Hula hoops

Today I will keep it short and simple with these colorful earrings :)



- Lampwork glass rings: Earthshine Beads
- Polymer clay beads: Margit Boehmer 
- Brass beads, rings, bead caps and earwires
- Swarovski crystal

Thank you for stopping by. These are now available in my shop.
I wish you a wonderful day with lots of joy, sunshine and happiness.

Janine

Esfera Jewelry

My etsy shop

My website/blog

My facebook page

Sea and Earth

I'm delighted to have gotten my hands on some of Darlene Fortier House's and Sasha Crow's components recently. I actually won the stamped soldered abalone shapes from Sasha in a giveaway and made a custom order with Darlene from ArtisticRejuvenations for these lovely enameled shapes.

Just a little iridized metallic pyrite and we've got ourselves a dandy pair that brings me right back to Maine with the pearly sheen and mussel shell speckled purples.

You can find Sasha Crow here and on facebook here

 You can find Darlene's torch enameled components here

Enjoy your week and thanks for looking at my latest creations!

Kimberly Rogers

www.numinositybeads.etsy.com

www.facebook.com/numinositybeads

www.facebook.com/groups/967164829979604

https://www.instagram.com/numinosity/

What's in a Face?

Hello! And Happy June.

I don't have a lot of clear early childhood memories, but there are a handful that I have always remembered, for whatever bizarre reason as they don't seem to connect to anything major at all, and one of them has to do with faces. I was a very young girl, obviously working on expanding my mind, which it certainly needed based on the thoughts I was having. :) I remember clearly pondering and being perplexed by the fact that every person on the planet looked so different, when we all have two eyes, a nose and a mouth. Remember, I was really, really young. :) But that was the beginning of my fascination with faces, their expressions, and my emotional reactions to them. Not just human faces; I'm fascinated by canines, felines, other primates. Faces in photographs, paintings, sketches, I love them all.

So it was no surprise to me when I found myself gravitating to faces in jewelry components as well. And there is so much to choose from. 

Today's earrings are "Serene Faces" made by Andrea Salkowe of Josephine Beads. They are, indeed, serene, and this pair is graced with a beautiful, high-gloss, golden brown glaze with shadows and shadings of deep brown. Simply beautiful. The glaze seems to almost sparkle.

"What's in a Face"

Initially these earrings were a fiesta of color, and they were fun, but they had lost some of their serenity, and I wanted them to stay serene. So a two-color palette is where I landed. I used varying shades of brown aged glass beads, natural Turquoise disk stones and matte finish, opaque turquoise glass beads, with one rogue red glass bead on each, all wound on ball-tip headpins I made with 20 gauge copper wire, and 22 gauge copper wire was used to wrap above the faces. 

As an aside, I generally don't like working with 22 gauge copper wire. Even though the wire I use is "half hard," 22 gauge is "wimpy," even when work hardened. But many things, like these Turquoise disks, won't fit on 20 gauge. They just require a little extra TLC.  And Black Lip Shell heishi beads sit atop the Turquoise disks.

What's in a Face?

Thought I'd also share with you my current little stash of Face Beads. All of them are ceramic. The artisans who made them are Jana Bliznakova of Happy Fish Things; Petra Carpreau of Scorched Earth on Etsy; Andrea Salkowe of Josephine Beads; Nadia Karepencheva of Nadia Terra. I have a whole lot of fun to look forward to! :)

Fun Fun Fun!

Thank you so much for taking the time to take a look. We appreciate it! I'll be back on the 21st of June. 'Til then, I wish you all days filled with sunshine, peace & joy. 

Norbel Marolla
She Flies Again on Etsy
She Flies Again on Facebook
She Flies Again on Amazon Handmade

Swedish Druzy

Check out those wonderful druzy beads i got just the other day. I wanted to showcase them with all their glitter and exciting shapes. Hang them just simply from a great looking thin chain with some messy wrapping, and have them dangling a lot when being worn. 

Ingredients:

Blue and yellow/gold druzy crystal nuggets with electroplated coating

Messy wrapped oxidezed copper wire

Verdigris patinated copper chain by MissFickleMedia

Handmade oxidized copper earring hooks

And some extra info:
My earrings are extra suitable to wear on a day like this. As today, the 6th of June, is the Swedish National Day. And the Swedish flag is blue and yellow. Below a very typical view from the countryside of Sweden on a beautiful summer's day. We do love our flag.

All my best,

Malin
www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com

SparaSparaSparaSpara

We're All Ears :: June Inspiration

We have a local ice cream place that is only open from March-October called Belt's Soft Serve. It is a well-documented tradition that people line up overnight in March, braving the frigid temperatures by camping out in the parking lot to be one of the first customers when they open. And the last night they are open has crowds stretching around the block for hours. It is THE place to be seen in town, and is pretty tasty, too!

[Photo credit :: Christian Widell :: Unsplash]

They have cones that are like 3 feet tall and all sorts of yummies including their own home-made peanut butter cups, brownies and cookie dough for flurries. They also use a lot of local produce throughout the season, and that is awesome.

[Photo credit :: veeterzy :: Unsplash]

I do not go there often, so when I do it has to be special. I wait all year for the small window of opportunity to get a home-made strawberry shortcake sundae. A home-baked shortbread cake riding a mound of creamy soft-serve vanilla ice cream drizzled with heaps of local strawberries (always splurge for extra!) and topped with whipped cream. That is summer in a bowl for me!

[Photo credit :: Danielle MacInnes :: Unsplash]

So this month, in anticipation of this limited-time treat (only available for the last half of June! In between my travels this month you can bet I will be there more than once!), I thought that we could use strawberries as our theme this month.

[Photo credit :: Benil Benjamin :: Unsplash]

Have you ever heard of the website Unsplash? I discovered it this spring and it is chock-full of photography that is FREE to use. That's right. FREE. All of these images are from Unsplash.

You are actually encouraged to use them on your website, remix them into an art piece, post them to your blog. I find the collections especially endearing. And the pictures themselves are outstanding in their subject matter, composition, lighting. They seem like mysterious artifacts that need to have a story told about them. 

See you on June 17th for the sweet and juicy reveal!

Seaside Earrings

Earlier this week I designed this sea star necklace.  The colors are so delightful and beachy that I wanted to keep designing with the same color palette.

So I revisited the orange, turquoise and seafoam green colors when making today's earrings.

I think the necklace and earrings could be worn together, without being too matchy-matchy.
I made the ceramic charms and layered them with several shades of orange.

The ceramic is topped by stunning lampwork glass beads by HMB Studio and small knotted cord beads that I bought in Oaxaca, Mexico a couple of years ago. Perched atop the cord beads are tiny, little orange O-rings. I tied a bit of hand dyed ribbon just above the ceramic charms, covering the wire wrapping on the loop.

The ocean is my happy place and these earring bring me the smell of salt water, the cry of the gulls and the endless pounding of the surf.  The Seaside Earrings are available in my shop.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Stop to Hear the Frogs Sing

For those who have known me since childhood, it will come as no surprise to hear me say that I'm a fan of frogs and toads. I don't know what it is, but they have always made me squeal and immediately squat down to try and catch them. Mind you, not to hold them captive or torture or scare them, but to give their little heads a tap and whisper some cute equivalent of "who's a good boy". 

Even today as an adult I have the same reaction, much to the chagrin (and embarrassment) of my husband. I don't care if a grown-ass woman shouldn't be chasing frogs in a creek, I'm gonna do it. Because I do what I want. 

 
Ground zero for this favorite pastime was my grandparents' farm in central Ohio. They had several acres on which they grew various crops, most importantly strawberries. Locally famous for their pick-your-own berries, their farm was a haven for my brother and I growing up. And especially when it came to the small pond sitting at the back of their land. You wouldn't believe the frogs, fish, turtles, snakes, insects, and fowl that would flock to this watering hole. In the spring you could see velvety soft tadpoles teeming around the shallow edges. As the year progressed, they morphed into wee frogs the size of a quarter and would sun themselves on the embankments. We tried to quietly creep up on them but their keen froggy senses warned them every single time, sending them plopping back into the water with a chorus of "eeeeps". If they were lucky enough to survive adolescence, they would grow into one of the many grandaddy bullfrogs that would serenade us with deep, throaty "moos" while we were picking strawberries in the fields. To this day, if you want me to tear up, just put me in a wide open field on a hot, sunny, breezy day and let me listen to the frogs.

My earrings for today feature small smooth stone bullets of limey green serpentine. The mottled colors and patterns on these stones remind me of the amphibians I adore so much. I have hung them beneath stacks of precious bits, as I am wont to do: grungy antique clear glass "dogon" beads from Africa, two-tone tiger kamagong ebony wood beads from the Philippines, vintage brass saucers, and wee star-shaped metal bead caps. I added in some decorative blackened silver soldering, as I am also wont to do, and hung everything from my extra long curvy copper ear wires.

For all of the nostalgia and anecdotes that I share on this blog, I suppose I do have a loose theme that ties them all together, and today's post is no different. Please don't ever become so jaded that you lose your wonder for the world and its tiny miracles. Even if it's as simple as stopping to hear the frogs sing. 

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy