths the rough metal beautifully! Anyway, they were oxidized, then I applied a blue patina. These required only one coat, about 12 hours.

I started off dangling colorful beads down in the usual fashion and never got past a few beads. It blurred the Ripple Slim Sticks. So I decided to dangle them up! Pulled it together with a handcrafted copper bead at the top and a small piece of wire for the loop.

So that's about it. Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Norbel Marolla

She Flies Again - Etsy

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Citrus Swirl Earrings

While citrus fruit does not grow here, in Washington state, our recent gorgeous weather would have you thinking otherwise.  As I was making today's earrings, the colors in Kristi's Bowman's copper components were giving me citrusy (I just invented a new word) thoughts.

Wouldn't these just be super cute with shorts or a sun dress (along with a drink that has a little umbrella in it!)?

I paired Kristi's copper dangles with some green glass discs and some orange and white stones, which I think are fire agates (if you know otherwise, please tell me in the comments).

 The Citrus Swirl Earrings are available at Linda Landig Jewelry.
I know this is kind of a short post, but I need to go attend to my citrus mixed drink with the cute lime green umbrella.  Till next time...

-Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

Riley's Day Earrings

Yesterday was my grandson, Riley's 5th birthday party!  Riley, his dad (our son) and Riley's mom live in the eastern part of Washington State, while we live in the western part. The Cascade Mountain Range divides our state.  On the west side, where we live, the climate is temperate and it rains a lot in the fall and winter.  On the eastern side it is arid, with a steppe-like geography.  It is very hot in the summer and cold in the winter.

So although we just live 4 hours away from one another, it was much warmer there yesterday, and there were many more flowers than on our side of the mountains.  It was a delight to drive around and see pink and white dogwoods, huge lilac bushes, tulips and fruit trees in bloom.  If you know me, then you know that I love flowers and that they are endlessly inspiring to me.

The lilacs were especially inspiring.  They smell so heavenly. So when I reached for these copper components by Kristi Bowman, the lilac color really called to me.  I highlighted that color with connectors I fashioned out of purple WoolyWire and silver-lined green pony beads.  I'm so pleased with these, because they fill me with all the joy of a sunny, flower-filled spring day.

-Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

Lilac Tapestry Earrings

 I met Earrings Everyday team leader, Kristi Bowman for lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant a couple of weeks ago.  I asked her to bring along her new colored copper components and I picked out a gorgeous earring pair.

I could picture in my mind how I wanted the earrings to look.  It didn't seem like it would be too hard.  I've certainly done wired wraps across the face of beads before.  No sweat, right?

 I added the wavy copper discs to accent the copper in Kristi's components and that's where the challenge started.  The wraps needed to be placed on the parts of the discs that dipped downwards, but the discs spun around whenever I put pressure on them from the wire wraps. I finally got the first earring  wrapped the way I envisioned it, but I ended up having to cut the wire off off the other earring and start over again.

But I kind of like the challenge of problem solving when making jewelry.  So fussed with them a bit more and I love how they turned out.  Ah, but the problems did not end there...

I left my computer for about 10 minutes to take photos of some of my ceramic components and when I came back my screen was black and the computer could not be started.  A trip to the computer repair shop resulted in a diagnosis of the motherboard in need of replacement. :(  So Plan B was to take pictures of the earrings and upload them to my husband's laptop, where I could then write this post.

However, there were a few additional hiccups along the way involving my camera and our other laptop, which is why I am currently posting this blog entry at 1:50 a.m.!!!  But I prevailed!  There are lovely earrings with Kristi's components and an on-time blog post. The Lilac Tapestry Earrings are available in my shop.  Happy Wednesday!

Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

Kimono

I love these beautiful Mint Criffles from Kimberly Rogers and I paired them with some of my new Colored Copper components. When I put them together they immediately reminded me of a Kimono.

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And check out these Handmade Shoes!

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Kristi

KristiBowmanDesign.com

KristiBowmanDesign.Etsy