Cinnamon Jewellery

I finished these etched silver and green pearl earrings recently and took the opportunity yesterday when the sun came out to take a few photos. I used some of the silver I etched recently using nail art stamps and decided to try bezel setting some pearl beads I've had for absolutely years. Yes I did say beads! I bought the beads years ago from "somewhere" (can't remember). They were described as button pearls and they were shaped kind of like cabochons with a slight dome on one side and a flat base on the other and obviously had holes. Some of them were very flat on one side and very domed on the other which is what gave me the idea to use them as cabs. This photo of a few of the beads was taken under a day light bulb so the colours are a bit off but they are all lovely icy pastel shades of pink, green, apricot, pale blue, purple and grey which look great contrasted with oxidized copper and silver. I sorted through them and removed the ones whose holes were...

Purple has been my favourite colour for as long as I can remember. When I was younger I had a dark purple carpet, purple flower curtains, lilac walls and a purple bedspread in my bedroom - I loved it! When it comes to buying beads I'm always drawn to the purple ones and sometimes have to tell myself no. I didn't manage it when I saw these dyed purple freshwater pearls on Lima Beads though and ended up buying them! They are lovely, quite small (5mm) but a real electric purple and very shiny. I decided they would look great with oxidised sterling silver so I made these disc earrings last week using my new larger size disc cutter, slightly thicker sheet silver than usual (the price of silver these days!) and the pearls. I cut a hole in the disc slightly off centre then texturised and domed them, added the pearls, into LOS, cleaned and polished and ready to be photographed. I always find silver a bit tricky to photograph due to the reflect...

Issue 28 of Bead magazine is out today and features a variety of lovely projects including my green freshwater pearl and sterling silver wirework earrings on page 45! I forgot to take a photo of the finished earrings before sending them off to the magazine for photographing so here's a couple of the step-by-step photos I took plus a copper version of the earrings 

Checking my emails this morning I saw I had a message from Etsy seller Pam of  P W Originals  telling me she has picked a pair of my earrings for her Treasury "Im Feelin' In The Pink"  ~ a lovely pick of pinks and greys. What a nice way to start a Sunday! Check out Pam's shop for her very pretty handmade purses, totes and cushion covers.