The Beach at Tulum

Kyanite and Crystal Earrings

The old and the new, the rough and the polished; I am intrigued by this contrast. This particular design reminds me of a past trip to Mexico, specifically the Mayan ruins at Tulum. How dramatically the craggy rocks and the old structures stood out next to the brilliant blue green Caribbean in the background! I used rough kyanite nuggets wrapped in darkened copper wire, and attached faceted Swarovski crystal cosmic shaped beads in indicolite. Greek cast spiral drops contribute to the ancient character of these rustic dangling earrings.

2007
Tulum, Mexico















Gloria Ewing
Chrysalis Too on Etsy
Chrysalis Jewelry on Artfire

Blue Waters

Believe it or not, we are *still* dealing with snow, and you know it... I miss Summer so badly!!

Today, I've decided to venture for the first time on Polyvore, and oh my! 

I found so many beautiful things to inspire me,

and these are the earrings I made for my Carefree Beach Chic outfit:

Blue Waters Brazilian Blue Apatite Sterling Silver Hoops by Nathalie Lesage

I think these would go really well with the outfit I just created:

Wire wrapping is something I've been doing for a number of years (on and off), and which I really enjoy. It speaks to the bohemian woman living in my soul :)

These flirty 1" hoops are made with beautiful natural (untreated) Brazilian Apatite gemstones

and loads of hair fine .925 Sterling Silver wire wrapped on a pair

of my cold-forged Sterling Silver hoops.

I was lucky enough to have the super talented Eni Oken as my mentor a few years ago,

and I've learned a lot from her over time. It takes a lot of patience and time to do fine wrapping.

Since we're on the road and currently living in a place where "good" water is at a premium (we're on a campground with bad pipe water at this time), doing soldered jewelry - which requires a good amount of water for quenching, pickling, rinsing, tumbling, etc - is just not something I can do much of because we have to buy all the water we use for daily living. I have to be very frugal with it.

Therefore, I'm back to doing more wire wrapped jewelry designs instead :)

You can purchase these earrings HERE on my new website.

Thank you for stopping by and have a great day!

Nathalie Lesage

Metalsmith, Jewelry Artist

http://www.NathalieLesageJewelry.com

Coral Blooms

Oh how I adore the color coral! When I saw these art tiles from JLynn Jewels I knew I had to have them...they just popped with color! I wanted to keep them simple since the dog tag tiles are so vibrant, so I just paired them with a faceted coral glass bead and an orange bead that matched perfectly. The tiles are great because they are very lightweight and perfect for earrings.

I can picture them being worn with this fun ensemble....

Coral Blooms by kristyabner featuring summer straw purses

These earrings are available HERE in my shop!

Don't forget our April Inspiration Design Challenge. The reveal will be next Friday April 18th. 

Thanks for visiting our blog and have a fabulous weekend!

Kristy Abner

Kristy's Kreations 

Time of the Season

There's nothing like the turn of the seasons for filling you with a new impetus for designing, I find.  Now I've been making for several years, I find myself welcoming the return of certain palettes - I've just been revisiting pastel green with daffodil yellow and crisp white.  So what was I thinking, just the other day, when I made these?

Much as I love being led by the time of year, I do worry about making overtly seasonal pieces, that will, if they don't sell, start to look 'out of season'. Why I made autumn earrings in anticipation of spring, I don't know!  But I'd just received these delicious lampwork beads from Bluhealer and I've been loving these red picasso czech glass leaves and I couldn't resist! 

Hey ho!  If you fancy autumn earrings in spring, you can find them here.

I'm filling in for Kiersten today as she's under the weather. It's all slightly last minute, so I'm afraid it's a bit of a short post. To compensate, I'll leave you with this sonic treat, which popped into my head when writing this. I hadn't heard it for a stack of seasons, but it's still sounding fine!

Bye for now, Claire
(something to do with your hands)

In My Garden

Waking up to -12F when March has come and gone, can be a little disheartening. I dream of our garden back home and how wonderful it feels to smell the flowers, be "in" the present moment and take in all the incredible colors. It warms up the soul to think about all this... no matter how cold the current reality can be :-)

While I was dreaming of our garden, these pretties came to life. I love their soft brushed satin finish and the rustic details. A combination of Fine Silver (I made the hoops at the bottom), Hill Tribe Silver components and rustic nuggets of Tourmaline in earthy colors of peach, yellow, green and pink.

Feminine, romantic, full of hope for the beautiful warm weather to come... Soon, my dear garden, we will be reunited.

Have a wonderful day!

These earrings are available HERE in my Etsy Shop.

Nathalie Lesage

Metalsmith Jewelry Artist

http://www.NathalieLesageJewelry.com

We're All Ears :: April Inspiration

I am a catalog junkie. I would love to live in the pages of Pottery Barn. I think in another life I would have loved to be a set designer for a catalog like this. So I found my inspiration for April in the sale section of that site with these sweet little Skylark plates. 

I love the mod shapes on the bird, the soft leafy greens in the striped linens and the antique looking glassware that looks like it was right out of my grandmother's hutch. The dark forest wood table, twisted rope placemats, the tiny golden berries, the outline of the bird bowl and the modular hammered silverware all intrigue me. 

What inspires you from this springy tablescape?

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To participate in the We're All Ears creative challenge:

Make earrings inspired by this picture.

Write a post on your blog.

Add your exact blog post URL link to the InLinkz code right here
on Friday, April 18th.

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Faded Feathers

I've got a bit of a thing about faded shades.

I got this strand of cheery ceramic cubes recently from my local bead shop.  It's an unusual mix of colours. 

At first glance they appear to be a mix of spring pastels and brighter sherbet shades, with some denim blues thrown in - all very nice, to my eye.  Then when I took the strand apart, I found some of the colours varied around the body of the bead.  I particularly loved this pair which shaded from pale blue to a nude/stone colour. I've mixed them with some czech glass and some vintage feathers. 

The feathers were originally copper plated - I'd assumed they were solid copper. When I tried to treat them with liver of sulphur the plate simply came away, revealing a nice warm silver shade, which really suits the taupe cubes, I think. They also really match the outfit I'm wearing today but I've resisted the temptation to put them in my ears and have instead listed them in my Etsy shop.

Bye for now, Claire

(something to do with your hands)