06.26.17 The Shape of Things to Come

You would think, as much as I love earrings, that I would make a lot of them - right? Except, I haven't...at least not until now.

I mean, I have made some - mostly in classes - like the hollow forms I made in Fabrication 201, and the pairs I made in the week long argentium class with Ronda Coryell...

but until very recently I'd been making almost nothing but pendants.


I can think of several reasons for this - not the least of which is earrings are too small to put a cutout on the back, and to make a pair of bezel set earrings is almost twice as much work as making a pendant.  Not only do you have to do everything twice, the bezels are much smaller, and they are much easier to melt.


But then a friend told me she wanted a pair of earrings - and was pretty specific about what she was looking for...she wanted them to be stone, have both pink and purple, and be dangly.  Well, two out of three would have been pretty easy - but it took me quite a while to find something that filled the bill.

I looked and looked, and came upon a lovely pair of matched fluorite bars - but they were drilled - so instead of bezel setting them, I asked her if she would be ok if I just made some custom earwires? She said yes - and suddenly a whole new set of design ideas came into my head.

I realized that not every piece has to involve sheet and solder - but finding great stones and giving them elegant, hand formed earwires gives me the opportunity to make beautiful pieces that are not as expensive as my pendants (but do go with them very nicely) - because they don't require as much time, or metal.

In my bead box, I had some drilled sea glass, collected over year of trips to the bead store in the Outer Banks - and I thought - what the heck, I'll make earrings out of those, too.

Finally, I decided to create some simple silver earrings with small stones - which do involve a little bit of metalsmithing - and can be replicated because I can buy multiples of the 6 mm turquoise and coral cabochons.


I'm really pleased to be able to put some smaller pieces - at lower price points - in my shop...especially when it means I can still make beautiful things when I have a little less time to work with.

I hope you'll go check out the earrings - as there are more on the way.

Until next time.