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On This Page
· Rambles...
· Rambles...
· Rambles...
· Rambles...
· Sapphire and gold hoop earrings
· Citrine and labradorite earrings
· Rambles...
· Better pic of Madeira citrine earrings
· Madeira citrine earrings
· Green amethyst and prehnite necklace
· Green amethyst and emerald earrings
· Rambles...
· "A" sapphire earrings
· Happy New Year! (pic of double strand freshwater pearl necklace, pearl earrings)
· 2007, the year in beading
· Various jewelry pics
· Shiana fine silver, lapis and Bali sterling set
· Prehnite and peridot earrings on Argentium sterling silver wire
· Hammered Argentium sterling "links" earrings
· Hammered Argentium sterling earrings
· Various earrings
· Aha! Found the earrings...
· Aquamarine earrings, version 1.1
· Aquamarine earrings to go with the necklace
· Sterling silver and Swarovski crystal "tulip" earrings
· Sterling silver and Swarovski crystal "tulip" earrings
· Peridot earrings on goldfilled chain
· Interesting article/site on argentium sterling silver
· Argentium silver ear wires, end of Day 2
· Freshwater coin pearl jewelry
· Argentium silver ear wire thoughts
· Triple hoop earrings with square pearls
· Triple hoop earrings, hammered goldfilled wire and freshwater pearls
· Bali vermeil and freshwater pearl earrings
· Hammered sterling silver hoop earrings with blue apatite
· Version 1.1 of Swarovski crystal earrings
· Swarovski crystal and chain earrings
· Turquoise hammered goldfilled wire earrings
· Black Swarovski crystal and vermeil earrings, turquoise and vermeil earrings
· Labradorite and vermeil necklace and earrings
· Chalcedony necklace, then and now
· Jade necklace: then and now
· Citrine/sterling necklace and earrings, rambles...
· Rambles and a few pics
· More blogging here, with pics
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Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 6, 2008
at 2:24 PM (Pacific)
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of using a tiny round bead, instead of a crimp (see previous Rambles...).
What I had on hand were crimp tubes. They actually don't look bad, crimped on a hoop like that, but a tiny round bead would likely look much better.
I've been turning it over in my mind about soldering. Wondering how feasible it would be to solder an earring frame, say, that already had dangles on it. Would it melt the wire on the dangles? For briolettes, I've been using a double loop at the top. It would be more difficult doing such a loop directly on the wire.Labels: beading notes, earrings
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Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 5, 2008
at 8:26 PM (Pacific)
I got to finish some earrings today. Boy, were they a pain to finish! I had this idea of making a round hoop, with a curved bar inside it, like a much simpler version of these: Gokul earrings. Just the bottom hoops with the bar inside, and stuff hanging from the bar and from the bottom edge of the hoop. (Not even the fancy dangles hanging from the bottom, just regular little dangles.)
Thing is, I haven't taken up soldering yet. I don't think it's a big deal, but it does represent cost, both in time and in tools and materials. Soldering will be my second phase of jewelry making; I'm thinking of taking it up next year.
Anyhow...I had no idea how I was going to do the curved bar inside the hoop. I knew it wasn't going to be as simple as these:
Here, the shape of the hoop keeps the horizontal bar from sliding around. I knew that wasn't going to happen with the round hoops, but figured I'd go ahead, make the hoops and take it from there.
So I made the hoop and bar...how to keep this thing from sliding around? These are the versions I ran through:
In figure 1, I tried wrapping fine-gauge wire tightly around the sides of the hoop, directly under the curved bar. This didn't work, no matter how tightly I did the wrap. If you pushed firmly on the coil of wire, it slid down the side of the hoop.
I then tried wrapping fine-gauge wire above the curved bar, on either side of the hoop (figure 2). This worked, because the bar could not slide, but looked funny, since the wrapped wire covered only the top part of the hoop.
Figure 3 entailed covering the rest of the hoop with the fine-gauge wire. I've seen this done in finished pieces, but it didn't work here. You'd have to finagle the dangles on the bottom of the hoop...I had mine just hanging from the hoop itself. So the only way to do the wrapped wire, would be to use a continuous piece of wire. Anything else, the bottom wrap of wire would slide down...unless you wrapped it right up against the dangles on the bottom of the hoop. In which case, the dangles wouldn't really dangle, they'd just be stuck in a piece.
So I'm thinking, do I really want this entire earring to stand or fall, based on a continuous strand of wire?
Figure 4 was my solution. I didn't use fine-gauge wire at all. As an aside, I rather disliked the fine-gauge wire experience. I've used it to "glue" components together, I don't mind that, but the idea of covering the entire frame with wrapped wire irked me. The wrapped wire added to the weight of the earring, and there wasn't much practical way to use a continuous piece of wire...you were stuck patching the wraps together, and ending up with little odds and ends of wire trimmings (I know, if you did this often enough, you wouldn't have much waste).
In the end I just used...crimps. That's right, crimps. I put a crimp under each end of the curved bar. And it worked.
Thinking on it now...another solution could be to use a tiny silver bead under each end of the curved bar. You could then hammer the wire under the tiny bead to keep the bead in place. I've done stuff like that although it's tricky (you really have to hammer the wire to keep even a small bead in place).Labels: beading notes, earrings
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Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 2, 2008
at 5:37 PM (Pacific)
Hi! Haven't had much time to blog lately...
It's occurred to me...a new earring design usually takes me several days, at least. Sometimes longer. Once I have the design, it takes me several hours to actually fabricate the earrings.
I was thinking of that today...from the beginning, I had wanted to develop several designs and just use those. Part of it is sheer laziness, no doubt, but I believe in modularity anyway in my life. If I find a sweater I like, I'll buy the same sweater in as many different colors as I need, rather than try to find a different sweater. If it works, it works.
So far:
I've already made another of this pattern, using a tiny prehnite faceted onion as the top stone, and three green amethyst faceted pears on the bottom (the pears were too big to use five). I'm thinking of making a garnet pair as well.
This is good too. I'm planning to make a green pair...going through my clothes today, I realized how much green I wear. Blue is useful too. Thinking on it, I should make a green and a blue pair of every design.
This works, but a caveat: I got rid of the emeralds.
This is better for a larger stone...and might look nice with more unusual chains, like a figure-8 or textured chain. Even though I like this flat cable chain.
This is an efficient use of tiny stones! I have a gold version, but need to redo it--I tried putting gold beads on the outside of the stones, instead of just using them to space out the stones. That doesn't work, since the gold beads are too light weight, they end sliding up the sides of the hoops. Plus, I think I'll do a simple-loop headpin rather than a wrapped-loop one, for the gold version.
That's it so far! I have other earrings I've made, but those are more one-of-a-kind, I'm not planning on reusing the design.
I'm also thinking of a round hoop, with a curved bar in the middle...you hang stones from both the curved bar and the bottom of the hoop.Labels: beading notes, earrings, pics
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Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
March 23, 2008
at 5:36 PM (Pacific)
Happy Easter!
Was fiddling around with some earrings today...I still need to finish the three-hoop necklace. The front is fine, but I finished the back with two grey moonstone rondelles. I love how the grey color looks, but the drill-holes were small. I really prefer using heavier wire in back to finish a chain, plus it could stand to be a bit longer anyway.
Anyhow, about the earrings. These are to go with my mom pendant:
Only the earrings use just my kids' birthstones (peridot and pearl). It took me a while to make them though the design itself is quite simple.
For one thing, I've found it tricky making matching sets of jewelry. Usually the earrings end up too fancy; they work well on their own, but are "too much" when worn with the matching necklace.
At the opposite end are earrings that work only with the matching necklace and are too simple or blah to be worn on their own or with anything else.
For this exercise, I wore the necklace while doing the earrings, and came up with a design of a gold bead, a baby coin pearl, and a peridot faceted pear. The peridot I've had for over a year (it's the same one here); the baby coin is the same as in the necklace. The gold bead is actually karat gold albeit hollow in structure. I've liked adding karat gold beads here and there in my work; nothing else looks like real gold (unfortunately nothing else costs like real gold either, hence the idea of using it sparingly).
I love these baby coin pearls! I saw them used extensively on the Midori Jewelry site and got the idea there. They're quite a bit more versatile than the larger coin pearls and add a nice glow to whatever you're making.
All three components of the earrings are very lightweight. I've been making heavier earrings and I like them, but you can't wear heavy earrings every day.
I hope to have some pictures soon.Labels: beading notes, earrings
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Sapphire and gold hoop earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
March 20, 2008
at 7:03 PM (Pacific)
This is a somewhat lower grade of sapphire. Still a tiny bit translucent, but without the rich color of blue sapphires.
I was very pleased these beads had been hand selected...I bought them online, three packages of four beads each. Someone had gone through and made sure I got two of each color. That's how I could make matching earrings.
This is goldfill and vermeil, with karat gold beads.Labels: earrings, gold, goldfilled, hoops, sapphire, vermeil
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Citrine and labradorite earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
at 6:55 PM (Pacific)
Here's my first attempt at using a herringbone weave. I realize I linked to it earlier from the beauty & fashion blog, but now that I can get screenshot thumbnails of the posts here, figured it would be useful to post here for future reference.
Ultimately I was disappointed in using half-hard wire for the weave, because I found it impossible to bend the wire just so on the sides. I think the bezel ended up covering too much of the stone. I haven't given up on the weave itself, but I will wait until I can order some soft wire in this gauge.Labels: citrine, earrings, labradorite, pics, wire
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Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
March 18, 2008
at 6:12 PM (Pacific)
...where was I? :)
I ditched the earrings...I can't make the herringbone weave work with half-hard wire. It'll make a bezel, but I'm not happy with it.
Latest projects:
Fashion Notes: Earring synergy (the ill-fated half-hard herringbone weave!)
Just Notes: What I've been into, lately (also featuring some pics I found on the Net of my home town)
Fashion Notes: Labradorite necklace
Today I'm making one of those necklaces...you've seen them...a small golden hoop, with some stuff hanging from it. It's a style I've been meaning to try for quite some time, but the challenge of course is to avoid a generic look.
So I started with my kids' birthstones--peridot and pearl--and thought to make a commemoration of my time with them. I added a small round citrine coin (smooth) to represent the sun, a tiny heart of sapphire (for the blue sky), a moonstone (for cloudy days), and an aquamarine (the sea). I wanted to add a tiny prehnite onion, for a grassy field, but it was getting to be too much so I had to take it off.
It occurred to me as I was making this, how much time it takes to make even a relatively simple construction. For me now it's less an issue of skill, and becoming less an issue of materials...I remember back when I found the entire process intimidating. Just making a wrapped loop was horrible, or a wrapped briolette. Now it feels quite natural.
Even so, as I say, it takes forever! The thing has to hang just right, it has to fall just right. The expensive stones have to show; they can't migrate to the back. It has to feel comfortable on. Even if everything seems right, I still have to wear it. I'll know at the end of the day, if it's something I ever want to wear again. Hence it takes at least two days to make a single piece, unless it's one of those freaky pieces that just happens to be right the first time around.Labels: beading notes, citrine, earrings, labradorite, necklace, pics, sapphire
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Better pic of Madeira citrine earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
March 8, 2008
at 11:41 AM (Pacific)
Not sure what to make next. Thinking of going ahead and making another copy of these frames, though I don't know what to put in them. I'm just thinking of "something symmetrical, using one or two chains, and a small stone."Labels: bali, citrine, earrings, hoops, pics, sterling silver
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Madeira citrine earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
March 7, 2008
at 4:38 PM (Pacific)
Been playing around with these for a while...had the idea of capturing this "winter tree full of robins" idea--not even sure they were robins? They weren't like East Coast robins, with vivid red-orange breasts, but rather a softer color.
Anyhow, because the citrines are wrapped to the chain, they move around a lot...rather like birds on a tree :) I tried this out initially with some bright silver chain I had on hand, but the oxidized one fits much better. (Using the same motif, it becomes like the dark branches of the tree.)
I was out of soft wire, so I went ahead and used half hard. It was, oddly, as easy to make the frames, because I'd started out using only half hard wire in the first place. lol! I'd had no real idea what temper to use for what, so I bought only half hard, in 20 and 24 gauges, figuring these would work for the most applications. So returning to this temper was curiously comforting.
I'd been trying for a long time to make this sort of frame. I'd say my earlier endeavors were typically too big and/or too heavy. And I've been trying lately to make more conservative styles, so again a smaller size is in order.Labels: citrine, earrings, hoops, pics, sterling silver
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Green amethyst and prehnite necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
February 9, 2008
at 4:10 PM (Pacific)
Playing around with backgrounds. The black background shows the structure better, but the white one shows the color of the stones.
Pretty pleased with the necklace...the key is the weight in back. Without adding extra beads, the weight in front would be too much.
Another idea I'm playing with is of making pieces which can be worn either casually or more formally. This one might do it. If you wear your hair down, you can't see the prehnites much, so it becomes a simpler necklace, just the front prasiolites. If you put your hair up of course you can see the whole shmeer.Labels: amethyst, earrings, emerald, necklace, pics, prehnite
Handmade Jewelry photo gallery
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Green amethyst and emerald earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
February 3, 2008
at 3:17 PM (Pacific)
Quite pleased with these. The emeralds shown are really tiny, the ones that come at the ends of a graduated strand. Supposedly they're at least 2mm (which is already small) but some struck me as being even smaller. Stringing them though, they look quite pretty.
If you look at the right-most bottom pic, you can see the emerald "frame" is bent a little. I've fixed that since the photo.Labels: amethyst, chain, earrings, emerald, goldfilled, hoops, pics
Handmade Jewelry photo gallery
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Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 21, 2008
at 11:38 AM (Pacific)
Haven't been doing many new projects lately, aside from the aforementioned earrings. Mostly, I've been going back over old projects...the ones I want to keep...and fixing them up. It's a slow but steady process.
Traditionally (if three years' worth of anything can have tradition), I've been taking a month or two off beading every year. Now I don't need to do that. I suppose I've felt a certain amount of stress, in whether I could really make jewelry.
I'm not crafty by nature. My interest in making jewelry derives from my interest in the thing itself. But now I feel I have the capability, and it's simply a matter of keeping at it. So, instead of grinding to a halt, I've decided to do it more slowly, more introspectively, for the given month or two.
Here is a redo of a hoop originally designed with thicker wire. I ran out...of course...actually I was short in the neighborhood of a quarter- to half-inch of wire, and my supplier is out of stock of this gauge (and has been for quite some time). I don't want to switch suppliers, so I redid the hoop with the gauge on hand.
The golden circle is nice...I made it like a wedding ring in size. Haven't worked out the top 100% yet, I had to bend the loop over to get the pendant to hang straight. It's balanced, but I'd like to make the loop look more centered.
Wondering if these guys have something in common:
For this necklace, I had made some "moral obligation" earrings, plain hammered silver hoops with lapis dangles. Nice, but, the sapphire earrings are nicer. I haven't worn them together yet though.
Discovered I'd fluffed one of the Bali vermeil beads in the back. If I'm redoing it though, I'll probably add an extender chain.Labels: bails, beading notes, earrings, goldfilled, lapis, necklace, pearls, pendant, pics, sapphire, silver, vermeil, wire
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"A" sapphire earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 17, 2008
at 5:32 PM (Pacific)
The bottom pic was taken rather hastily, I didn't have time to hang the earrings properly so I put them down on a white tee shirt. :)
Here I went for grade over size, so these sapphires are really very small. But they're not the opaque stones normally used in handmade jewelry; they're translucent, with small areas of transparency.
This is a hoop idea I got from Midori Jewelry. That was the first place I saw such a hoop. I'm getting better at making them although I've found I need to be very slow and patient while doing the wrap at the top. It's easy to fuddle it up. I added my own "touch" by hammering the wraps. Mainly because on some of my hoops, I didn't feel the wrap was secure enough, but I don't dislike the finished look. The idea for me is to produce something that looks a tiny bit rough, after all.
I can't wear 14KT gold earrings so you'll note, I used vermeil ear wires for the gold pair (from Shiana). Normally I don't think vermeil would work, but the Shiana vermeil, so far, is as superior as they claim. The gold plate is thicker than usual, plus it's over fine silver rather than sterling.
I went for the relatively inexpensive 14KT gold tiny beads to give the earring a more golden appearance. In fact it crossed my mind you could cover most of the wire with these beads if you wanted to.
It took me forever to come up with this design, because I specifically wanted to make smaller earrings. Tiny stones + smaller earrings...the stones didn't show well with my earlier designs. For example, I tried the one where you take a piece of wire and wrap it round and round the hoop--similar to this: Going Green Hand-Forged Earrings--and the tiny little sapphires hardly showed at all. weeps! I concluded the only way to get them to show would be to use a lot of them, all together.Labels: argentium, earrings, gold, goldfilled, pics, sapphire, vermeil, wire
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Happy New Year! (pic of double strand freshwater pearl necklace, pearl earrings)
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 2, 2008
at 1:09 PM (Pacific)
This is me wearing:
I would like to wish my fellow beaders a happy and prosperous New Year, with more and more people choosing handmade jewelry. :DLabels: argentium, bali, earrings, necklace, pearls, pics, sterling silver
Handmade Jewelry photo gallery
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2007, the year in beading
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
December 8, 2007
at 2:15 PM (Pacific)
For your reference:
2006, the year in beading
2005, the year in beading
Technically I should wait until January 2008, but I'm afraid I'll be caught up in something else by then.
From this point forward, I'm going to post the first image of the given year, and rip it to shreds write some commentary on it:
Neither of these exists anymore, although of course I've recycled the beads.
American turquoise nugget necklace and earrings...hmmm, same sweater. This is a nice set; I still wear it.
This is okay too. I've had better luck placing flat oval beads toward the back and sides, rather than doing them all around, because, in the front, they tend to flip around too much.
I've also become pickier about aquamarine. I still have the aquamarine from the first necklaces but the quality of it is pretty eh.
And now the last piece I've made in the given year (okay, I know I should wait until the end of the year):
These are really nice. I fell asleep wearing them...very comfortable. This is me wearing the earrings:
I can admit one thing that drives me nuts, is that no one seems to take pictures of earrings "on." I can dig the necklaces, because these are usually photographed on a bust, or at least placed in such a way you can guess what they'd look like on, but earrings really must be worn. jhmo
I've moved away from fancy premade clasps in the main. They're expensive, and I've found something simpler tends to work just as well. If I truly hankered for a fancy clasp, I'd make one, and I've been making my own extender chains too.
As far as the stones, turquoise is still one of my favorites.
Predictions for 2008:
I'm not planning anything radically different for 2008. I can't afford to start silver- or gold-smithing, that's off the table (although I haven't ruled it out for the not-so-near future). I've given a certain amount of thought to selling my jewelry, but the tax system tends to make me think it's not going to be worth it. I do bookkeeping for small businesses in California...we are, ah, a heavily tax-oriented state.
I am planning to continue making jewelry as I have been. I enjoy it even more now, both making and wearing it.Labels: argentium, bali, earrings, hoops, necklace, pearls, pics, turquoise, vermeil
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Various jewelry pics
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
December 5, 2007
at 5:28 PM (Pacific)
This is the lapis and silver necklace and earrings mentioned earlier. The bracelet ended up looking not so good, so I didn't wear it.
This is the American turquoise necklace and earrings from a while ago.
This is a new piece I'm fiddling around with. It's entirely personal, not something you'd make to sell (conversely, not something you'd be able to buy either). It is to commemorate the sea around Jamaica (the two above pics were taken there, as well as the background pic of the boat), which is just the most kick-ass sea you've ever seen.
Here I used American turquoise...the water there is turquoise. If you look out at it, you'll see patches of turquoise and deep blue. The turquoise sea is over areas of sand, the deep blue over coral reefs.
The labradorite has mostly greenish-blue or blue flash, and the pearl is a naturally pink keishi pearl.
The anchor is gold, actually. I went looking around for a golden anchor, and the best one was a 14KT gold charm. I found a sterling silver anchor at Target, but I really wanted a gold color (plus the sterling one was too big). In real life it looks almost like a fleur-de-lys rather than an obvious anchor.
It has an extender chain in the back, the kind you make using short lengths of chain and jump rings.Labels: chain, earrings, keishi, labradorite, lapis, necklace, pics, silver, turquoise
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Shiana fine silver, lapis and Bali sterling set
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
October 24, 2007
at 5:46 PM (Pacific)
I can't believe I didn't post this here? My brain's been fried lately.
This is a set I made from the Shiana fine silver pieces blogged about here: The Lipstick Page Forums Beauty & Fashion Blog
Beauty & Fashion Notes: this 'n' that.
The flower pendant, butterfly beads, and double-flower toggle on the bracelet are all from Shiana. This image came out a bit darker than how the stuff looks in real life; it's typical lapis, a dark-blue strand mixed with a strand that has more white inclusions and pyrite. The pendant is oxidized but looks "brighter" than in the picture.
The butterfly beads are quite interesting; they're not hollow the way typical sterling silver beads would be. They're two pieces of solid silver stuck together, with a small channel in the middle. Both the pendant and the beads are heavy for their size...my original design had two strands of lapis (was kind of interesting, engineering the front) but was too heavy for practical wear.
The double-flower toggle is bright silver, but it's true what they say on the site, it's not really bright or shiny. All of the silver has a beautiful soft glow.
The argentium sterling earrings are exceedingly simple for a reason: I've found even slightly elaborate earrings don't work with even marginally elaborate necklaces. The overall effect is too much, and I end up never wearing the two together.
Here are the same earrings with a different necklace (I didn't make the necklace, it's Iranian):
Labels: argentium, bali, bracelet, earrings, fair trade, hoops, lapis, necklace, pics, silver, sterling silver
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Prehnite and peridot earrings on Argentium sterling silver wire
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
September 12, 2007
at 6:28 PM (Pacific)
I'm writing a post about these in The Lipstick Page Forums Beauty & Fashion Blog, should be published in a day or two. :)Labels: argentium, earrings, peridot, pics, prehnite, wire
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Hammered Argentium sterling "links" earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
September 2, 2007
at 9:14 PM (Pacific)
I'm getting a bit better at this. Now I can tell, as soon as I put the earrings on, whether or not they'll start feeling heavy toward the end of the day. It's a fine line...on these, I had to change out one of the Bali sterling beads. That tiny bit of extra weight makes the difference between "featherlight" and "starts to feel heavy if you wear them long enough."
Pretty pleased with these.Labels: argentium, bali, earrings, pics
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Hammered Argentium sterling earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
September 1, 2007
at 1:10 PM (Pacific)
Been playing with these over the past couple of days. They're long, but lightweight (being only thin pieces of hammered silver, with two small rose quartz beads), and because they're neither hoops nor anything terminating in a loop, they don't get stuck in your hair or collar.
This is also the first time I've made earring wires, thanks to Argentium silver. Before that, I would have had to use niobium, titanium, or 18KT gold...procuring the first two kinds would likely be more headache than buying the blanks, and 18KT gold...hardly worth making this type of earring wire (for that, you would want either a readymade leverback, for a special pair of earrings, or else a kidney wire idea where you could interchange the dangles).
About the rose quartz beads...I've had these for a long time. I never actually got rid of the inexpensive materials I started out with...and if it's possible, I recommend you don't either. My daughter is managing them now. For these earrings, I started out using two small freshwater pearls instead of the rose quartz. But the idea of the earrings was to capture light, so I decided to look for something clear or translucent.
I had in mind to use glass, something like two small rough-looking glass beads (like Indian glass). I found some blue ones, but it occurred to me that making the two stones blue would limit these earrings to being worn with clothes that go with blue. I already have a fair amount of blue earrings. So I looked for clear glass, but it occurred to me the faint pastel pink of rose quartz was actually pretty versatile, almost like "blush makeup for the ears" (on the concept you don't have to match your blush to your clothes).
Anyhow there's the theory. :)Labels: argentium, earrings, pics, quartz
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Various earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
August 29, 2007
at 7:34 PM (Pacific)
These are pretty neat for you to whip up, you will need to hammer them. Then you can decorate them however you please.Labels: argentium, bali, crystal, earrings, labradorite, pearls
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Aha! Found the earrings...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
June 26, 2007
at 3:55 PM (Pacific)
JEZEBEL
(I was looking for these in the previous post.)Labels: earrings
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Aquamarine earrings, version 1.1
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
June 6, 2007
at 1:21 PM (Pacific)
Okey dokey, the version I did yesterday was too heavy. Too much silver at the bottom, stones probably too big...this one uses smaller stones and less than half the silver.Labels: aquamarine, bali, chain, earrings, goldfilled, pics, vermeil
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Aquamarine earrings to go with the necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
June 5, 2007
at 5:09 PM (Pacific)
Sorry for the less than stellar pics...I'm getting a bit tired. Soon I'll go water the garden. :)
Here the issue is how to "pop" the color of the aquamarines. In my experience, aquamarines are sold dyed, unless specified otherwise (and priced accordingly). i.e., when you wash them, you lose much of the color.
Yellow is a good color to pop blue (if you have blue eyes and "warm" coloring, you can enhance your eye color with yellow-toned eyeshadows: champagne, gold, peach, orange, brown with a golden tone, etc.), so I went with Bali gold vermeil for these stones.Labels: aquamarine, bali, chain, earrings, goldfilled, pics, vermeil
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Sterling silver and Swarovski crystal "tulip" earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
June 1, 2007
at 3:54 PM (Pacific)
Well that's it. Toward the end I was starting to think of these as "Murphy's Law earrings," because seemingly everything that could go wrong with them, did. Yet, here they are.Labels: bali, crystal, earrings, pics, sterling silver, wire
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Sterling silver and Swarovski crystal "tulip" earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
May 31, 2007
at 5:58 PM (Pacific)
Pretty pleased with these...the design took me a couple of days. The original design had three bends at the bottom, not four, but I found you have to make these bends pretty deep, and almost closed at the tops, otherwise your dangles "jump" from bend to bend.
These use handmade hammered "paddle headpins": Make Paddle-Style Head Pins
The headpins are fun to make and can be surprisingly versatile, although you have to use beads with small holes for this gauge of wire. I used an emery board to smooth the edges of the "paddles" where necessary.Labels: bali, crystal, earrings, sterling silver, wire
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Peridot earrings on goldfilled chain
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
May 26, 2007
at 10:47 AM (Pacific)
As you can see, it's the same design.Labels: chain, earrings, goldfilled, peridot, pics
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Interesting article/site on argentium sterling silver
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
May 23, 2007
at 11:30 PM (Pacific)
Is Argentium Sterling hypoallergenic?Labels: argentium, earrings, metal sensitivity, wire
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Argentium silver ear wires, end of Day 2
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
at 10:04 PM (Pacific)
Well I'll be darned. All these years, I've never been able to wear sterling silver earrings. I tried it many times over the years, then finally gave up. But these argentium ear wires have worked...I still have them in. No oozing, itching, pain, redness, swelling...amazing, simply amazing. If you are designing for metal sensitivity, you may want to look into this.
I got this great tip from the jewelrymaking.about.com forum, which I'll say again, is the best beading forum. What's great is that it's well run, has a core group of knowledgeable and friendly posters, and is the perfect size--big enough to always have new material, small enough so you don't feel lost in the crowd. :)
So, it's go for the argentium wire earring experiment. Yay!
Oddly enough I've started liking these "test earrings." At first I felt they were too thin...they're made from the only argentium wire I had on hand...now I think they look interesting that way. The effect is almost like invisible hoops where you have the dangles floating in air. I suspect they might look better with two dangles per hoop instead of one...might try that.Labels: argentium, earrings, metal sensitivity, wire
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Freshwater coin pearl jewelry
posted by TheBroadroom.Net,
May 20, 2007
at 6:42 PM (Pacific)
Okey dokey...
They're both pretty straightforward pieces. The bracelet is "reversible" of course, you can wear the coin pearl side toward your hand or away from it.
I'm still playing with the idea of making bracelets composed of multiple bracelets, rather than just multiple strands of the same bracelet, if that makes any sense. I have a couple of these already strung...one is mostly Swarovski crystals, but I crowded all three strands into the same loop and I think it would be better to use jump rings. The other, as mentioned earlier, is the same as the one pictured above only with silver beads instead of vermeil.Labels: bali, bracelet, crystal, earrings, goldfilled, pearls, pics, vermeil, wire
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