Indian Summer

We were certainly having an Indian Summer here last week - warm and sunny enough to get out on our bikes to the local wildlife reserve, sit and watch the swans gliding regally over the water. Leaves are turning from green to gold and red, berries are ripening, and there are some fabulous textures around as well.

Todays earrings are full of texture - Helen Backhouse wrapped polymer clay that has been textured with silk fabric and coloured perfectly for the season. The 'stamens' are Kimberly Rogers lampwork headpins. Lucy Haslam's dark copper earwires and crusty rusty czech glass finish them perfectly.  

The second pair are again Helen's polymer clay, textured with her grandmother's old silk bedspread. Beautiful brocade-like deep green, perfect with malachite, vintage venetian gilt collars and tiny beaten brass drops from Bernie Ryman.

Both pairs will be available in our upcoming 'Indian Summer' show this weekend over in The Very Nice group in Facebookland. Hope you can join Helen, Lucy and me on a brief tour of India and it's vibrant colours.
                                                  Keep well, and see you in two weeks.

                                                                      Lindsay x

                                                           
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Siren red

Hello Earring Lovers!

I have been making quite a few pairs of earrings for a showcase at the end of this month over in Facebook Land. I particularly enjoyed making this pair.

The starting point was a pair of delicious enamelled 'tinnies' by Kimberly Rogers of Numinosity. I love everything about these! The shape. The colour (that siren red!). The texture. They remind me a little of a Rothko painting -dense colour and lots to see the more you look.

I wanted to accentuate the angle of the charms with some oxidised brass. I like the way they make the tinnies background, rather than foregroud. Some pretty contrasting czech glass and a little oxidised brass hoop to add to the clean lines, and voila! 

Hope you like them. There'll be in my showcase over on The Earrings Show on the 29th March (Facebook). See you next month :-)

Sue

Utterly Lovely Stuff

Moongazing.

A couple of weeks ago I was meeting my sister in town and had an hour or so to spare, so I dropped into our city museum for a coffee. They had an exhibition on entitled Museum of the Moon. There was a replica of the moon hanging from the high, domed ceiling which could be viewed from three levels - this was the central one. The exhibits included a scaled down Apollo rocket, a spacesuit circa 1968 and lots of artefacts detailing the significance of the moon to ancient civilisations. I was so fired up by all this I have been instagramming it like mad. I felt a tribute in jewellery was warranted!

 

I had several copper pieces by Helen Backhouse at home with the same sort of surface pattern - some from a wormcast rock I brought her from Greece last year, and some  from a piece of rose quartz she used as a mould.  In the end, I made a necklace, bracelet and earrings - and here are the earrings. 

 

 

With the textured copper pieces I have used glorious, galaxy-like lampwork bicones by Angelika Schott and wrapped them with copper wire and little satellite swarowski crystals.

Here's the view from below - while I was having a latte and a toasted teacake for breakfast! Life doesn't get much better. If you are in the UK, this exhibition is touring the country so do try and catch it if you can. You won't be sorry.  

 

 

 

Hope the weather is being kind to you - its unseasonably warm here and the plants are shooting up fast. See you in two weeks.

 

Lindsay x 

 

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Fun with Fungus

Fungus. Mushrooms. Toadstools. How often do you really look at them, and see how complex a structure they are? Shapes and patterns. Especially on the underside.

It's been warm and wet over here and fungi are springing up all over the place. Don't they have just that little element of magic about them? Home for fairies and elves. Often at the base of an old,  possibly magic, tree. I've been instagramming them like mad as I walk round our village.

During one of her shows, my eye was caught by these translucent polymer clay pieces by Jeni Houser Alasad . They looked to me like the underside of a toadstool, and I loved those rich garnet brown colours on the edges.  Anyway, I missed them with my slow broadband but Jeni made me a special pair.
How to do them justice? They're extremely unusual.  And quite large. I've given them a few coats of looking at (as my gran would often say) and here we are.

I've tied them up; bound with copper wire and irish waxed linen cord, to Lucy Haslam's twisted sisters, her hand made chain and beaten copper circular earwires. The fab ceramic drops in metallic garnet are, of course, Petra's.  Loads of texture, just like the real thing.

 

                    Hope you like them. And don't forget to look around for your own earthly treasure  
                                                    - you never know what you may find!

                                                                      See you in two weeks

                                                                              Lindsay xx

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