Left Overs ♥

For any of you who are a huge fan, like me!! of Scorched Earth on ETSY, and have ordered from Petra Carpreau will appreciate the little extra's she throws in her shipments, and I'm not talking about just the candy!!☺  I have quite the overflowing drawer of little goodies.  Often one offs in the batch, but they can sure come in handy when looking for a unique addition to a creation.  Over time I have collected, "sets" to speak of these little porcelain hearts.    

So what did I do to them you say?  Just couldn't use them in their natural black state, so of course I had to jazz them up a bit. Sometimes you need to create change to your materials to make the design work.

I've always been in love with rock Mandala painting like the one you see below from Digs Groove.  The patience and work that goes into this art is beautiful!  This is what inspired me to paint on the hearts.  What a difference, don't you think?  Although my earrings are much more organic, I think they turned out pretty good and it fits with their rustic aura.

So if you sitting on a little porcelain mine of Petra's left overs, explore, you never know what what you might come up with. ☺

Thank you for visiting friends, see you again in two weeks!!

My Etsy Shop- Yucca Bloom

Snakeskin Drops

Anybody who knows me at all probably knows one of my favorite textures is something I call Snakeskin! I've made these Snakeskin Wrap Beads before but it's been a long time so I decided I need to make more. I do love them so so so much, I'm really happy I decided to make them again.

Those who know me also know my crazed addiction to Headpins. So of course I had to put some Amazing Headpins in to these Amazing Snakeskin Wrap Beads (at least I think they are pretty amazing) added a little Sari Silk which I love to do and they made some absolutely gorgeous earrings. I hope you agree!

The Amazing Lampwork Headpins are by

Pati Walton

I've sold out of the few beads I made but I'm making more as we speak!

These earrings have already sold as well but I'll also make more earrings.

Thanks everybody for reading our blog!

We always appreciate you stopping by!

Kristi

KristiBowmanDesign.com

KristiBowmanDesign.Etsy

KristiBowmanDesign on Facebook

https://www.etsy.com/shop/KristiBowmanDesign/search?search_query=snakeskin&order=date_desc&view_type=gallery&ref=shop_search

Spring Equinox

The spring vernal equinox is on the 20th of march here in Sweden where I live, just outside Stockholm. This is quite far north on the northern hemisphere. Which means that in December and January the days are very short.

Now we are leaving the winter behind and the spring is on it's way. It is a wonderful and magical transformation that takes place in nature. The days are getting noticeably longer every day, and the sky is bright blue most days. Spending time outdoors is like taking showers in sunlight. Very much needed and longed for after the dark winter period. And the first buds and greens are starting to show. It is a beautiful wonder every year.

Not that I had it in mind when I started making these earrings, but now as they are finished I realize they are a tribute to this very season. I often find that nature and my immediate surroundings have inspired me subconsciously when I make my jewelry.

• Verdigris green patinated copper links - MissFickleMedia
• Clear quartz semiprecious stone, irregular squarish
• Aventurine semiprecious stone, square plates
• Pink patinated fan shaped copper charms - MissFickleMedia
• Oxidized copper wire
• Handmade oxidized copper Earwire hooks

Fun fact about Swedes:
Visitors of Sweden around this time of the year are known to notice an odd phenomenon in the streets in the middle of the day when the sun is at its highest point. People who are outdoors are stopping just anywhere where the sun shines, but preferably against a wall, and they will raise their faces against the sun, standing still for 5-10 minutes as if they were worshipping the sun itself. It looks odd to foreigners, but to us it is completely natural. :-)

All my best,

Malin

www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com

We're All Ears :: March Inspiration

Celling of Hazrate-Masomeh’s mosque in Qom, Iran, all images courtesy of Mehrdad Rasoulifard (@m1rasoulifard)

It might surprise you to know that when I was teaching 7th grade at St. Peter Middle School a quarter century (!) ago, I not only had to teach English and Literature, but I also had to do some instruction in religion as well. I did the usual things one would expect in those classes, but one of my favorite units to teach was on World Religions.

Celling of Hazrate-Masomeh’s mosque in Qom, Iran

This unit was developed more as a history and culture unit, giving just a glimpse into the world's major religions, not as a discourse in conversion (it is a Catholic school after all!). I think that it is very important to at least have an understanding of different viewpoints and faiths. Misunderstanding is at the root of fear. Knowing that these students might one day meet someone of another faith, I hoped it would foster understanding and respect, as it had for me when I was in my Catholic high school in a similar class. (If you are interested in knowing more and broadening your understanding, please consider checking out this free online course on World Religions currently offered by Harvard professors. I am definitely checking this out.) 

And of course, each mini-unit culminated in an art project (even then, I was heavily into art and didn't realize it!)

Celling of Hazrate-Masomeh’s mosque in Qom, Iran

As part of the unit on Islam, we studied the architecture and created our own arabesque art. This was my favorite project. 

Sheikh Lotfollah mosque in Esfahan, Iran, about 400 years old

The depiction of animals or human forms is generally discouraged in Islamic art, and so arabesque art focuses on intricate geometric patterns. Not just surface decoration, this same idea applies to the shape of the architecture as well. 

Celling of Sheikh-Lotfollah’s mosque in Esfahan, Iran

Architecture is seen as the most supreme of art. Circles, squares, triangles - all symbolic geometry - are the perfect melding of art and science and math and shows unity and structure as well as beauty.

Celling of Jameh’s mosque in Esfahan, Iran, 900 years old

For our project, we would start with our circles of paper and find the center then create quadrants and work on repetitive geometric patterns. Popular colors for these tiled edifices include gold, white and turquoise often on a dark blue background, but we would make ours brightly colored with markers and colored pencils. The natural world, all art forms as well as mathematics and science are seen to be reflections of God as they have existed in all times. It is said that those artists that can create the most tightly woven tessellation patterns are closest to God. 

Celling of Shahe-Cheragh’s mosque in Shiraz, Iran

I can tell you there is a sort of meditative experience that happens when a room-full of 13 year olds are completely absorbed in doing this exercise of making arabesque art. I found it interesting to note that mistakes can be intentionally introduced into the complex patterns as a way to show humility to God. By the end of the year, after teaching all 81 students, I would end up with a wall of these mandala-like circles put together in sort of a paper quilt. It really was beautiful, inspiring and something they really remembered!

Sheikh Lotfollah mosque in Esfahan,Iran, about 400 years old

As soon as I spotted these pictures on Colossal (and then hopped over to DesignBloom and his Instagram site), I literally gasped. Instagram photographer Mehrdad Rasoulifard is documenting the ancient Persian and Iranian architecture, treating his followers to a visual geometric feast and a virtual history lesson. I love great architecture in all its forms, and to know that these soaring spaces were created in more ancient times, without the aid of modern tools or materials really blows my mind. They have really stood the test of time.

Celling of Hazrate-Masomeh’s mosque in Qom, Iran

I see a lot of ideas for not just earrings but all jewelry and art in these stunning forms and patterns and color palettes. They are classic and detailed with an energy that belies the elegance. I do hope that these images will inspire you to make something special for our We're All Ears reveal on March 18th! See you then!

Avoiding A Girly Look With Rose Quartz Pink

According to the color experts at Pantone, the two big colors for Spring and Summer of 2016 are Rose Quartz Pink and Serenity Blue.  For all the world, those two look like traditional nursery room colors to me.  Gah!  I really dislike the stereotyping that starts right at birth or even earlier, when the gender is known.  Women of my age (uh-hum) worked really hard to break down the narrow definitions of what women (and men) can or should do.  I used to know a very nice bead shop owner, who always referred to her staff as "My girls".  I had the same knee jerk reaction to that as to the baby colors.  OK, I know that lots of people will disagree with me and I also know that many people  don't feel as strongly as I do about calling women, girls or using baby pink.  I'm just speaking for me and I wanted to give you the back-story for today's earrings.

I decided to challenge myself to create something in Rose Quartz Pink that I would be comfortable wearing!

 Copper has a pink tinge to it, so I started with that.  These copper charms were made by Melinda Orr of ORRTEC.  I topped Melinda's copper with some speckled pink Czech glass from my stash.  The speckled effect helps tone a color down a bit.

Then I added some twisted wire jump rings and topped them off with matte purple lampwork glass beads from Paradise Beads.  I added a couple of loops of antiqued brass wire work to up the rustic look.  And for a final touch I added some hand dyed lace trim.  The dye is purposely spotty with patches of creamy white and hints of orange, mixed in with the pink.  It is not old lace, but it appears vintage.

So do you think I pulled this off?  Pink with out the cutesy, baby stuff?  What colors do you dislike?  Have you ever challenged yourself to use them despite your feelings?

These earrings are available here:  Pink Lace Earrings

 

Linda Landig

Look Who's Coming to Dinner...

...it's Leland!

I know I've posted about this crazy cool material before, but I just finished up a series of silversmithed pieces that all feature it, so I figured it would be worth revisiting.

Leland Blue slag glass is nearly 150 years old. It was a byproduct of the iron smelting industry that took place in the mid-late 1800s in the town of Leland on Lake Michigan. Iron ore was heated to extremely hot temperatures in order to separate the metal from the non-usable impurities. Those impurities, when cooled, formed a blue-tinted slag glass---waste, trash, junk. 
Or so they thought at the time. 

In an effort to be rid of the useless material, it was dumped into the waters of Lake Michigan. Over the past century, the waves and sand have tumbled these chunks of slag, breaking them down into smaller nuggets and gently polishing them to varying degrees. To this day, if one goes for a leisurely stroll along the beaches in Leland, you may get lucky enough to find a piece of the beloved local treasure. 

 

This past summer while I was visiting fellow EE blogger and good friend Kimberly Rogers in Michigan, we made a special trip to the beaches of Leland to try and find some of this cool material. We had a blast, got wave-kissed and sunburned, and came away with small bags full of blue-tinted treasures.

For the time being, I'm a little too attached to my self-collected nuggets to let them go in pieces of jewelry. But flash forward to this year's Tucson gem and mineral shows, and I scored a nice little clutch of Leland blue cabs. So allow me to show off these new little post earrings featuring bullet-shaped pieces. 

Squeal with me over how wee they are!
Lookit the bubbly air pockets!
Doesn't that gemmy teal blue make you wanna go barefoot on the beach?

I know, I know, you're rolling your eyes at my enthusiasm. It's ok, I'm used to it. But seriously, even though Leland Blue isn't a naturally occurring material, it's still pretty damn cool :) 

Happy Wednesday!
Nikki 
LoveRoot on Etsy

Fiasco

fi·as·co
noun
1.  a thing that is a complete failure

Not a complete failure; it is reparable; just not in time for this morning. Suffice it to say that a cup of coffee, a sweet Lab's wagging-with-excitement tail, and earrings with polymer clay components are simply not a good combination. Maybe I will share them in two weeks with the replacements. :)

So instead of the pair I made specifically for EE, I selected a pair of very recently made earrings.

Turquoise & Red is always a great combination

The beautiful glaze on the Bronzy Drops made by Petra Carpreau of Scorched Earth On Etsy, with the perfect amount of pooling at the tip, is so compelling! I've had these for a long time and could never settle on a way to go. I recently found these groovy vintage copper knot connectors, oxidized them and decided I had a start for the drops. The rest is colorful beads; the top bead is enameled on copper made by MaryAnn Carroll of Artisan Beads Plus. The remainder is 3mm glass beads strung on waxed linen.

I like the length, 2 3/4" / 6.98 cm, and the rustic "dress-up" the copper connectors provided, yet the final package is something I'd wear every day. They're just my style! :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Have a peaceful day. Happy March!

Norbel Marolla

My Etsy shop is She Flies Again
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