Bohemian Spirit

I have had these bohemian teardrops from Vintaj FOREVER. I've kind of been hoarding them until inspiration struck, I guess. Well, it finally did.

                                       You will find these earrings available for sale HERE.

I would wear with them with this ensemble that I created on Polyvore....

Bohemian Spirit by kristyabner featuring roxy shoes

Thanks for stopping by...would love a comment from you!

Kristy Abner

Kristy's Kreations

Festive Sparkles

Over the years, I've accumulated a large inventory of high-quality jewelry components, and as I learned new metal working techniques, I sort of moved away from using ready-to-use parts and favored doing my own. But, these components are so pretty, I decided to bring them out to play, and make a good number of earrings for the Christmas Craft Show last month.

It was really nice to offer them as well as my more time-consuming/higher priced designs. 

These new Swarovski Crystal Earrings were very well received, and I have decided to also offer them on my website.... These are just a few examples of the earrings styles that I made:

Amber & Montana Blue Copper Chain Earrings (Sold)

All these earrings are set on non-allergenic Titanium ear hooks (from RioGrande), and are created using USA-made Tierra Cast components (lead-free), beautiful chains (from ArtBeads), sparkling colorful Swarovski Crystals and tiny glass beads.

Light Green & Blue Gunmetal and Gold Tone Earrings

  It's fun to play and design earrings using the various textural and visual elements.

You can really come up with new fun and flirty designs :)

Lilac and Clear Silver tone and Gunmetal Earrings

Each pair is unique (one of a kind) in terms of design elements and/or color.

Playing with the vibrant colors and beautiful shapes

of the Swarovski Crystals always makes me happy!

I'm not finished uploading the bulk of these designs on my website (I hope to have this completed within the next couple of days), but if you want to take a look at what I have listed so far,

you can find this new collection in my lead-free pewter section HERE.

Thank you for stopping by & have a wonderful weekend!

Nathalie Lesage at http://www.NatLJ.com

New! Free Shipping to Canada & USA on orders of $50.00 or more... don't miss out!

Chain Gang

I designed these earrings around these wonderful African brass beads from Afrobeadia, and my embossed sterling silver rings. I fashioned copper chain links to join the beads together.

I had so much fun with the design, I did it again with my copper embossed rings, and fine silver links! Both pair feature Argentium silver earwires embellished with copper beads and brass wire.

And here's a little tune from the Pretenders to start your work-day off right!

Winter Blues

Got our first snow of 2015 here in Maryland yesterday, and I immediately thought of big bulky sweaters, jeans and boots!  These cuties would be the perfect accessory all the way into Spring!

Cool speckled blue stoneware drops from Diana Ptaszynski of Suburban Girl Studio, LLC dangle beneath copper washers that have been hammered, then wrapped with copper wire and colorful Czech glass beads.

I added a couple more glass beads in between, and finished with some my favorite lever-back ear wires...these are the only mass-produced ones I use!

Happy Winter!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry

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

We're All Ears :: January Inspiration

I am not really one to follow trends too much, but I do find it fascinating to watch the Pantone Color of the Year predictions.
Mostly, I think they get it wrong. 

Do you remember last year's Radiant Orchid? The orchid purple-pink showed up on all sorts of things in 2014, and will likely continue its dominance into 2015 (since most of us are much more glacial in changing despite what the color trend 'Influencers' would like), but I am not so sure that it is a color that I could live with long term. It seems something that might be fine in small doses, like on fingernails, not walls. So I never fully embraced the Radiant Orchid color for the year.

When they announced the 2015 Spring Color palette, I have to say that I was a bit underwhelmed. Sure, sherbet tones are somewhat expected for the spring, but what I didn't like was how greyed out and muted they were. Even in its truest form, Marsala, the 2015 Pantone Color of the Year, described on their site as

A naturally robust and earthy wine red,
Marsala enriches our minds, bodies and souls

is a lovely color. I confess that it is always my go-to for lipsticks and pedicures. I even have a pair of suede boots in this shade (I must be ahead of the times!). But when paired with all the other tones, it really reads a bit sad to me. 

I want bright tones that slap me in the face and wake me up from my winter slumber! When spring rolls around I am ready to dump the grey and washed out tones of winter. These are a bit ho-hum to me.

Still, there are some gems in here...Like the fresh Lucite Green, the strong Classic Blue, and the quiet Glacier Gray. So maybe I will be able to find something in there that I like.

What colors do YOU like from the 2015 Pantone Spring color forecast?
What will you be wearing - or creating with - in the coming year?

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

Make earrings inspired by this inspiration.

Write a post on your blog.

Add your exact blog post URL link to the
InLinkz code right here on 

Friday, January 16th.

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Here's to 2015

So, it's fallen to me to wish you a happy new year and share the first pair of earrings of 2015!  How I wish I had a new pair to share with you! I've not made many earrings for a few weeks now and those I have made are for magazine submissions so they're under wraps.  Lacking new earrings, I thought I'd look back, on my blog, to see what earrings I'd made this time last year and share those. To my amazement, I found that the earrings I made a year ago are the first pairs I shared on this blog, which means I've been a contributor for a whole year! I can't believe it!  Since that approach didn't work either, I thought I'd share one of the most - what's the word? - significant(?) pairs of earrings, personally speaking, that I made in the last year.

These earrings were the first thing that I made with my new ceramic beads when I started making them last summer. (The lampwork drops were made by Anne Gardanne.)  Starting to make ceramic beads and getting a kiln were certainly the most significant jewellery-related events of 2014 for me. Perhaps the most significant thing full stop! I love it and I'm looking forward to doing much more of it in 2015.  What have you lined up for 2015? Whatever the year brings you, may it include many, many earrings!

Anyway, once again, let me wish you all a Happy 2015!

Bye for now, Claire

www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com