Back on the horse!

I've accrued a decent amount of new works/tinkerings in the past couple of months--I figure it's time to start posting again!

Here's is a pair of earrings I modeled after the lace back of a friends dress (completed September 2013).

The frames are beaded lengths of jeweler's wire of varying gauges, and each row is strung to the last with thread which allows them to flow freely. The wire forming the top wedge had to be super-glued at the corners in order to keep the tension of the "loom's" coiled thread.

Another photo for scale (they should almost touch the shoulders on most people):

I'm particularly fond of these as the dangling beads are also very reminiscent of Neuropteran eggs ^_^

Dangly earrings

A gift for my sister (who has un-pierced ears) last Christmas. She wanted something "dangly" and was having a hard time finding options. Though I found "dangly" to be a vague descriptor, I aimed for something that would hang almost to the shoulder and had multiple points of articulation so that the earrings would flow when the wearer moves their head rather than move as one rigid piece.
The earrings are composed of thick jeweler's wire for the main swoop, thin wire for the attachments, and super sculpey for the twists. The twists were painted with acrylics as were the fronts of the clasps so that the color would match. Not only is it hard to find earrings for those without pierced ears, but it's also hard to find a diversity of means to make them from scratch. . . but it's nothing a little paint can't fix  :-)

A nice tip I got from craft-master Steve Bylsma involves using gloves or latex finger tippers when painting to avoid leaving finger prints on painted surfaces that need to be handled. I got that piece of advice after having finished these, but I'll know for the future if I ever want to make more pieces similar to these.

M-m-m-molluscs

I do find molluscs to be very cool. So much that I crafted a pair of earrings for a similarly passionate friend of mine in the shape of nautilus shells. Plugs for gauged ears to be specific.

The picture isn't that clear, and this is just one of the two. Made from sculpey which was then further chiseled and sanded after being baked to get those small nooks. Painted with acrylic paints including a pale gold that stunningly matched the color and quality of nacre (what accounts for the shimmer of pearls, and the inside of an abalone shell). What it represents is actually a cross-section of the shell so that you can see into all of the chambers, and a real shell follows a logarithmic spiral so it actually wouldn't close in on itself. I just wanted to make them circles.