Earrings earrings earrings

Playful Days

Do you love earrings? I really, really, really do. It's definitely the item of jewellery which I have the most of myself, and if I am buying jewellery from another maker, 9 times out of 10 it's a pair of earrings which I gravitate towards - not least because the price points are often smaller - statement earrings are definitely easier on my purse than a statement necklace, understandably!

Hoopla

As my going back to Songbead work happened just after a house move, it will probably come as no surprise to you that it was hard to find various things in the first few weeks. (Let's be honest - it's still quite hard to find various things even though we've been here almost 2 months now!) 

Tropical Treetops

One of those things was the little stand I use to photograph my earrings. It's nothing fancy - a solid wood flooring sample from B and Q which I have painted and drilled holes in, and strung some fine thread across to suspend earrings from, but it does the trick nicely. 

Blooming

Anyway, it was one of the things which disappeared - until this past weekend, when we were sorting things out for my wife's 40th birthday party, and in going through a couple of boxes, it was unearthed. Quite a relief as I had a fair pile of earrings stacking up which I hadn't been able to take any decent photos of! 

Springtime

That said, in looking through my earring shots from a few days ago, I think it may be time for a new photography set up. Getting all the parts of each earring to line up and the earrings to hang parallel nicely is not easy when they are merely suspended from thread! 

Dusk

So I am on the look out for something slightly different - where the earrings can hang more as they would from ears - in mid air, so to speak, and each earring to hang straight up and down, rather than leaning towards each other. Watch this space! 

Silver and Gold

All of these earrings are now available in my etsy shop so hop over there now if you're as addicted to earrings as I am! 

Disco Inferno

Stacked Earrings Challenge - Chapter 5

Hello! Goodness me, it's been a while since the previous chapter of this stacked earrings adventure but we are back again, with Heidi's bead selection. 

This exchange is the brain-child of Swedish jewellery designer-maker, Malin de Koning, who invited Heidi Post, Leah Curtis and Claire Lockwood and myself to join her. Here's the lowdown in Malin's own words:

"The idea is that I give each of us the same set of beads. Beads that I believe would be nice to use in earrings. Nothing exclusive, and no art beads. Just a group of different beads that I myself believe can be used in fun and interesting ways in earrings in a stacked style.

 I am longing to see how we all use the same things but in different ways. I am thinking we could all make at least one pair of earrings, but hopefully more. And that we are free to add our own extra beads and/or other components, if we at least use three (3) of the beads from my set in each design."

Since Malin began this challenge back in January 2015, we've taken it in turns to send out little curations of beads, and all turning them into our own creations. It's been so fascinating seeing not only what people have in their stash, but what they choose - how they curate these little bead collections. I freely admit that my selection (last time) was more about assembling an interesting grouping of beads, rather than gathering together items for specific designs. I kind of think this adds something to the design process though - not least the fact that we all start nearer the same point when turning to the bead collection. I wonder if the other designers did the same? 

Anyway, back to this round of the challenge. Here's Heidi's lovely curation (picture courtesy of Malin):

It's interesting looking at this collection here again, whole. You'll see below but I've stuck with a fairly muted, soothing colour-scheme in my creations - and I'm interested to note that, despite there being a fair quantity of coral/orange in Heidi's wee group, I've not used any of it - despite it often being a 'go-to' colour for me when designing. Instead, I've stuck to a tonal palette ranging from mint greens to cool blues to warm purples - nothing too contrasting, nothing too clashing. Fairly unusual for me, but I'm pleased with what I created! See if you agree...

Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Peacock

First of all, these long, elegant drops. I've used the peacock-silver biwa pearl discs and the moon-blue faceted rondelles here, connected with some gorgeous fancy chain in a co-ordinating gunmetal dark silver. You may think that those are the only one of Heidi's beads that I have used here - but no! You see those little handwoven rondelle beads? Inside are some of the little wooden discs - top left of the bead collection picture. When I saw them in Heidi's selection, I couldn't resist seeing if I could bead around them - and yes I could. Which leads me onto these studs...

Not technically stacked earrings, but I wanted to share them here as they came from Heidi's beads - each stud contains one of her tiny natural wood discs and I love them! They are about 10mm across in width when fully beaded. If anyone knows a source for these discs, message me - I'd love to make more. 

In the Fires

Next, a pair in soothing pale violet - almost like cape amethyst - and minty green. I was so pleased to find these Scorched Earth droppers in my stash - how perfectly do the colours go here? Both pairs of discs and the tiny flower caps are from Heidi. I just adore Petra's glazing work here - the way both base colours have so many other colours flashing in them. 

Roundhouse 

These earrings are the cute shorties of the bunch. More of the pretty mind green spacers from Heidi, little wooden plum-purple cogs and some beautiful transparent glass rounds with deepest aubergine swirls throughout - topped off with some of my tiny handwoven rounds in dark pewter. I like the flashes of copper wire here and how they contrast with my hand-formed oxidised silver earwires.

Graffiti

Lastly, these long elegant chaps. Glass rounds and violet gemstone chips from Heidi - and beautiful long porcelain drops from Round Rabbit. I love how the graffiti-style decoration on the rounds is echoed in Nancy's glazing. I purchased these drops in a  'grab bag' from Round Rabbit and I admit when I saw them, I knew I would struggle to use them in their gorgeous earthy olive-brownness - a lovely evocative colour, but not one I work with often. However, I started with the two upper beads and then just knew that I had to hunt down these drops to go with them as the perfect earthy foil to Heidi's beads' bright and bold colourfulness.

And so that's it for this challenge - we've come full circle, each one of us having sent out a grouping of beads now. Who knows if we'll go round again....I've so enjoyed each of these challenges - and whilst we've taken our time with each round, that's been nice - no pressure to create things to deadline that we may or may not be satisfied with. I hope you've enjoyed following along with us! 

Now hop over to my friends' blogs to see what they created with exactly the same materials:

Malin de Koning

Claire Lockwood

Heidi Post

Leah Curtis

Earrings, earrings, earrings

....3 pairs of earrings. Yes, you might have imagined from the title that I would have oodles of new pairs for you, but I'm being strictly accurate, and so I have three pairs to share here today.

I know I've written about my love for earrings before, but in case you missed the memo, I absolutely LOVE earrings. Can't get enough of them. I've even got my ears pierced a total of 14 times (I think some of those holes have closed up now - sad face), although I would only wear teeny studs in most of those holes, you'll be pleased to know. I actually have tiny ears, and attached lobes, so it's quite a feat having quite so many holes punched in them!

And so of course, it follows that I really enjoy wearing earrings. However, my artistic earring creating sensibilities bend towards the very simple - when on creative autopilot, I do tend to make earrings containing only one or two beads. Which are, of course, perfect for every day! I love a simple drop earrings. 

Sugar Plum

But you want to know what I really love? Long, elegant, multi-faceted, many-part-filled earrings. I have quite a collection from other jewellery artists - not least Claire Lockwood, and the beginnings of a collection from Lindsay Philipson too - and I am almost always drawn to long, complicated, exuberant earrings. Oh, and usually with tons of colour too. I'm not sure why I struggle to compose that which I love to wear, but they don't seem to flow quite so naturally from my hands. Maybe 'automatically' is a more apt word - and perhaps that's a clue there; I need to be more intentional when making earrings. It could be it's a time thing - because they are 'only' earrings i.e. on the small side compared with a necklace for instance, I don't feel I should be spending a lot of time on one single pair. I'm not sure - probably a bit of all of those reasons. 

And so this week, I decided to try to intentionally build some more complex pairs of earrings. Ok, they are not as exuberant as some in my own collection, but I think it's important to give people a choice - you want a Songbead stud? I've got it. You want a simple drop? Got that too. You want something a bit more fancy-pants? Yep, I've got that three. 

Verdant Cairns

I'm also enjoying mixing my handwoven {song}beads in with other handmade beads and other elements - freshwater pearls, oxidised silver etc - they bring such a visually textural quality to my jewellery, I love it. All of the {song}beads in the earrings below have been stitched with silver-lined 1mm beads, which means that (along with being incredibly detailed!) they have a wonderful glow and glimmer to them. One of my favourite types of glass seed beads to stitch with, for sure.

Sugar Spun

Another thing that has happened this week is that I decided to invest in an Etsy shop review from this lovely lady. Gosh, but she knows what she's talking about! I'm am immensely grateful that I had the good sense to hop onto her listing and click 'purchase'.  I have lots of areas to build on and tweak (the good news was that I'm doing most of the right things, I just need to do them more, if you know what I mean), and you'll hopefully see me develop and expand my shop over the coming weeks and months. But one of the main things that came out of the review was the clarification that really what I want my jewellery to do is tell stories. Not necessarily my stories - I am of the belief that something I create can mean something entirely different to the wearer than it did/does to me - but stories. My jewellery is not merely figurative (in many cases) but narrative too. And so this is something I am already starting to work on - making my listings and descriptions more personal, explaining the connections between the jewellery I make and the titles I give each piece, particularly with my OOAK (one-of-a-kind) items, which these earrings all are.

And so, when you click on any of these listings - Sugar Plum, Verdant Cairns or Sugar Spun, you can read a little bit more of the story behind each pair. Sometimes I don't see the connections myself until I have completed a piece and named it, but I think that's the nature of creating, and it's good to think about a design's story - to take a minute to reflect on what you have just made. Sometimes you have to take a step back to really see what's in front of you, even when you're the one who created it.

My Favourite Autumnal Palette

I have found this year, that I have a favourite Autumnal palette. Orange, purple, turquoise and a sort of mossy green. Here are some of the things I've made over the years in these tones:

You can see from these that I sometimes the turquoise veers towards the cobalt blue, and that I like to add in a bronzy gold/brown too, but this is definitely a palette which I return to again and again, particularly during this time of year. Rich, Autumnal tones, but with the vibrancy that I crave when I look at your more typical earthy Autumnal palettes. 

I returned to this palette again last weekend:

Sometimes, beads arrive and you just fall in love with them. Sometimes they speak to you straight away and say - use me now! This was the case with these gorgeous lampwork dahlias from Pasion de Vidrio. Ronald makes the most gorgeous lampwork beads, although he's currently taking a break from his art. Thankfully, I stocked up a bit first. (Yes, I bet you were worried that I would run out of beads. To quote my friend Keirsten, I needed fresh beads. My other ones had gone briefly stale.) Simply pairing them with Humblebeads' gorgeous disc beads (they fell together on my work top - I'd love to say that it was my intuitive way of working that brought them together but alas, I fear it was just my messiness and lack of organisation!) meant that I had a pair of earrings in my favourite Autumnal tones:

In Autumn, available in the shop. 

Black, gold and green - and a little softness too

When I posted a picture of this bracelet, one of my good friends (Claire) said 'super colour combo - one of those unexpected ones that you do so well' which was of course, an enormous compliment coming from someone who kind of knows what she's doing with colour and components herself, ahem! I almost feel like I'm cheating when I accept compliments like that though - I'm so led by what's in front of me. This bracelet was actually a reworking of one from a couple of years ago (not sure I ever took a photo of the original, sorry) which for some reason I made for an approximately 12" wrist (not quite, but you get the picture!) and had needed re-doing for some time. It was sitting on my work tray, along with a new set of astonishing lampwork beads from Jana Filípková (I must show you the rest of the set sometime soon - really and truly, astounding), and somehow the fun spottiness of the vintage black acrylic, and the playful shimmering sparkliness of Jana's glitter ball seemed like they wanted to go together. It also helped to balance the bracelet nicely too - those large acrylic beads are actually very light, and the smoky frosted sea-glass-esque rounds on the other side are on the heavy side by comparison. The large glitter ball did the trick, weight-wise. (And psst - there's another butterfly on this bracelet too...!)

I had some of the acrylic rounds left over from shortening my canklet-style bracelet, and so decided to turn them into some simple earrings. I don't often work with black - I'm not entirely sure why, I do wear black both in my clothes and make-up, but somehow I really don't like it in home decor or beads. Too harsh; too stark. I knew these beads needed softening for them to work for me, but as these rounds are on the large side, I felt that adding beads onto them wasn't the thing to do here, despite this post. I tried flattening out a couple of etched brass bead caps but they didn't look right, and then I remembered Lorelei Eurto's vintage tin bead caps that I splurged on a while back. Still have a small cache of them left over, pleasingly! These lovely floral ones - pinks, peaches, greens and cornflower blooms on a yellow base - gave the black acrylic just the right feel, and tapped into their vintage feel. I also had exactly the right weenie lampwork beads from Julie Wong Sontag in a soft, etched lemon yellow, to decorate the earwires. 

Both of these sold the same day I shared them, so perhaps I should work with black more often....!

Butterflies

Why did the butterfly flutter...oh, you know the rest! These past 2 weeks, I seem to have developed a real thing for butterflies. Don't know why - yes, I am often drawn to 'things with wings' but butterflies can sometimes be a little saccharine - a bit 'wee girly' and sugary for me. Certainly to be the focus of a piece. But somehow, they've ended up in my designs again and again, whether I like it or not recently. I've also seem to lost all ability to make anything other than earrings. Whatever - I'm going with it. Often, I find my earrings can be cute but a little pedestrian, so I'm quite enjoying creating slightly more exuberant earrings for once. Let's see where this takes me.

Here in Butterfly Dance, I've stacked a whole heap of elements together. Pressed glass, recycled glass, Fallen Angel Brass, Vintaj Brass, Gunmetal caps, more pressed glass, copper hoops, vintage brass butterfly charms, handmade lampwork rondelles (some of Julie Wong Sontag's infamous 'weenies'), and my own oxidised silver earwires. I love how the butterflies are framed by those copper rings - and I love the real mix of metals. Even the brasses - the three varieties here are each so different, and each a naturally developed patina. Brass really is a beautiful and under-appreciated metal. I'm also usually not particularly keen on brass and copper - something about the yellow and orange tones being too close to one another - but the 3-tone brass, the gunmetal, the oxidised silver - I think it's safe to add the copper in there too, it only adds to the multi-mixed-metal-ness. You can find these for sale in the shop. 

Admiral are a pair I am particularly pleased with. I received these gorgeous wooden buttons as a lovely little gift from Claire who owns Smitten Beads, as part of a challenge she offered up in her shop. They really are rather special, don't you think? Now, as I said before, sometimes my earrings can be a little, well, safe. Simple. Pedestrian if I'm being particularly hard on myself! When I have a long craft fair, or a short deadline, then I definitely go into earring-making machine mode. I don't make earrings that I don't like or wouldn't wear, but I don't make earrings like these or these or these. Also, I don't/can't call my earrings things like I Rose From Marsh Mud. I would really like to, but I call my earrings things like Butterfly Dance. You see - 'safe'! I am just not edgy [nor do I know enough about poetry!] I guess - *sigh*

Anyway, I digress. Quite often my earrings have 2 or 3 parts to them. And they are simply stacked. Here's a good example:

Autumnal

Don't get me wrong. I like these. I like the colours, shapes and contrasting textures; I like their neatness. They're some of my favourites from my Summer earrings haul. But they are simply stacked - there's no engineering, so to speak, to them. And quite often when I try to wrangle a non-beady/round element into a pair of earrings, which of course have to hang 'just so', they droop limply and unconvincingly and simply don't work. 

But here, as you can hopefully see, the buttons hang just as I wanted them too. And the slim chains swoop down below, the leaves don't tip as they could, but hang down nicely - all in all, I'm rather pleased with these. More cute lampwork from Julie Wong Sontag, by the way. 

This last pair for this post are a pair which I *think* I may have to keep for myself. There's something about this combination of turquoise, darkly textural brass, this particular shade of red and the polka dots that I find hard to resist. I love that the holes in the centre of Helen Chalmers' discs have plenty of room for several slim-gauge wire wraps. I've used 0.6mm wire here and as you can see, they comfortably allow 4 passes at least per disc. This allows me to suspend them facing outwards, which, as Helen's beads really do stand looking at front-ways (sideways?) on, is a lovely bonus. These earrings also have a little touch that I've been adding to quite a few pairs recently - the embellished earwires. I used to do this relatively often but sort of fell out of the habit - I've been stalking reading a favourite blog recently, right from the beginning (a trick I picked up from Julie), and was reminded just how much I like decorating earwires - and so have resolved to do it more often. Julie's tiny lampwork beads are just the perfect size for this. If I do decide to sell these, I'll pop a link back here, but in all honesty, I think they'll be staying with me! 

Rustic Autumn

A few weeks ago, I added these to my etsy shop. I also wrote about them here, over on Art Bead Scene. I thought you might like to read about them too, and get a peek into the creative process behind them. 

Fresh off the boat!

I have been lucky enough to have been published in the last two issues of the beautiful publication that is Stringing Magazine. Do you know it? If you are in the UK, it can be tricky to get hold of, but you can always download a copy right onto your computer or tablet. If you like making jewellery, or even if you just like looking at - and wearing! - gorgeous handmade jewellery, then it really is a feast for the eyes. It's one of those publications I've always longed to be published in, but never quite screwed up the courage to submit any designs to. Well, I'm not quite sure what changed, but back in May(?) (April? June? I can't remember now! Definitely back in Belfast at any rate) I got my nerve together and sent in a few pieces for their Winter issue. 

I'm not sure I ever got round to sharing those which were accepted - a real and true honour for me, incredibly humbling and exciting to be sharing those pages with so many talented folk. The Winter pieces arrived back in the midst of craft fair madness, so they went straight onto the stand, apart from a dainty necklace and earring set which I knew from before I even sent it away was destined for my wee sister. 

Fast forward to September(? I really am not good at remembering dates.), and it was submission time all over again. Well, I didn't get my act together quite so much but I managed to whip up a few pieces - earrings and a bracelet to submit, and some of them were accepted. Yay! They arrived back with me today, and here they are. A few PicMonkey snaps to share with you of them. (I forgot to shoot the bracelet - but that will follow). 

I'm enjoying playing around with fonts at the moment. Really, I want to find one that works for me, but my style does tend toward the eclectic - why shouldn't my font-age? Which one is your favourite? Do you like a mix? Or do you think I should hone it right down?

Annoyingly, I just didn't get my act together in time for the Summer issue submission deadline, so you won't be seeing any of my work then. Hopefully I can be more organised, and get some designs submitted for the Fall issue - and fingers crossed, more of my work will be gracing Stringing's pages later in the year. It's hard work, but I think it's good to have to 'put yourself out there' every single time. There's something quite bracing about designing to a specific brief, but it doesn't have the added pressure (not quite the right word) of designing for a specific person. That layer of specificity and direction from the magazine, but then you are free to do whatever you like from that - you only have yourself (and hopefully the magazine!) to please. 

Malin de Koning's Stacked Earring Challenge

Hello there! It's been a good while since I've had the time to take part in any kind of communal challange/blog hop. There have been a couple which I signed up for and then well and truly dropped the ball on. Oh dear. However, this one was a little bit different...Malin de Koning, a good friend from Sweden, sent a small group of us - Claire Lockwood, Heidi Post and Leah Curtis - a selection of beads to play with, and come up with earrings with. You can't really drop the ball when someone has actually given you a gift of beads, can you? So, on Wednesday I went for my usual lunch date with myself after my weekly acupuncture appointment, and pulled out my tools and Malin's generous bag of beadlings. Here's what she sent us:

And here's what Malin had to say about the challenge:

"The idea is that I give each of us the same set of beads. Beads that I believe would be nice to use in earrings. Nothing exclusive, and no art beads. Just a group of different beads that I myself believe can be used in fun and interesting ways in earrings in a stacked style.

I am longing to see how we all use the same things but in different ways. I am thinking we could all make at least one pair of earrings, but hopefully more. And that we are free to add our own extra beads and/or other components, if we at least use three (3) of the beads from my set in each design."

If you follow Malin's blog (and you should!), you will immediately be able to see her own inimitable sense of style and colour shining through her bead selection. I love that. There's no escaping your own style once you have found it!

And without further ado, here's what I created, adding a few of my own beads into the mix.

LOVE these wooden teeth beads!

(Oops...I broke the rules here.....only 2 of Malin's beads per earring....but that's 4 altogether...and 50% of the beads are from her, so hopefully you will let me away with it Malin!)

Mwah! More kissing birdies. 

If you've enjoyed seeing what I turned this little pile of loveliness into, then take a peek at what everyone else did too! I know I am looking forward to seeing what the same materials have become elsewhere.

Thank you so much to Malin for organising this really fun wee challenge. We should do it again sometime, don't you think? 

Claire Lockwood - SomethingToDoWithYourHands - www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com

Leah Curtis - BeadyEyedBunny - www.beadyeyedbunny.blogspot.com

***Rebecca Anderson - Songbead - www.songbeads.blogspot.com***

Heidi Post - ExPostFacto - www.expostfactojewelry.blogspot.com

Malin de Koning - BeadingByMalindeKoning - www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.se