Shinies!!

Hi again, everyone!  Yes, it's me, once again being distracted from other projects by shiny new things from Nunn Design.  And why not, I say!  (My husband has been known to call me "Maggie" because of my magpie habit of moving from one shiny object to the next.  He is a very intelligent man in most other ways.)

I bought the Nunn Design copper- and gold-tone rings last week (along with some small round silver-tone rings), and yesterday I got out the gold and copper rings, along with some fine brown leather cord (cut into two 18-inch lengths).  Then I just started experimenting with the rings and the leather. If I wanted to connect the oval ring to the round one, a lark's head knot was fairly obvious, right?  So that's what I did, bringing the two ends of the leather cord straight up through the middle of the oval ring.  Then I tied the leather ends in a maddening (but kind of nice) braided knot at the top of the gold oval.

So at that point, I had the two rings connected with the leather cord, and the ends of the cord were at the top of the rings.  The earrings at that stage looked rustic and tribal, and my first thought was finding African or another type of rustic beads, with a large enough hole to accommodate the doubled cord.  I have a lot of beads that fit the description, but I happened upon these green/silver glass beauties by hot glass artist Wayne Robbins.  I added 2/0 matubo 3-cut glass beads, tied loops in the leather, and hung my Shiny Objects on Two Trees sterling silver ear wires.  😊

      

These earrings are a kind of prototype, because I was feeling my way around all the way, but it was really fun to play around with the different shapes and textures and mediums. 

Thanks so much for reading!  I'll be back in two weeks.  💗

xoxo
Meridy
Two Trees Studio

 

Lumiere

Hope you are all enjoying some decent weather where you are. It's patchy here in the North of England but we are making the most of the sun, when it appears!

I've been making a lot of long, complicated earrings again and wondering what to make for todays post I reined myself in and went short, but definitely not sweet.

I had some Basha beads out, and was holding them up to the sun, admiring the rainbow they flashed on my wall. With Basha beads I always try to avoid overdoing it, because I don't want to detract from their singular beauty.

I simply stacked them on blackened copper headpins with a touch of gold, and crackled black agate drums - light and dark, juxtaposed. Lucy Haslam's original Tangled earwires complete them perfectly.  Lumiere - the torch.

            Should be popping these in my Etsy shop over the next couple of days, if you like them.
                                Have a lovely day, and see you again in a couple of weeks. 

                                                                             Lindsay xx
                                                                   
                                                                        My Etsy shop

                                                                      My Facebook page

Summer Colours

Hi, hope you have all had a good weekend. The earrings I am showing you today were inspired by summer colours. I love to play with bright colours in my earring designs and these are no exception. The gorgeous enamels are by Pearly Karpel and I really like the colourful swirl pattern on them which I matched up with glass lampwork flowers by Yuliana Goldin-Dunn and Czech glass flower beads.

The ear wires are purple hypoallergenic wires which i like to use as they come in a variety of bright colours and are kind to your ears. I have used waxen linen cord to attach the flowers which allows for some movement and I then added the beads to the cord which move around freely also.

Thank you for looking. They will be available in group later today - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1928101904099468/

We're All Ears :: July Inspiration :: Blueberries

We can now get blueberries all year round. But I remember a time when these sweet little treats seemed to only be available in the summer in the US.

Photo credit :: Andrew Thornton

It all started with the blueberries I was having for breakfast. And then I spied this stunning photo by my friend Andrew Thornton which lead me to muse on the intense beauty of the colors of blueberries, their star shaped belly buttons and the way they look when blended in my smoothie, such a beautifully delicious array!

These blue beauties are one of the few foods in this color on the spectrum, but in truth they are really more to the purple end. There is science that says that blue actively suppresses our appetites (and suggestion to put a blue lightbulb in your refrigerator or to eat off a blue plate to curb overeating). Blue- and violet-hued foods contain anthocyanins - antioxidants that benefit your brain function, hearth health and lower your risk of high blood pressure and cancer, which is good enough for me.

So grab some beautiful berries and join me on July 19th for a berry-licious reveal!

Bells

Hi lovely earrings lovers,

Today (well, this week, ok, maybe the past few months...) I have been engrossed in my daytime numbers work. Since last year I am the proud co-owner of a small accounting and coaching firm, me being responsible for the finance & accounting part of our clients. That means not much time for creating anymore. So, I almost forgot about my blogpost today. Suddenly I realized... wait, isn't it Thursday today? Ehh, the first Thursday of the month? Oh my goodness...blog post.., new earrings.., pictures... Luckily, I made these earrings a while back for my show next week.

Bell shaped ceramic beads by Nadia, ceramic drops by the one and only Petra Carpreau, ear wires from Lucy Haslam and some other bits and pieces.

I hope you like them. These will be available in my show next week on facebook. 

Thank you so much for looking and your support for Earrings Everyday :)
And you know I love to read your comments, so don't be shy and leave some words. And do check out the other posts of my friends.

See you in two weeks.Wishing you all a wonderful day, full of love, sunshine and laughter.

Janine
Esfera Jewelry

If The Moon Were Made Of Cheese

So, I love destashes and usually check them out when I can on Facebook. For me, it's a great opportunity to pick up artisan beads that people bought years ago but never found a use for.  It's especially exciting when I find some from a retired bead maker or sometimes it's a series that an artist is no longer doing. 

That's how these earrings came to be! The porcelain beads on top were made by Mellisa Gabelle of The Clay Hen and I found them in a destash!  I really didn't have a vision for them right away, but I have a weakness for pale yellow and these had a matte finish (another weakness of mine) with a cool metallic shiny center.  I love the unusual and with the added holes all over, they are just that!  

My immediate random thoughts about these beads were:  Swiss Cheese; Moon; Wallace, of Wallace and Gromit saying - "Gromit, that's it! Cheese! We'll go somewhere where there's cheese!" 

Yes, folks - this is my creative process  -  haha!!

So who else loves cheese?  Kitties do, that's who!  The lovely faux tin charms are by Helena Benkoczka. I combined these two components together not only for their whimsy but also because I loved the proportions of the two shapes together as well as the colors.

My little cheesy moon story was starting to develop!  By luck, in my crazy stash, I had some great
steely matte vintage stars which pulled the colors from not only the grey kitty but, the moon centers as well.

Wallace would remind you:  "Don't forget the crackers!"

A little tip:  On Facebook, just type destash in the search bar and it should pull up some nice destash groups for you!  If you have a hard time finding some I'd be happy to share some; just drop me a note.

Thank you for stopping by my work table today, hope you found a little inspiration!!

Loralee XO

www.loraleekolton.etsy.com

Summer Trees

Hello Earring Folk!

I treated myself to some enamelled charms by Carole Pons of Brum de Terre recently. They really are the prettiest things.

Love the bright sky blue colour, as well as the pretty tree design. Perfect for summer, don't you think?

When I have components that are this pretty, I'm always tempted to just pop them on some earwires and leave them as they are! I resisted this urge!

However, I didn't want to over-complicate things, so i added some very lovely chrysocolla rondelles, some brass hoops to sit just behind the enamels and some little leaves -to echo the the tree theme.

Hope you like them! They'll be available over on my Facebook page

See you in a couple of weeks :-)

Sue x

Utterly Lovely Stuff