Raw Silver Post Stud Earrings

Feeling grateful for so many things today. For open windows with a cool breeze. Fresh air coming in. Tea this morning with a good friend. Laughs, smiles. My jewelry bench and tools. Being inspired. And also, for this blog. For all the sharing and inspiration.

Today's offering has been rattling in my head for days. I wanted to do some post dangles with small hoops and raw silver nuggets and this is what I came up with...

These earrings are .999 Fine Silver except for the posts and post nuts which are .925 Sterling Silver. 

This set is a nice light weight and I think they'll be great for everyday wear. I am very pleased with how they came out and plan on doing more in this style with gemstone dangles. Stay tuned..

Happy Spring! 

 

 

 

Pobrecitos

I was chatting with buddy Kim of NuminosityBeads the other day and she called something or someone a "pobrecito". Being from the Midwest, Spanish isn't as prevalent in my lexicon as I'd like it be. Since I'm a word hound and love to pepper my conversations with obscure underused linguistic gems, I immediately googled this funny little term. Turns out a "pobrecito" is more or less a "poor little guy". What a perfect expression!

 You stubbed your pinkie toe--it's a pobrecito.

Your basset hound puppy trips over his big floppy ears--he's a pobrecito.

You always got picked last for the kickball team in gym class--you're a pobrecito (or pobrecita).

As I was in the midst of creating a silverworked agate drusy earring series several weeks ago, I found myself cooing over this wee lilac purple pair. So tiny, so easy to overlook, so easy to underappreciate next to their bigger, swankier mates. The earlier conversation with Kim was fresh in my mind, and voila, a star was born. 

To create these teeny post earrings I cut, soldered, filed, and sanded sterling silver sheet and bezel wire plus trios of my hand-cast cratered granules. Such a soft spring hue to usher in all the budding flowers, bulbs, and blooming trees. Squeal-worthy little babies.

So now you have a new word for the day--use it with abandon!

Happy Wednesday,
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Crocus, Anyone?

This morning I was admiring the recent posts here on the EE blog and was struck by the color palette--we all seem to be in the mood for spring pastels, including me, for once. I'm usually not one for pastels, as I prefer bold earthy darker hues. But the recent warmer weather, sunshine, and brisk breezes have me in the mood for crocus purple, anemone blue, and hyacinth pink. 

At Tucson this year I snagged a handful of matched agate drusy earring pairs in beautifully muted pastel hues. The adjective "glam" is not a word I would typically use to describe my jewelry, but when I saw these soft little drusies I was struck with a vision of sparkle. And so the past week I've been working on a series of metalworked post and drop earrings featuring these wondrous little miracles of nature.

This particular pair features a beautiful pair of amethyst drusies in soft lilac purple with a warm amber tinge. I created simple sterling silver bezels and then accented the shapes of the stones using some of my beloved cratered hand-cast granules. I wanted to design these post/stud earrings so that when worn, the shape and sparkle would really light up the curve of your lobes.


I'm still working my way through all 10 pairs of these, so stay tuned in about a week to see the results! 

 




Happy Wednesday and Happy Spring!

Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Look Who's Coming to Dinner...

...it's Leland!

I know I've posted about this crazy cool material before, but I just finished up a series of silversmithed pieces that all feature it, so I figured it would be worth revisiting.

Leland Blue slag glass is nearly 150 years old. It was a byproduct of the iron smelting industry that took place in the mid-late 1800s in the town of Leland on Lake Michigan. Iron ore was heated to extremely hot temperatures in order to separate the metal from the non-usable impurities. Those impurities, when cooled, formed a blue-tinted slag glass---waste, trash, junk. 
Or so they thought at the time. 

In an effort to be rid of the useless material, it was dumped into the waters of Lake Michigan. Over the past century, the waves and sand have tumbled these chunks of slag, breaking them down into smaller nuggets and gently polishing them to varying degrees. To this day, if one goes for a leisurely stroll along the beaches in Leland, you may get lucky enough to find a piece of the beloved local treasure. 

 

This past summer while I was visiting fellow EE blogger and good friend Kimberly Rogers in Michigan, we made a special trip to the beaches of Leland to try and find some of this cool material. We had a blast, got wave-kissed and sunburned, and came away with small bags full of blue-tinted treasures.

For the time being, I'm a little too attached to my self-collected nuggets to let them go in pieces of jewelry. But flash forward to this year's Tucson gem and mineral shows, and I scored a nice little clutch of Leland blue cabs. So allow me to show off these new little post earrings featuring bullet-shaped pieces. 

Squeal with me over how wee they are!
Lookit the bubbly air pockets!
Doesn't that gemmy teal blue make you wanna go barefoot on the beach?

I know, I know, you're rolling your eyes at my enthusiasm. It's ok, I'm used to it. But seriously, even though Leland Blue isn't a naturally occurring material, it's still pretty damn cool :) 

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki 
LoveRoot on Etsy

Beach Girl

The weather is changing here in WA state. They say we will be in the 80's later this week. My inspiration keeps turning to spring and even summer. Everything is SO green... and bugs are coming out again. This will be our first summer with our new (rescue) dog Molly. She cracks me up the way she chases bees and pretty much anything that flies. One of these days, I'm afraid she will catch one... 

One of my first jewelry stamps - the dragonfly. I think I've only used it twice before. I'm really pleased with how these earrings turned out. I feel like the Iolite with it's royal blue color invokes images of tall blue Iris flowers... and the dragonflies buzzing about... 

Beach Girl by cindybeads featuring etched glasses

These earrings are available at Cindy's Art & Soul 

 http://www.cindysartandsoul.com

Peace and Blessings ~ 

Cindy