Mermaid jewels

Some of my favorite color combos for the Summer are ocean greens and ocean blues. Add in some sparklies in the mix and I just become totally giddy lol

I like to mix things up when I create new polymer clay jewelry components, and this time around, I created some cool earring drops with fabulous glass cabochon that I have encased in polymer clay. I had those cabs saved aside to use at some point, and I figured, why not use them with Polymer Clay? I'm very happy on how each design turned out!

Here's the earrings I made with a pair of my latest handmade components:

Handmade polymer clay & glass chandelier style earring drops made by me, with little oxygen bubbles springing up all around; A mixture of Swarovski crystals and Czech glass beads, there's a little flower detail on each, with a tiny silver color glass bead in the center, like the flower in the hair of a mermaid :) and I used anodized aluminum jump rings in coordinating colors. These earrings are suspended on a pair of hypo-allergenic Niobium ear wires.

I love how the colors in the glass sparkle like the sun hitting the ocean. I love the movement in the colors and the feeling that you're holding a precious treasure. These are one of a kind.... a precious treasure indeed :) The glass set up feels like you're looking into the ocean through a porthole on submarine (I used to work on one of the Atlantis submarines in the Carribean, btw! It's magical!)

If you're interested, I have a few other pairs of one of a kind glass/polymer clay components that I will be listing in my shop HERE, along with these earrings.

Which colors make your heart giddy? Do tell!! I want to know what makes your heart sing :)

Cheers,
Nathalie

Visit my Etsy Jewelry/Components shop here: My Garden Of Love
Visit my Etsy Digi shop here: The Crafty Tribe

Asymmetry and I

As a designer who gravitates toward earrings, I'm always thinking in terms of pairs, especially when it comes to purchasing art beads. It's just one of those things that gets engrained in your brain and becomes second nature---like riding a bike, remembering to turn off the burner when you're done cooking, or making sure you put on deodorant each morning.

So when Kim of NuminosityBeads threw me for a loop and offered just ONE of these crazy glowy ultraviolet etched dichroic lampwork glass beads, well, I was vexed. Panting, starting to break out into a cold sweat, I assured myself that I could incorporate it into a necklace...make it a focal...pair it with other complementary beads. It will be fine, right? RIGHT??!!

Against my better judgement, I was determined to make it work in a pair of earrings. Which could only mean one thing: it was time to get asymmetrical. 

Asymmetry and I are good friends---sometimes we veer way off to the left and sometimes we operate in a more conventional range. What's more important to me in a piece is the balance, not so much the symmetry. 

So I pawed through my bead hoard and came to the last tray in the tower (yes, tower)---the box I reserve for my own polymer clay beads. I keep them at the bottom because I don't make many polymer beads. And the sets I do make tend to get mostly used, leaving one or two left over. Those one or two tend to languish and get forgotten.

This pearly cratered lavender polymer chunk was just the ticket. Its soft frostiness plays a beautifully complementary second-fiddle to the intense ultraviolet flash of Kim's glass. I opted to keep the design simple, pairing each bead with two grungy vintage bone "cruller" beads and capping everything off with some soldering. Sweet, dangly, squeal-er-ific. 

Hope you're having a delicious week!


Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy