A chronicle of the meanderings, false starts (which in retrospect, while sort of embarrassing turned out to be highly instructive), epiphanies, selective apathy (still evolving), wild mood swings, opinions (subject to frequent change), and life lessons of an inveterate dabbler (and her latest dabblings).

Saturday, November 5, 2011

From Ping Pong Paddles to Tiny Bowls

One of my metal experiments recently became earrings. The little ping-pong-paddle shaped things below

became these:
Copper bowl earrings

With micro-faceted Czech AB-finish glass beads.

One of my bail experiments also finally grew up:

Aqua terra jasper and leather

It started out a lot fussier and I just wasn't happy with it. So I scaled it way down. "Sandstone" lampwork spacers by The Spacer Shop (formerly The Spacer Queen. I guess she's come down in the world).

11 comments:

  1. What a great idea with the paddles! I'd be hard pressed to come up with such a stunner! Beautiful earrings!

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  2. I love the ping pong paddle earrings! They're fantastic!

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  3. Love what you did with the paddles. And that green jasper has me swooning - great piece!

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  4. Beautiful!

    How do you make the pattern on the copper?

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  5. Their beautiful! your jewelry is very stunning
    sarah
    http://shoploveclay.com

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  6. Totally gorgeous, i love what you've done with the ping pong paddles

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  7. Gorgeous! I love your work. The SBS wire tutorial is wonderful and I'm working on a necklace of my own. How did you dome the paddles without removing the texture? I tried that and smoothed the texture right out.

    Thanks so much,

    pam

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  8. Thank you, Pam! You know, I think I might have used a wooden doming set for those paddles. It has larger bowls so it's really only for a shallow doming, like for larger items or something you just want gently cupped. I was thinking I would use it for pendant focals but it worked great for these. I have however used my steel doming set for my textured beadcaps/bowls and the texture hung in there. You just can't hammer it a whole lot, got to get it done in one or two whacks. And I think the textures from the brass texture sheets I use are deeper than the texture from a texturing hammer, that does tend to get smoothed out a bit. Using a really pointy hammer (like a Fretz with the small tip) gets a deeper texture in there and it survives the doming better. Happy hammering!

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  9. LOL! Don't worry, I'm still The Spacer Queen - only the name of my Etsy shop changed. Thanks for the laugh! Your work is beautiful as always. :-)

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