Contrariwise ramblings

Just thought I'd share a couple of new pieces in my shop. Both were made this week

The first are these Hoops Within Hoops. (It's my temporary name, so please forgive it. If you want to suggest a better one, I'd appreciate it.)

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I recently learned how to solder. And I've been having lots of fun since. These earrings are the result of me having fun soldering rings of sterling wire.

Instead of just single rings of sterling for each hoop, I wanted to have multiples.

The earrings turned out almost exactly like I envisioned them. Except for one thing:

I originally planned to have the rings be perfectly smooth circles. But when I made the earrings that way, I thought it was boring. You can buy slickly manufactured earrings at any kiosk at a mall. I wanted to make sure that there was a human element in these earrings. I handmade them, they should have my stamp!

So using my ballpeen hammer, I hammered them dozens of times (although it seemed like hundreds and may well have been!) to give them a more personalized look.

In the process, I found that the textured silver really reflected the light, making these earrings sparkle with every movement.

The send pair uses gemstones from the Bead Porn purchase I recently made.

These facetted natural citrine briolettes are the color of warmed honey. They look great all on their own - on my own custom earwires.

And I suddenly realized that they happen to be the November birthstones. I call them "Warm Gold and Cool Silver".

Now what I haven't shown you, is a 3rd pair of earrings I made this week that were a FAILURE. They, of course, haven't been listed in my shop.

As it's been said, the good comes with the bad. You can't expect designs to go right every time. And I'm planning to show you those -and what went wrong with them- in a future post.

Perhaps you'll be able to learn from my errors. Or at least laugh at them.





Check back with me tomorrow. I'll be having my weekly feature: Crafts, Tutorial, and More! It's my opportunity to share with you the best (and oddest) things I've found on the web in the past week!

Do you want to subscribe to my blog by email? Click here!.

Would you like to be a Contrariwise follower? (I love having more friends!) All you have to do is click on the link in the upper right on my side bar.