Did you find the face yet?

Today we welcome innovative designer, prolific author and charming instructor Nealay Patel. Nealay is an artist who crafts in beads and fiber to produce jewelry designs that are striking, colorful and textured. He is a problem-solver who sees his designs as solving a puzzle. His intricate jewelry is always highly textural and full of life, using a mix of metal and fiber and beads and wire. He has authored three books: Jewelry for the New Romantic, Jewelry Designs with Knitted Wire, and his most recent, Jewelry Made with Wire & Fiber. Recently, Nealay has started doing monthly Live Facebook videos (so much fun!) featuring a kit that he sells on his Etsy site to go with it. It is called Beads & Bubbles, because there is always a glass of champagne at the ready! Nealay was kind enough to share an earring project with us from his new book.

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Picasso Earrings

Wire is something that I’m very uncomfortable working with, but that won’t really stop me. In fact, it fuels me to try harder to try to find new ways to use it, where if I screw it up, it’s okay!

I would hardly call anything of Picasso a screw up. He found ways to reinterpret what was considered normal or standard at the time. This lead me to think how wire can interact with another material to create something with interest and movement.

So, I started with a scrap of flat fiber cord and looked at it for a long time, thinking “how I can apply wire to it?” I thought the pattern on the fiber cord was gorgeous and didn’t want to cover it up.

So, after twisting and turning the wire I placed in on my table over the fiber cord by accident and took another look. There an idea was born! So after tweaking the design format a little bit, I came up with some Picasso art of my own!

This pattern is available in my book Jewelry Made with Wire & Fiber, available on Amazon.

Nealay is inviting you to come and join him at his Facebook page where he says all the action is happening!

@beadsandbubbles

GUEST POST :: Sarajo Wentling of SJ Designs Jewelry

Hello, lovelies! 

Sometimes we have an extra day or two in a month and when that happens we like to extend an invitation to designers that we enjoy to have them share their unique design perspectives. Today, the Earrings Everyday crew welcomes Sarajo Wentling of SJ Designs Jewelry. Sarajo is a regular in our monthly challenges, loves to use art beads in her designs, hand patina on metal is a specialty of hers, and she has a self-directed weekly earring challenge called New Earring Monday where she shares her latest and greatest earring pairs. Sarajo is from Minnesota and lives with her craft-beer loving husband Eric, who is also a gifted photographer. She uses one of his photos for her inspiration today. Check it out! ~Erin

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Photo by Eric Wentling

Fall is my favorite season and it's far too fleeting in Minnesota where it sometimes feels like winter has its icy grip on us for more than half the year!  These earrings are both a nod and a fond farewell to my favorite season and all its fabulous color.  I started with some yummy lampwork glass rings that I bought from Alice St. Germain of Succulent Glass at Bead Fest Philadelphia.  Their colors instantly reminded me of fall and made me think of a photo my husband had taken of some changing maple leaves.  I had just the perfect color Czech glass maple leaf beads to dangle from the lampwork rings to add a fun flair.

Fall Finery by Sarajo Wentling

I haven't done too much wire wrapping in my jewelry making pursuits beyond simple wrapped loops and bails so I had to overcome my fears of "messing up" and wasting wire.  (Seriously, why has it been so intimidating to me?  The worst thing that could possibly happen would be destroying a few cents worth of wire and having to try again.)  Anyway, I bucked up my courage, cut a length of wire and started to play.  And you know what?  I didn't mess it up at all!  Not only that, I really liked the way my wire wraps turned out!  They aren't overly precise but I think that works with the imperfect shape of the lampwork rings and the organic nature of fall foliage.  

Sarajo Wentling
Sj Designs Jewelry
http://sjdesignsjewelry.blogspot.com/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SjDesignsJewelry

GUEST POST :: Janine Lucas of Esfera Jewelry

Hello, lovelies! 

Sometimes we have an extra day or two in a month and when that happens we like to extend an invitation to designers that we enjoy to have them share their unique design perspectives. Today, the Earrings Everyday crew welcomes Janine Lucas of Esfera Jewelry. Janine is from The Netherlands and creates accessories with an eye for color, texture and pattern. I actually own one of her bracelets and a pair of earrings which are quite lovely and long, just the way I like them. She also travels around in a modified Mercedes-Benz truck, which I find completely fascinating! Check it out! ~Erin

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Serendipity, or how a mistake can turn out into something lovely.

These earrings are the result of a mistake. I first created a pair of earrings with those wonderful glass headpins from Numinosity Beads.

They were ready (so I thought) and I laid them out to take pictures. Looking at them through the camera I realized something clearly went wrong in the process of creating. The earrings were asymmetrical. And not in a good way. How did that happen? Where was my brain when I created them. So, what to do? There wasn’t much left of the wire of the headpin to string upon after undoing them.

After several attempts and a big dive into my bead stash I decided to combine them with patina leaves, Czech glass, some vintage metal components, spacer lampwork beads from Lampwork by Amy and handmade earwires from Faerystones. [Sorry, no pictures of the earrings before the redo. I couldn’t bring myself to show them to anyone. ;-) But I’m very pleased with how the redo turned out.]

 

These are available in my Etsy shop, Esfera Jewelry.

I would like to thank the wonderful team of Earrings Everyday for their daily inspiration. And a big thank you for having me as a guest on this wonderful blog!

www.etsy.com/shop/esferajewelry

www.esfera.me/travel/

Components Collaborating - guest post by Malin de Koning

Simplicity ... and a perfect match ... it doesn't have to be more complicated than that. 

Isn't it a wonderful feeling when you finally manage to find a perfect collaboration between two components.

I am so happy that these earrings finally have come together. I have had the ceramic connectors by ScorchedEarth and the enameled circular dangles by PaintingWithFire in my stash for a good while. Both lovely, and just begging to be used in earrings. So many times I've tried to create something with each of them, but separately. I've never been happy with the result before. This time I am very pleased. And it is actually just a coincidence and a bonus that they also might work as a contribution for this months We're All Ears Challenge :-). You really have to check out the beautiful images we are to be inspired by this month. 

All my best,

Malin de Koning

www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.se

Aqua Ice

Please enjoy our Guest Blogger Nathalie Lesage!

Hello! I'm Nathalie Lesage, and this is my first submission for this fabulous blog. I'm a fan, and very happy to be here!

Spring!! Where is Spring?

Between the icy cool mornings and the promising blue skies, the month of March always keeps us guessing.
But I love March, as just like nature starts to wake up in anticipation of Summer, my imagination does the same :)

My inspiration for my design today is two-fold - I was participating in a challenge with my SRAJD group  and our challenge for the week was "Circles".
I wanted to incorporate Circles and March together - and thus, my choice of gemstone was a no-brainer: The birthstone for March... Aquamarine!

I mixed the two inspirations and ended up with these earrings :)

I soldered and textured the two sizes of hoops, and 'patiently' (very patiently!) wire wrapped 38 luscious top quality Aquamarine gemstones, including a pair of fancy "ring cut" (pointy back) pear shaped drops. I finished the look with a pair of my handcrafted circular shaped ear wires.

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!

Nathalie Lesage
Metalsmith Jewelry Artist
http://www.NathalieLesageJewelry.com