Always Match Your Earrings to Your Blog Template

El Caribe

These two pair of earrings are variations on the pair I made my Mom for Mother's Day. I liked the design so much I repeated it, with slightly different beads. I just got a whole slug of little oval gemstones from Lima Beads (for earrings), and so far these Chinese Turquoise are my favorite. I would like to fill an entire tub with them and take a bath. THAT'S how much I love them. I would have tiny oval bruises all over my body ('cause I'd probably be in there a long time), but it would be worth it.

I used four of them in this pair, all slightly different:

Jade Isles

I should do some bead porn with my Lima haul. And my other many large recent hauls.

Stay tuned.

(The Fred Flintstone looking donut beads in green and blue are from Happy Mango Beads.)

Tender Shoots

This necklace is something a little new, like the first tender shoots of spring in their delicate celeries, sages and celadons. It features translucent prehnite spheres with their characteristic green grass clippings inclusions, sterling silver many-petaled bead caps, petite button pearls in muted, iridescent sage, leaf and fern charms in silver plated pewter, and hand-forged sterling silver chain and S-clasp. (For more information, CLICK HERE). It measures just over 16 inches, a little over choker length. It is meant to be worn with the fern bead sitting over the right collar bone, but can be worn in any position. (My unfortunate "Marie Antoinette" mannequin below demonstrates).



My first sketch of this design included some irregular jade chips and glass beads as well, but it was just too busy when I laid it out. Ended up with just three elements. I hope somebody out there has a diaphanous (I love that word almost as much as atavistic) gown in asparagus to wear with it.

P.S., thanks to my new followers! welcome aboard.

P.P.S. OMG I almost forgot!!! After my torch/copper debacle (it was a real non-event), gave the micro butane torch Number Two a try with sterling silver. Worked like a charm. What a thrill to melt metal in my kitchen and see it curl up like a little potato bug. It's like I'm MAGNETO!! I have POWER OVER METAL!!! The pearls on this necklace are attached with my very own made-by-moi sterling silver ball headpins!! My little cigar lighter torch worked all the way up to 20 gauge wire. Didn't try 18, probably work on that too.

RIGHT. ON.

Crop Circles, Camels and Blood Oranges

I have a thing for round disc pendants like this tantalizing "new jade" lozenge I got at Brought to Life Beads in Whitefish, Montana (where I live) a few months ago. I've been obsessed with this pale celadon color for a while now and keep buying more and more of it (I hope there are people out there with PayPal who share this obsession). Every week or so I would paw through my little box of pendants and wait for them to speak to me. Not a damn word. I really wanted to do something special with this one jade lozenge (is this why I have a thing for these discs? Because they look like giant candy? I don't even like candy). I carried it around with me for a while with an assortment of other stuff that I thought might make the most of it, but it just wasn't right. Finally, in a mad rush to pack to go to the lake for a few days, I was freed from my usual artistic paralysis and just threw some things in a container. One of them was a strand of these opalescent pale yellow green mini lozenges (or coins). I didn't want to take my whole stash so I just picked out a few pieces to work on. I did the majority of this pendant at the lake, even taking my Liver of Sulphur to do some oxidizing at our camp spot (we didn't get a lot visitors that weekend...) I really really like how it turned out--the circles and the wire remind me of a crop circle. I'm not usually that roundly pleased with my stuff (always something I don't like about it), but this really hit the spot for me. Simple.



Before that I was cruising around on some of the Flickr craft and jewelry groups, and visited the "Accessory Trends: Red, Peach, Orange, Gold" group. I was inspired. I hauled out my carnelian (lots of that), red agate, brecciated jasper and red aventurine and stared at it for a while. I was thinking bracelet. I didn't want it all Mardi Gras though (not that there's anything wrong with that). I don't really do the festive happy colors thing (irritates me for some reason)--I thought I could take all that luscious tangerine, apricot and poppy vermilion and make it something smoldering and moody with some deeply oxidized brass wire. So I linked them together with some heavy gauge brass wire, and added a length of chain I had made the other day, and popped the whole thing into the ammonia fumes (overnight, as it turned out--oops). Voila:



I love it. Kind of old-worldy. With a flash of fire.



And lastly, my ode to the camel and his habitat.



I ADORE camel. The color, not the animal. Wheat. A lion's mane. Sand. I was going to call it, "Behind my Camel", after a quirky Police song, and then thought better of it. Maybe not the best place to be. I don't usually give my pieces pretentious cheesy names, but it seemed OK in this case b/c I figured camel would be a search term. Camel and pendant and I had it covered. Especially since I don't have a clue what that little stone pendant is. Forgot to ask. Looks like something from the driveway. The little ivory spacers are bone, and the pale round beads are wood, and the light caramel colored disc beads are actually matte glass discs from Happy Mango Beads. (They are ever so slightly opalescent and come in a few different charming colors).



(Believe it or not, these photos were taken in my car on my lunch hour, literally IN MY LAP. I put the lid to a cardboard copy paper box upside down in my lap (this is also my work table in my "mobile studio"), arranged my stuff, and took a picture. No tripod. Steady as a friggin rock.)

Lastly, I sold some of my favorite pieces to family this last weekend, and am thrilled that they will be loved and worn, and given as gifts to special friends! The hardware bracelet, the house pendant with bronze pearls, the copper charm bracelet with amazonite and aventurine, and a labradorite and sterling necklace and earring combo are winging their way to Billings, Montana, and then on to North Carolina.



Thanks MaryLu and Marcia!