Seriously Juiced Up. For Real.

OK, as I told you, I recently decided I hated almost all the earrings in my shop. I deactivated all the lamest ones with the intention of, one by one, pumping up the juice. I was going to just riff off the palettes I already had, maybe recycle some stones or whatever, and just make them a little more intentional and artisanal looking.

(I'm SO enjoying the mind-numbing acoustic squalor pouring out of my neighbor's open garage door right now. It's like an aural rendition of the visual/olfactory squalor inside her house).

So here is my first pair of before-and-after earrings. All metalwork is done by MOI using sterling silver wire of various gauges.

Before--LAME



After--LESS LAME


(FOR MORE INFO, CLICK HERE)

I only ended up recycling the quartz ovals in this juicing. The coin pearls were too big, made it look like two big eyeballs. I'm not into eyeballs, freak me out. It took me literally about three hours to make these silly earrings. Maybe more--I made the hammered circles last night and oxidized them, then assembled the whole thing today. I don't usually do this kind of wire work and I'm a little awkward with it. I'm pretty stoked they turned out at all.

On to the next pair of lame earrings.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, This Necklace Is Red and a It's Bracelet Too

When I read that Etsy was having a Ruby Red theme for the month of July (July birthstone is the ruby), I obediently and slavishly set about making a red item because it does so much to prop up my withered little ego to be in a gift guide. And it would make me want to go on living if I could be on the front page. So I pulled out all the red stuff I have, most of it cannibalized from other jewelry I had fallen out of love with and stuff I had foolishly bought to make Valentine's Day items in December, and as is my wont, stared at it for about an hour. Changed my mind several times, and finally set to work. Three hours later, I had myself a bracelet. A bracelet that looked an awful lot like it would have been a really cool necklace if I had been more ambitious. DANG! I thought. But then...my tiny little wheels started turning, really really fast, and I thought, maybe it can still be a necklace! HEY!!! Maybe it can be a bracelet AND a necklace!!! It'll be CONVERTIBLE! I made some minor modifications, and discovered happily that the remaining piece of oxidized copper chain I had left over from the bracelet was the perfect length for an extender to turn the bracelet into an 18" necklace. So I engineered that, and the result is what you see here.

Now I'm thinking I'll have a whole section of convertible bracelets/necklaces. You saw it here first, tell me if you see anybody copying me. (I've done this with my own jewelry because I'm poor.)

Going to make earrings and then that will be just about it for that assortment of ruby red beads. Might have enough odds and ends to eke out something lame. You'll know it when you see it.