Black and White

I'm preparing for my first local show of the year, lots of earring making going on!!

I remember during my last few shows I had a few people request black and white so I decided to be prepared for that this time around.

Black and White Headpins and beads with a copper ring in between.

Fun Black and White Lampwork by Felicia Wartnik, I've added some Pyrite nuggets, metal dangles and a tiny splash of color at the top!

Cool Black and White Beads with touches of Turquoise.

Black and white with a little subtle Rainbow Action by  Lea Avroch, I've also added some of my favorite little Glass beads in bright Turquoise.

Quite a bit of color but based in Black and White.

Amazing mismatched coordinated Lampwork Beads by Carla Mahan Graber with fun Metal Genie caps on top and tiny red glass accents.

If you are in the Snohomish WA area on July 16th please come check out the 

Made in SnoCo Summer Festival

Kristi

KristiBowmanDesign.com

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La Serenissima Pt II - Ciao

Every February for hundreds of years Venice has been famous for it's Carnevale. Ending at the Christian celebration of Lent, 40 days before Easter, it's characterised by the entire population and visitors from all over the world frolicking around the city dressed in elaborate costumes - and masks.

Wandering around the back streets of the city you come across many mask shops - from the cheaper tourist souvenir versions to the specialists, still handmaking in papier mache, and hand painting these wonders. Go through to the back rooms of these shops and you can see the artists at work - no pictures allowed though, as they are very protective of their masterpieces, but more than happy to show you. The most elaborate ones are kept there, out of the daylight, ready to hire out just as we hire out hats for weddings.  Below is a photo from a shop window (so excuse the reflection)  - a fabulous gold creation; and can you see the lace earrings, another speciality?

I've had these black ceramic masks for years so now was my opportunity to use them. I wanted to try and achieve a  more elaborate look in a traditional mask shape so I attached them with vintage bronze wire to a pair of  Helen Backhouse's polymer clay leaves in a bronzed brown. The tiny black glass duos at the bottom are some of my mother's old vintage beads. Very appropriate, as my mum always wanted to visit Venice and never did; after she died in 2011 my sister and I hopped up the Rialto Bridge at midnight one hot August night and threw some of her ashes into the Grand Canal. Completing the circle of life. Death needn't be the end of your story.

    Our visit this time was short - only 4 days - but I will go back again. So it's Ciao for now, Venice!

                                                                   See you all next time

                                                                          Lindsay xx

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Throwback Thursday Favorites

I was archiving pictures of jewelry pieces I've made over the years recently, and as I was looking through my designs, I was so thankful that it's so easy now with digital pictures to keep a record of what we've done over time.... how we progress.... how our style changes.

It's also great to keep pictures of all our past work, to be able to go back and revisit old favorites, and maybe change them up a bit and offer a new updated version of the designs. I also realized that I've forgotten some of the designs I'd done (is it because I'm getting old? Or too many years of design work? Maybe a bit of both...)

So today, instead of making and showing you a new pair of earrings, I wanted to show you a few designs I had almost forgotten, but love so much - hopefully they will inspire you with some new design ideas!

One of my favorites is wire wrapping. Some wire wrapping with unusual pairing (pearls and Labradorite - these pearls were huuuuuuge and almost perfectly round - just stunning), or incorporating some wire work in building unusual shapes.... like the triangular design of the Tribal Turquoise earrings below:

Large Freshwater Pearls, Labradorite, 14kt Gold Filled wire wrapped Earrings

Tribal Turquoise and Sterling Silver Earrings

Designs vary from what appears to be a complex chainmaille design in Copper and Sterling, to the simplest of creation (a gemstone dangling in the middle of a chain -> that one made the front page on Etsy back in the day and was a popular seller for me for a little while):

Kings Scale Copper and Sterling Silver Mystic Topaz Earrings

Fancy twisted cut Amethyst on a simple sterling chain - Made the front page of Etsy

We can't forget hoops! They come in all sorts of style (I never get tired of 'em):

Triple Sterling Pink Tourmaline Soldered Hoops

Summer Daisies Fine Silver and Sterling Silver Rustic Hoops

Tanzanite Vine Sterling Silver Hoops

So what about you? Do you enjoy looking back and revisiting some of your past work? Do you use them as inspiration when your muse has taken a vacay? Do you have a favorite technique (chainmaille, wire wrapping, soldering, viking knit, cold connections, stringing, etc) that you tend to go back to or incorporate every chance you get?

I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane with me. I hope that I will eventually feel well enough to be able to make more of these designs again, but if not, I'm going to go with the flow, and see where the currents take me.

You can find my latest jewelry designs in My Garden Of Love Etsy shop HERE, as well as my handmade jewelry components.

I want to wish my fellow Canucks a very Happy Canada Day (150 years!!!) as well as a Happy 4th of July to all of our dear American readers!

Cheers,
Nathalie
My Garden Of Love Etsy Shop
The Crafty Tribe Etsy Shop

La Serenissima

La Serenissima - the 'most serene republic' of Venice. Unbelievably, it was only two weeks ago I was there with my sister (her 65th birthday treat), my brother in law and him indoors. It's the time of the Bienniale, and the city is full of art installations.

Do you find the same - once you get home, back to the routines of work, child care or whatever takes up your busy day, holidays seem to fade quickly? Thank heavens photographs enable you to relive the highlights.

I'd intended to write this week's blog about my visit and spent the days searching for inspiration for the earrings.

The first thing that strikes you in Venice is the colours.  The lagoon and canals - the blues and greens of the water, the black and gold of the gondolas lined up at sunset ready for the evening; and the buildings lining the Grand Canal - many of them old palazzos, some still family homes, some hotels.  Terracotta, sepia, peach, cream, white. The green of the algae where building meets water. Every one majestic.

              The colours are alive in my head. And in my photos. Still, no idea for earrings!

We arrive home to a pile of mail, among which were packages from Linda Younkman and Patricia Ritchie. Have a brew, open the packages. Never mind unpacking - that can wait!   And there they were, waiting to be put together. In Linda's enamels were all the colours I had been looking at for the last four days - and the black waves - they were the gondolas, lined up at sunset, the moon rising over the grand Canal. Echoed perfectly by Patricia's lampwork.

 

I'll be back in  three days, as I'm covering a spare day - and I'll be looking at another important and very old tradition in Venice - masks. Hope to see you then.

 

Lindsay 

 

 

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Beach Walk

Me, about 1966, on the Washington coast

Do you walk the beach with one eye on the waves and the other eye scanning the sand for sea treasures? These earrings look like I had emptied my pockets after a day at the ocean and had gathered together my best finds.

Spiral sea shells, tiny stars reminiscent of starfish and vintage coral (I never buy new coral, because coral reefs are dying in much of the world).

It's almost as if you could hear the roar of the surf while wearing these earrings - the next best thing to being there.

Me, backpacking on the Washington coast, about 1974.

Linda Landig Jewelry

The best-laid plans

Hello lovely peeps,

How are you all doing? I hope you are enjoying wonderful weather. Here in Greece we had unusually cold and wet weather for the month of June. But summer has arrived. It is 9 AM and 30 degrees Celsius already. 

And I have to apologize (again). You know how it works...you have a to-do list, you planned it all and well.....it didn't quite worked out the way you thought it would. 

The reason why I wasn't able to make new earrings is a wonderful one, though. Friends from the Netherlands visited and we had a wonderful weekend together. Swimming, walking around Nafplio, having diner and wine, laughing, talking. They are on holiday here in Greece and for this weekend we were feeling like being on holiday as well. Just being lazy and spending time with friends. 

So, my earrings for today are a pair I made in 2015.

 It is a wonderful way of using left-over beads. Lots of movement and light weight.

Thanks for looking and I hope to see you in a couple of weeks. With new earrings!

Wishing you a wonderful day,

Janine

Esfera Jewelry

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These Earrings Had to Have Chain

Lately in some of my earring designs I've been searching out different elements and colors than I usually favor, mostly as a way to push myself out of my comfort zone a little, which in turn seems to help to keep my creativity sparking.  

This week's earrings feature a pair of Nicola Morse's brass paint effect-and-resin charms:

The charms themselves are Different Element One:  I rarely use gold or gold-tone metal.  Even so, they're so beautiful that I couldn't resist them!  I decided to pair them with lampwork glass--glossy blue discs by Helen Chalmers and small streaky mango-colored rondelles by Beth Mellor. 

Different Element Two was kind of randomly imposed: I'd decided that these earrings had to have chain, something I've almost never used in my earrings.  Somehow the delicate gold-filled chain I found finishes these earrings perfectly.  I used gold-filled head pins to wire-wrap 2-mm round turquoise beads and 11/0 gold-plated seed beads to each segment of the chain and hung them all from gold-filled jump rings. Hey, once I decided to go gold, I went all out!   😉

They're long, lightweight, and swingy.  They'll be in my shop soon.  

Thanks so much for reading about my adventures in golden charms and chains.  I'll be back in a few weeks!  💗

xoxo

Meridy

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