We're All Ears May Reveal

Zigzag Nerite Shells

I got a little silly with this month's inspiration.

I made FIVE pair of earrings based on this theme! I'm not sure what got into me...I rarely use black or true red, but the nerite shell motif really inspired me, especially the stripy black patterns.

Turns out I had lots of beads to work with, and you don't mess with The Muse so I let her go.

This pair sports a duo of incised, glazed stoneware stick elements by Petra Carpreau of Scorched Earth, in a lovely caramel color with black stripes (they make me think of pretzel sticks and I want badly to nibble on them.) I think this might be the first time I've used her work--I've been hoarding an entire container of it! I introduced the red element with red jasper, and added ivory bone rounds to the earwires. I added my textured beadcaps in sterling to the jasper.

This pair incorporates some etched red agate tubes and my poppy caps in sterling silver. I added batik and plain ivory bone beads to the bottom to introduce the ivory color and add more of the black patterning, and then popped some butterscotch amber roundels onto the earwires (I got this wonderful opaque amber locally at Powderhorn Trading and I am in LOVE with it.)

For this pair I started with some black and white patterned beads from my stash--these are actually from a jewelry making party hosted by my friend Ada years and years ago. I'm not sure what they're made of, they feel like maybe wood. She has traveled the world so they could be from anywhere! I added red jasper sticks and my textured beadcaps, both traditional round ones and some small folded poppy ones, and more of that delish amber to the earwires.

This pair relies on more beads from Ada's jewelry party--a pair of striped cones! Again I've combined them with red jasper (I just LOVE this stone), ivory bone, and more amber. The cones make me think of a sporty fez. I think this pair is actually my favorite, this is the first time I've ever tried vertically wrapping a bead like this--I was inspired by Brenda McGowan--her shop is on vacation right now, but you can check out her sold items. Lisa at Angry Hair Jewelry also has some items with this vertical wrapping--LOVE her style too. I would buy her clean out if I had a spare $5,000 and my ear piercings hadn't healed up for lack of adornment.

Lastly, I dipped again into my Petra Carpreau stash for these lipstick red "bobblers." Boy, it felt like I spent hours trying to find the right beads to go with these. I finally settled on these black manol buri beads and of course ivory bone and more amber. I added a little vertical wire wrap again to keep the little seeds in line, they're kind of naughty.

This was fun! Head over to the Earrings Everyday blog to see what Erin cooked up with this month's inspiration, and to get links to other bloggers' reveal posts!

These will all be listed in my Etsy shop over the next few days.

New Stuff

I've been having fun with color and metal!

One of my favorite ways to bring color into my jewelry is with enamel. Anne of Gardanne Beads is my new favorite enamel artist!

I just love these little butterflies, and the color scheme was divine: soft lime and juicy berry. I didn't even have to think about what beads to use, it's like cheating!

I'm in love with these keyhole charms too. I keep gravitating to this green/yellow and berry color combination. These are more of a pale lemon yellow with berry:

I combined them with moukaite ovals from Lima Beads, handmade lampwork spacers in pale apple from The Spacer Bead Shop, and Czech glass (on the earwires) in pomegranate--that is my current favorite color of Czech glass bead!

These earrings below are in another color combo I can't get enough of--butternut and fuchsia! I made a bunch of these aspen-leaf-shaped etched copper components and paired them up with lampwork and gemstones. These lampwork beads are from my stash, made by a local lady, Pat Redinger, and the gemstones are pink quartz from Fine Gems. The etched damask patterns on the metal focals for all four pair of earrings below came from a digital file from Aesthetic Addiction.

I also did these, with lapis and green aventurine. The wonderful lapis sticks were a gift from Lori Anderson--she has sent me all kinds of fabulous beads!

These earrings were made with some gorgeous snakeskin stone roundels, from a bead swap with Alice Peterson. I just love the soft green and subtle patterning. The sticks are of shell, and I put little white pearls on the earwires.

These are in the same style, with new jade sticks, impression jasper roundels, and green aventurine nuggets on the earwires. This is the same pattern as above--it's a lovely damask, and I just use different parts of the pattern.

I have been wanting to try a kind of folded beadcap for a while. These below were my first experiments. The first pair is with Czech glass drops in transparent red, with an interesting, mottled golden finish. I just happened to have just purchased some Czech glass roundels from BobbiThisnThat, in the Same. Exact. Color. Go figure. It was fate! Or just one of the many, many upsides of compulsive bead shopping.

These are also Czech glass, in their "Picasso" style--I really love the colors in these beads! I THINK these beads, and the ones above, are old stash from one of my first purchases from Happy Mango Beads (if you are a fan of Czech glass, you MUST check out Happy Mango--they have a GINORMOUS selection of Czech glass right now. I just looked (dammit, why did I look...)) The etched glass seed beads on the earwires are "glass tile beads" from Fire Mountain Gems--I have tons of these in different colors and I just love them.

These are Crazy Lace Agate--I got them locally at Powderhorn Trading, and I couldn't resist all the purple in them! You don't see that much vivid purple in that stone very often. The wonderful Czech glass roundels on the earwires are also from BobbiThisnThat--they're an amethyst color with an awesome coppery finish.

This an old design of mine--I found the metal components all finished and ready to go in one of my boxes, and I thought well why the heck didn't I finish them? I decided to use some of my new gemstone ovals from Lima Beads--these are azurite malachite, and I've combined them with Czech glass in emerald. The greens and blues in the stones are quite vivid!

I just finally finished this necklace couple nights ago.

I got a strand of these fabulous fossilized coral agate rectangular beads from Happy Mango, and they never cease to inspire me. They range from deep ochre all the way to pearly gray and white (THEY HAVE MORE!!!). (They're way more impressive in person, by the way.)

I love the patterns in them, like fireworks or dandelions (look at them! LOOK at them). I've paired this one with every buttery golden/butterscotch/Grand Marnier bead in my stash--crazy lace agate, opaque butterscotch amber roundels (locally from Powderhorn Trading), golden jade, yellow jade, red creek jasper, bone (Happy Mango), golden lip shell, moukaite, and transparent amber ovals (from Fire Mountain Gems). I went monochrome crazy with the yellows! The dangling coil beads were based on a tutorial by Kharisma Sommers (Popnicute jewelry--you MUST see her work!! You will GASP.)

(Everything above is sold or otherwise spoken for, except for the fossil coral agate necklace, which I haven't listed yet).

I don't feel like doing anything at all today, and I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go with that. In spite of all the activity above, I'm kind of in a funk. And feeling funky. And not in a good way.

New Work

Considering how much time I've had off lately, I sure haven't brought much to completion. It seems I am always preparing...snipping, sanding, sawing, etching, coloring...It takes forever to get to the end product!

I did however finish a few things over the long holiday weekend. I finished this necklace yesterday--I sort of stumbled on a nifty way to make interesting caps for pendants (I just can't bear to stick a plain jump ring on a pendant, I have a compulsion to cover up that hole), and in my usual fashion I put these caps on every stone pendant in my stash. So now I have to start turning them into necklaces! This was the first:

Sold

The pendant is aqua terra jasper (also known as impression jasper), as are the big roundels on the middle strand (absolutely stunning roundel beads from Beads and Honey--fabulous shop and service). The sweet little cream colored beads in the top strand are encased khaki lampwork spacers by Kelley Wenzel (sadly for me currently on a bead hiatus--good thing I've been hoarding a bunch--SEE??? this is why we must hoard, because sometimes the beadmakers start taking pictures instead and THEN what will you do?), and the stick beads near the bottom of the photo are new jade from a local shop. Also featured are Indonesian glass beads from Happy Mango Beads in celadon (such a perfect match!) and oatmeal. The little copper heishi spacers are also from Happy Mango (they are a real staple of mine, I love how they add a little flash of metal, but are plain so don't interfere with the feel of the piece).

I've also been slowly working my way through my stash of enamel from Anne Gardanne. Over the holiday weekend, it was beadcaps! I really love the pointy little tulip caps. This is my favorite pair:

Regular Garden Party

I love the colors on these caps--lemon yellow, strawberry and grass green. So inspiring! I combined them with pink quartz briolettes (from FineGems--got some GREAT stones from them), Czech glass in antique rose (on the earwires), and little pale peach seed beads on creamy Irish waxed linen. Now I want to make about a hundred things in pink and yellow. I love these colors with copper.

These are almost an identical design, but with violet blue quartz briolettes instead, and denim blue caps. The berry sprinkles on the caps told me PINK!!! I obeyed.

My Little Pony  Garden Party

I love the blue violet with the azure in the beadcaps and the pink tones. I never would have thought that I would fall in love with a My Little Pony color scheme.

I wanted to use cording with this pair below too, but I just didn't have the right color so I went with little copper headpins. These caps are an electric violet blue (so hard to photograph purples, they are more purple in person than they appear here.)

Psychedelic Garden Party

The little turquoise saucers sitting atop the green leaves are itty bitty handmade lampwork spacers by Meital, and the matte turquoise Indonesian glass seed beads from Happy Mango were a perfect match (I have two long strands of these beads, they are AWESOME, they are more like little stones than glass beads).

This last pair got its color inspiration from the wonderful fuchsia color left on my headpins after I torched them. I couldn't bear to pickle it off so I left them as is, and when I set them aside with these orange caps, I thought PLUM!! I had these wonderful Czech glass rounds in a "lumi" finish, and I loved the contrast with the opaque enamel. I added little fuchsia button pearls to the earwires to pick up the fuchsia on the headpins.

Pee Wee's Garden Party

I just love these darling little flowers.

There's something Seussian, or Willy Wonkian, or Pee-Weeian about them. Can't put my finger on it...They make me think of all my favorite childhood books and movies. I sort of went with a Willy Wonka color scheme.

That's all for now!

Clean Your Plate, Then You Can Have Dessert

The "dessert" being NEW designs--so I "cleaned my plate" and turned these etched tabs that had been lying around into more tube bail earrings (even though I was already bored with the idea, kind of like being bored with your peas):

Hippie Princess

The wonderful blood red dotted ovals are Czech glass from ArteBellaSurplus, and the rustic striped multicolor beads are Indonesian glass from Happy Mango Beads.

The damask pattern on these earrings makes me think of wallpaper in a posh old-timey Hollywood hotel. I decided to go monochrome, with champagne-colored beads--the big citrine ovals have the barest hint of color, and the pearls are a lovely pale sand color.

Champagne Cocktails with Grace Kelly

For some reason these make me think of Grace Kelly.

These below were more of a "foldover" bail I call it, that I flipped upside down for earrings. There was something sort of Incan about them (I'm sure an Incan would disagree, don't ask me how my mind works), so I added some chrysocolla. That seemed kind of Incan. Somehow.

Just sold, sorry

I seem to have a vague memory that some ancient Central American kingdom made their king wear a hat like this. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

I knew it.

Not so crazy after all.

These are the same design as the first two, but lightly colored with gilder's paste. These have fluorite and hessonite from Lima Beads. I really wish I had gotten a full strand of the fluorite.

Sold to a Canadian, sorry

These are hessonite and amethyst, also from Lima Beads. I am now a huge fan of hessonite. These remind me of a Chinese dragon.

Lilac Dragon

These turned out very girly. Pink and blue! The beads are angelite and moukaite, with Czech glass on the earwires.

My Grandma's Quilt

This last pair feel very Art Deco to me--like an Art Deco sunset!

Also gone, so sorry

So now I am done with the tube bail earring and I can move on. I did my usual thing--when I made the first couple pair, I was so excited about them I cut out a zillion of these tabs thinking I'M GOING TO MAKE A MILLION OF THESE!!! and then promptly lost interest. But after leaving them lying around forever I decided to do the grown-up thing and finish what I started. Now if only I could do that with my Roman shade project.

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.)

Recycled Glass and Samurai

China Sea

I was meditating on my bin of recycled glass beads (I do this) from Happy Mango, and thought, "What about a square beadcap on a disc bead?" It was an intriguing question, so I made some. I tested out sizes with cardboard and then cut them from copper with my snips and etched them. This is the upshot. This pair is made with some large disc beads--they're about 18mm across and about 8mm thick. I LOVE this color. It's like the Caribbean, or a high glacial lake.

They feel vaguely Asian to me, although that was not my intention (this happens frequently.) I think I was a Samurai in a former life. Which explains a lot.

Blueberries and Plums in Asia

I made the pair above with some medium-sized recycled glass buttons, also from Happy Mango. I'm not usually a fan of blue, but I love this color in the glass. So icy. Like me. I decided to be bold and combine it with some purple--the other beads are Czech glass.

I made four sets of these rectangular caps. Another pair will go with some sea green buttons (same color as the first pair) and I think the other set will go with a couple pendants using large buttons.

And on that note, I bid you good night.

Use What You Have Pt III/Fun With Earwires

I was musing in the car the other day about my strands and strands of tiny top-drilled gemstone teardrops which I have so far found mostly useless. I wondered if THIS might work:

Tangerine Dream

I played with it in the car, and I almost had it. Fiddled with it some more at home, and eventually figured out how to wrap it so it would stay put and look good. (Hopefully I'll remember how I did it later...) Tumbled this pair for hours and the design was solid.

These are carnelian teardrops with faceted red/black agate rounds.

I also did up a pair in amethyst:

Purpophilia extremesis

It was a bit of a challenge finding drops that were roughly the same size, but it's kind of a rustic design anyway so there's some leeway.

I have lots of glass drops too that are more uniform--looking forward to giving those a try too!

I love the immediate gratification of earrings.