Autumn Leaves

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Kristi Bowman Gruel, of Kristi Bowman Designs, sent me these delightful copper connectors that she colored and sealed with ice resin. I love how vivid her colors always are. I added polymer clay leaves, little ceramic flower shaped bead caps, agates and glass, along with my handmade copper ear wires.

 I'm in love with these! They are perfect for fall - but I'd wear them throughout the winter too, because these are my favorite colors to wear! You can find these earrings in my shop now. 

Linda Landig Jewelry

Leaves are Falling

 

Happy Wednesday folks! 

I'm in the middle of a two-weekend show on Facebook with my friends Lucy Haslam and Helen Backhouse. Inspired by the books/TV series 'Outlander' and set mainly in the Scottish Highlands at the time of the Battle of Culloden, then moving via France to Northern America, it's natural that I've included a number of pieces of work using designs based on heather, leaves and wood. 

These two new pairs of earrings are coming up this weekend in Part II - both using new, stained glass effect polymer clay leaves by Helen Backhouse. 

The top pair are lusciously long but light as a feather, using sigid wood tubes and Vintaj copper beadcaps, wound with silver/copper fancy headpins and swarowski crystals, hung on matching aqua niobium earwires. 

The second pair have more purple in them - I had these perfect stained glass effect lampwork beads by Leese Mahoney and again used copper beadcaps and the silver/copper headpins with swarowski crystals. The earwires are purple niobium. 

We all need some colour in our life at the moment. Hope you can join us over in The Very Nice Group this weekend. 

                                                              Take care out there. 

                                                                   Lindsay xx

                                                               My Etsy shop

                                                            My Facebook page

Ear ear!

A week or so ago I made a 'singleton' earring - I've done them in the past, as custom orders for those who take asymmetry to the nth degree. After posting a picture on Instagram, I had quite a few requests for more.

If you are just going to wear one earring, it needs to make a real statement, rather than looking like you've just lost one!

I had a little stash of beautiful, orphan metallic finish lampwork leaf headpins by Linda Newnham and a few left of Faerystones swirly copper integrated earwires. Orphan components are perfect for singleton earrings.

I added toning swarowski crystals to each one to bring out those colours - unfortunately, it's so dark here today you can't quite see the shimmer.

The darkest one has been nabbed, but the others will flutter over to my Etsy shop soon. See you again in two weeks - keep well, everybody.

                                                                          Lindsay x

                                                                      My Etsy shop

                                                                    My Facebook page

Which colourway?

I painted the brass frames and leaves separately with no idea what would become of them. Hope you like how I've put them together.  Let me know in comments which pair speaks to you (if any does at all :D)

First pair in ruby pink, jade, red, purple and blue

Second pair in metallic colours 

and the third pair in ruby pink, yellow, turquoise, silver, rose gold.

These will be available in my upcoming show in The Earrings Show FB group on Monday.  Hope you can stop by.  

Have a lovely weekend and I will see you in a couple of weeks time.

Suhana <3

Etsy shop: Suhana Hart Jewellery

Spring in Mind

I know we are in the run up to Christmas but I've had enough of seasonal jewellery already! I started making for Christmas about 3 months ago and peaked last weekend so I'm now on the other side and looking forward to spring designs. My January copy of 'Vogue' arrived this morning and I've already got some new colour combinations planned.

Recently I've been excited by Helen Backhouse's venture into ceramics. I've made a few pairs of earrings which have all flown out but I saved my favourite pair for today's blog post.




The detail on these is quite incredible - the veining, the colouring. I've turned them in opposing directions for added interest.  Above the connectors are some of my favourite lampwork beads from Emma Ralph - great shapes, colours and textures - with bronze spacers from Anna Chernykh and opaque emeralds. Earwires are (of course)  by Lucy Haslam.

                   Below are chunky matte kyanite beads and tiny pieces of silvery leaf chain.

They'll be in my Etsy shop if you'd like them. And I shall be back with you all on Boxing Day - so from me and my family to you and yours - have a very Merry Christmas!

                                                                            Lindsay  x

                                                                         My Etsy shop

                                                                     My facebook page

Leafy Shade.

 

Oh my, it's so hot over here - the north of  England reaches 31 degrees? What's all that about? Hottest summer since 1976 - which I recall well, as I was chasing a very mobile 15 month old around at the time. So at least thank goodness for small mercies.

My workroom just happens to be my conservatory - wonderful for light and air but when I come down in the morning to open the doors and windows and it's off the top of the thermometer - 50 degrees C - I know I'm not going to get anything done again till evening. So making the most of getting out on my bike and keeping the garden tidy - the shady part with lots of shrubbery being my favourite part! This weeks earrings echo that sentiment - cool and fresh.

 

 

The leafy porcelain buds are by French artist PerlaYo - I've had them for ages, wondering how to make them come alive. Playing around with copper leaf headpins from Cecilia Lawrence I turned them upside down, twisted around and threaded seed beads on. Hung on Lucy's copper earwires, they have just the fresh look I was after.

 

Just popped them in my Etsy shop if you'd like them.  See you again in a few weeks time - I'm off to Greece for my hols in 10 days, hoping to pick up some inspiration for my next show, which is sea-themed.  Have a lovely summer, and if you are going away, have a great time.

 

 

Lindsay xx

 

My Etsy shop

 

My Facebook page

Unfurling.

A quick fill-in post from me today. It's been a lovely week here for half term and I've spent a lot of time in the garden.  We all get excited to see buds start to bloom but how often do we really take notice of the leaves beginning to unfurl?
No-one notices the beauty of leaves quite like Helen Backhouse. As well as being a painter and illustrator by trade, then branching out into making the most beautiful polymer clay pieces, she's also a very accomplished photographer and has a real knack for picking out the less obvious features and textures that others would pass over. 
Take these furled leaves; the colours and textures are lovely but the way she has shaped and curved them round is so unusual. The copper 'leaf' headpins complement them well, along with the carved bone beads in honey shades (Numinosity ) and the 'pop' of wine in the greek ceramic cornflakes - one of my favourite staples, and now in several new colours from Smitten Beads.

 

 

 

Organic and rustic - hope you like them. Tell us what's looking particularly good in your garden just now? And I'll be back in two weeks!

 

Lindsay

 

My Etsy shop

 

My Facebook page

 

 

 

After the Show is over

It's been a long week. Birthdays, funeral, too much going on in life. And I'd booked an on-line  show with my three friends Helen Backhouse, Lucy Haslam and Jeni Houser Alasad. We had big ideas, a theme going - so the show must go on. Not a long one from me then, this week - I'm just going to share a few of my favourite pairs from the show.

Our theme was Mother Earth, morphing on the second day into Middle Earth and snippets from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Helen and I both live very near Stonyhurst, where Tolkien was a schoolmaster during WW2 and wrote a great deal of his trilogy; the landscape around there is believed to have been his inspiration for Middle Earth. Close to home then.

The first pair represent the Leaves of Lorien, given by the Elven queen Galadriel to the Company of Adventurers to safeguard them on their journey to the Lonely Mountain. The leaves are of course by Helen  and I added sterling connectors and silver earwires by Lucy.

Next we have the Dark Tower of Mordor - ceramics by Mari Carmen Rodriguez Martinez with mooakite chunks, black lampwork and Lucy's copper earwires.

And last - from the Mother Earth - these fabulous faces from Jeni with Laura Souder raku discs, lampwork by Juliette Mullett and brass chain. Queen of the Night - the moon, tied in orbit to the Earth.  Speaking of which, I'm off to bed after two very late nights. If you caught our show, I hope you enjoyed it, I know we did.

                    Have a lovely Easter time, however you celebrate. See you in two weeks!

                                                                              Lindsay x

                                                                          My Etsy shop

                                                                      My Facebook page

For Auld Lang Syne

                                                        Our last post of  2017!


As I write, I'm humming 'Auld Lang Syne' - a poem by Scotsman Robert Burns, set to the tune of  a traditional folk song and sung all over the world to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight on 31st December. For old times sake....so you might be expecting me to reprise some of my favourite earring pairs from 2017.

Nah.......never look back is my motto. Life's too short. Let's look forward to 2018 and think about         

                                                                   COLOUR!                    
                                                                                      
How much notice do you take of colour predictions when designing? PANTONE have declared 2018 the year of Ultraviolet. 'Dramatically provocative and thoughtful, communicating originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking'.  With a business named after my granddaughter Violet I can't help but be excited. The fashion magazines are already full of it and I know from experience it's one of my customers' favourite colours - it never stays long in my shop. Here are a couple of pairs I made recently with leaves from Helen Backhouse and lampwork by Juliette Mullett of Avette Glass. 

 

 

 

 

 

And this pair, I made for Hallowe'en with vintaj black arte metal and Rejetta's witchy hearts.

 

 

The top pair has been repinned from my Pinterest page almost 700 times in two weeks - so I guess we can't ignore Ultraviolet. Here I've kept it fairly subdued, with silver, bright blue or black. But it looks vibrant with lime green, moody with mustard, soft with pink; flamboyant with red.  Cool with silver, warm with gold. The possibilities are endless. Is it for you, and what other colours or metals will you use it with? 

 

 

It just remains for me to thank you all for joining us for another year; and to hope we continue to enthuse you through 2018!

 

 

Lindsay x

 

My Etsy shop

 

My Facebook page 

 

 

 

 

Art in the Garden

Last weekend I took part in a lovely event. New to me, it was held in the wonderful garden of Jan Lord, a friend of my friend Helen Backhouse (she of Helen's Bat Cave fame).

As well as keeping about 5 acres worth of garden looking magnificent, Jan is a potter, so pottery and ceramics featured quite strongly in the show. 35 artists of all genres, in marquees placed in the garden. Very English - lots of tea and clotted cream scones!

Here's me on Sunday - having left my cardigan at home on the Saturday when it proceeded to pour with rain after the first hour, I had learnt my shivering lesson and took a jacket. Of course, it came out warm and sunny! I'm also wearing my grandson's pumps (I possess no flat shoes, not very useful when you are on grass for 2 days).

                             You wont miss the fact that I have A LOT of earrings for sale.
Here is one of my favourite pairs from the show - a sleek and simple design with copper cones that show off the beautiful colours in Helen's leaves.

And I couldn't resist showing you Tarquin, my lovely pottery tortoise (cheap to feed and no vet's bills). Traded with my neighbour for a necklace - one of the perks of live shows. He's now out in my garden, peeping out from a hosta plant, tasked with keeping the slugs and snails at bay!

                  I'm taking away great memories of a beautiful place, along with several new plants. 

                              Do you love your garden?  Or have  a favourite plant? Tell us about it.

                                                              See you next time

                                                                    Lindsay x

                                                                My Etsy shop

                                                           My Facebook page

Honestly, Honesty!

How is it going in your corner of the world? After a couple of fabulous weekends when we were out in the sun it's decided to throw a strop here today and we've had hail, rain and even a bit of snow on the higher ground. You never know what's coming!

Nevertheless, I've managed to get out and try to begin putting our garden in some sort of order after winter. We lost a very long fence to a storm in November so there's been a mess to sort out after it was replaced. Fencing blokes have big feet!

I have flowers and gardens on the brain at the moment, with an on line show 'English Country Garden' coming up over the weekend and a real life show in the middle of May at a very beautiful garden fairly local to me, a tiny hamlet on the edge of the Forest of Bowland called Cow Ark.

'Art in the Garden' will have 35 artists of every discipline showing their work around a huge woodland garden, all in small marquees. Hoping for good weather of course but at least we will be under cover if it decides to turn inclement. And being England, there is always tea and cake!

Some of the leaves that my friend Helen Backhouse uses for her polymer clay moulds come from this garden so it's quite personal. I asked Helen for something new and special for the shows coming up and she made these stunning pieces with leaves from an honesty plant. A proper old fashioned country garden plant if ever there was one (and it comes in purple).

They're a really unusual shape and she has some wonderful greens, deep berry blues and wine colours in them.

I added old bronze chain and wire wrapped some sparkly goldstone beads for the berries. The wine coloured streak down the centre of the leaves is perfectly echoed by the deep pink of the niobium earwires.

I promise to take plenty of pics over the weekend for you plant lovers out there!

 

See you in two weeks. If you're interested in the earrings, they'll be on sale with plenty more in the Facebook group LBA Galleria Showcase this Sunday. Maybe I'll see you x 

 

Lindsay xx

 

My etsy shop

My facebook page

 

It's a Chain Thing!

 Almost all of my earrings will have some chain (mostly wrapped around beads) on them.  It's a very fiddly job but the end result makes it worthwhile.  Here are some I made this week.

Polymer leaves by Helen Backhouse and lampwork beads by Maryse Fritzsch-Thillens, wrapped with brass chain.

Polymer leaves (by Helen Backhouse) and Czech glass wrapped with silver plated brass and raw brass ball chain.

Polymer leaves (by Helen Backhouse) and lampwork beads (by Maryse Fritzsch-Thillens) wrapped with cup chain.

These are destined for my next online show in the Artist Spotlight fb group on 27th of Feb.  See you again in a few weeks time.  <3

Suhana <3 xxx

My Etsy shop: Buttoned Up Beads

PEARLS OF WISDOM

 Pearls. Calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, found in the soft tissue of molluscs. Doesn't sound too romantic does it? Yet what woman doesn't love them? Timeless, classic, graceful, with a lustre that illuminates the skin. 

                                Pearl - a metaphor for something rare, fine and valuable. 
 

Rustic, cultured, biwa, keishi; natural or dyed - I use them all in my designs. But there are times when you need a certain colour - a perfect match. It's then I turn to Swarowski crystal pearls. These beautiful new leaves from Helen Backhouse in shades of rose quartz and serenity (why didn't I have my hands on these last year when Pantone made it the colour of 2016?) demand the perfect soft pink that is 352 Powder Rose. A simple yet stylish pair of hand forged fine silver earwires and bob 's your uncle. Perfect Spring earrings - light and feminine.

 

 

 

 

 

So how do you effect your match without expensive guesswork? Well, Swarowski have this clever  resource that has every shade of pearl in every shape and size all in one little bag, with a chart. I'd thoroughly recommend you get yourselves one if you use pearls regularly - mine has been invaluable. In the UK you can get one from Jillybeads and they're surprisingly inexpensive. And a good range of the pearls - priced singly too.  I'm sure one of our US friends will identify a source over there.
Don't confuse them with cheap glass pearls that chip easily - these have a high resistance coating that lasts through environmental influences.   

 

 

 

       So there's your Pearl of Wisdom - a piece of advice. You can never have too many resources to hand.

 

See you next time

 

Lindsay x

 

 

                                                                      My Etsy shop

                                                                  My Facebook page
 

Leafs and dolphins

Yesterday hubby and I went on an adventures hike (read no trail, very prickly bushes) on the coast near Vivari, a small village close to ours. Beautiful views, lovely weather, what more do you want.

While enjoying the view we saw a group of 10-15 dolphins swimming right in front of us. Sadly, too far away for good pictures. We enjoyed a wonderful, free, dolphin show where they showed off some beautiful synchronized jumps and diving. What an amazing sight. The local fishermen are not very happy with the dolphins, as they destroy their nets and steal the fish in it. But we had great fun watching them frolicking around. Now you might ask yourself, what does this story have to do with my earrings of today? Well…nothing. I just wanted to share this with you, as I so enjoyed watching them :)

So, back to the earrings. I got my hands on the much in demand polymer clay leafs made by Helen Backhouse. The colours in these are amazing: a deep blue-ish purple. To accent these colours I combined it with lovely lampwork glass beads in blue, purple and teal (Grace Ma), a tiny Swarovski crystal and of course my favourite handmade copper ear wires by Lucy Haslam.

Thank you so much for looking. Wishing you a wonderful week and I hope to see you in two weeks.

Janine

Esfera Jewelry

My etsy shop

My website/blog

My facebook page

Forest Floor Earrings

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." - Henry David Thoreau

Isn't it true! There is so much beauty that we trod over. Take a moment to notice the small, the forgotten, the overlooked, the mundane. There is untold charm and inspiration there.

These ceramic components from Firefly Studio Designs are the perfect background for these copper leaves and golden Humblebeads disks. 

And why not make a second variation? These ones capture the forest a few weeks later when the leaves have blown away, stark branches and dried leaves have lost their color but not their intrigue.

Soaking in each day of November and not rushing a moment.

-Heather
www.humblebeadsjewelry.com 

Landslide

The seasons are changing again. It's not quite fall-ish here yet but give it a week or two and all my favorites of the season will return. I love symbols of change in my jewelry. As I've gone through the season of my life transitions from raising children to see them grow into young women and soon they will be leaving home, I found myself needing to celebrate that life doesn't stand still and the changes are part of the process and should be embraced. 

My favorite song is Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. It rings more true every year.

"Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Oh oh I don't know, oh I don't know

Well, I've been afraid of changing

'Cause I've built my life around you

But time makes you bolder

Children get older I'm getting older too

Yes I'm getting older too...

 So I sneak leaves into my jewelry, and butterflies and flowers that fade. 

Here I paired pewter leaves by Green Girl Studios with lampwork glass by Julie Miller, a birch bark Humblebeads, sari silk and ceramic rounds from White Clover Kiln. Steel wire and brass findings unify the collection.

Fall is two worlds, one exploding with color, the other stark branches against grey skies. This one is the explosion of color, where every leaf turns into a bloom.

 I started with enamel leaves from Gardanne and paired them up with dotty glass beads, Humblebeads disks and a tiny Czech glass.

And a little sweet melancholy for your Friday afternoon: