It's the Great Pumpkin!

Pumpkin Orange Ceramic Earrings

It's the time of year for harvest colors and images, cornucopias, dried flowers and cornstalks. You get my drift? My favorite one is Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin, so these brought to mind that image.

There are four pieces of heavy wire, two forming the loops and two that will eventually form the ear wires. After attaching the wire to the ceramic focals (from Outwest on Etsy), I hammered the wire loops and the tails to the desired hardness. Czech glass dangles hang playfully from the primitive copper loops.

Linus, Charlie and I haven't lost faith. The Great Pumpkin will come, but maybe not this year.









Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy

Northern Lights

Northern Lights Earrings

As a person who has lived in the northern tier of the country for most of my life, you would think that at one time or another I would have seen the northern lights. Charged particles from the sun that dance and shimmer in the night sky in awe inspiring displays, named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora. But I am still a northern lights virgin, and have to imagine what they might look like based on the eye witness accounts of others.

Gorgeous Basha beads have the look of ancient primitive glass, with colors that dance in the light like the Aurora Borealis. So, what to do with these ethereal and slightly intimidating lampwork beads? I fashioned rustic copper arches, hammered them with a rugged texture, and darkened them. The idea was to provide a primitive looking hoop earring base for the Basha beads to hang from, surrounded by messy wrapped copper wire.




Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy

Primitive Patinas

Blue Peacock Patina Copper Earrings

Over the past couple of years, I have taken a break occasionally to create rustic hammered copper pieces. I play with joining different shapes and textures, using different weights of copper sheet, and of course there are the patinas. My goal is to develop my own style of applying colored patinas that is unique and appealing, so I play a lot. In the top pair of earrings, I use blue and green patinas over a darkening patina for a peacock effect. The colored patinas were purchased from Shannon German of Missficklemedia, who also sells tutorials on the subject.

Ruddy Red Patina Copper Earrings

On this pair of hinged copper earrings, I have combined red and yellow patinas over a darkening layer. The colored patinas go on one over another while they are still wet, so that the colors will run together a little. After the colors are dry, I applied a thin layer of Permalac to seal them.

Working with metal can be a welcome change from my usual direction with earrings. I like to mix it up, and I think it's important to maintain variety in my jewelry. Each pair of earrings should all be easily identifiable as mine, but I want each design to have its own character as well.

Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy

Take a Risk

In a departure from the usual format of focusing on the inspiration for my idea, I would like to probe into the selection process for blogging about my earrings. I'm sure each of the participating artists on Earrings Everyday has her own method for building a post around their earring creations. Maybe you are curious about mine?

Detailed advance planning doesn't work as well for me as spontaneity. Please don't interpret that to mean I'm just being lazy! The truth is I cannot decide which direction to go until the last moment. So I usually have three newly made earring pairs from which to choose, one being a variation of a signature design of mine, in other words "in my comfort zone". The pietersite earrings below fall into that category. The other two pairs are the risky ones. This time, I have one pair of very rustic hammered and hinged copper earrings with a red patina (pictured below). I also have the pair I chose to feature above that are the most risky of the three, out on the edge in a primitive style. For the body of these earrings, I used my own bone shaped polymer clay connectors. The roughly wrapped oxidized copper wire emphasizes the primitive character, as do my handmade copper ear wires. The dangling beads are Czech glass with an aged Picasso finish.

"Comfort zone" wire wrapped matched pietersite stones with leather.

Medium risk, relentlessly hammered copper earrings in a 2-part hinged design with less than precise stamping and a red patina.









Gloria Ewing

Chrysalis Tribal Jewelry
Chrysalis Too on Etsy

Hammered

Hammered Copper and Green Agate Earrings

What could be a better accompaniment for hammered copper trapezoids than hammer faceted trillion shaped green agate stones? Brilliant sea green agate stones (probably color enhanced) have been hand cut with a hammer and then tumbled to soften out their edges. The agates have a matte finish as though nature did the tumbling. On both sides of the agate trillion, I have added rustic onion shaped Peruvian blue opal briolettes that have a milky blue green color. All of the stones are wrapped in oxidized copper wire in a casual style that blends well with the hammered bodies. Simple and fun earrings for fall.

Abstract by Suzan Buckner

Suzan Buckner's abstract acrylic on wood captures that same whimsical primitive character as my earring design.







Gloria Ewing
Chrysalis Too on Etsy

Pyrotechnics

As the celebration of our country's birthday approaches, our thoughts go to a long holiday weekend with barbeques and beaches. Time for fun with friends and family at the height of summer! The highlight of the 4th of July holiday, of course, are the many fireworks displays that will be topping off the evening all across America. And being America with its competitive spirit, each town or city strives to outdo their neighbor with more extravagant displays.

In the spirit of the 4th of July, I channeled my inner pyromania into these rustic copper earrings with glowing red English cut Czech glass beads. To mimic the burst of lights, I wire wrapped small English cut Czech beads to my hammered copper connectors in a varied color pattern. They are listed in my Etsy shop.

Gloria Ewing
Chrysalis Too on Etsy
Chrysalis Jewelry on Artfire