Into The Forest; Mossy Green with Raw Copper

So many reasons to love copper as a jewelry maker and also as someone who enjoys wearing  jewelry. 

It's the perfect fall color metal and pairs well with most Autumn-like colors. Including Mossy Green and Olive. My go-to colors of late. 

The charms are mill rolled with a heavy fabric to create a deep texture on raw copper. Hand cut, filed, sanded smooth and finally hammered for a gentle curve. Intertwined tiny raw copper hoops are torched fused, danging below. 

Mossy green Swarovski crystals sparkle in contrast to the rustic antique finish copper. 

These earrings were created with a matching necklace in mind. A common way jewelry is born or ideas spring, a continuing thought or inspiration spanning several types of jewelry. 

Molly, Hiking McKenzie River Trail, OR 9/13/16

And my biggest inspiration is of course... the forest. We love hiking here in WA and OR. We have a lot of great forests to explore and enjoy. This photo was taken last month hiking the McKenzie River Trail in OR. I just wanted to soak in all the green around me! It's very lush and grounding.  
 

These earrings along with the matching necklace are available in the Art & Soul Jewelry store today. 

On the Edge

I'm on the edge. The edge of a vacation, that is. 

That delicious pre-vacation period where you're ALMOST THERE and are filled with the anticipation of having time to step away, breathe, clear your mind, get yourself out of the workweek rut.  My mom always said that the pre-vacation is better than the vacation itself. Part of me doesn't want to believe that, but there certainly is something to be said for it. 

Next week my other half and I are headed to the mountains of West Virginia. We stayed in a cabin for one day last year as we were passing through, and it struck such a chord with us that we vowed to come back this year and stay for more than just a day. The cabins are nestled at the foot of a towering cliff, and a clear, clean river winds its way past the base. Last year we saw a bald eagle soaring right above our heads. I was even able to convince my husband (who is not afraid of heights, definitely not afraid of heights, no, never) to climb the nearby mountain with me. We got to the top with a mixture of exhilaration and sheer white-knuckled terror. Quite a memorable combination!

We toured one of the region's many caves and experienced TD, or "total darkness"---where the guide leads you deep into the cave, gives you fair warning, and then turns out all the lights. If you've never experienced that kind of sensory deprivation, it's incredible. That is, unless you're claustrophobic or scared of the dark or have a fear of being trapped underground. Yeah, probably not so good for that.

We also spent a couple hours walking next to the river, which was filled with tons of perfectly rounded, water-smoothed rocks. Each rock was glazed with a soft, slippery layer of mossy-green algae. And when I say slippery, I mean, "Nikki fell on her ass while trying to cross the river". Hey, I at least had to give it a try. That's just me. 

The green lushness of those memories from last year remind me of this pair of polybells I made a while ago. I took polymer clay, formed it into two rough poddy bells, textured them against some piece of random organic matter, cured them in the oven, hand painted them with acrylics, and then sealed them. The mossy green pockets, slate blue peaks, and silver-kissed highlights bring to mind a deep craggy forest.

Hope you have a wonderful week while I'm off playing mountain woman!

Happy Wednesday,
Nikki 
LoveRoot on Etsy

Cedar Earrings

Shortly before we left to Mexico, we took our niece and her fiancee to the one of the few temperate rainforest in the US; a day's drive from our house.  While there we saw giant maples and firs draped with veils of moss.

We also saw what is supposedly the world's largest Western Red Cedar.

"QuinaultLakeCedar 7274c" by Wsiegmund - Self-published work by Wsiegmund. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

I was thinking of that humungous cedar when I made these earrings.  

 The brown ceramic hoops by Marsha Neal, represent the reddish-brown wood of the Western Red Cedar.

 The swirling green, muted purple, black and cream of the lampwork by Beads and Botanicals, represents the cedar branches, moss and all the lush forest growth. I topped the earrings by my own handmade ear wires that echo the round shape of the ceramic hoops.

If you ever have an opportunity to visit Washington's rainforests, don't pass it up.  You'll be glad you went!

Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

We're All Ears :: September Inspiration

Macro photography fascinates me. I love to see the up close and personal worlds that talented macro artists can capture. The inner workings of a flower... The secret life of bees... The unexpected textures of metal... Thankfully, with the advent of DSLR cameras and all the fun gadgets that you can buy, the world of macro photography is more accessible than ever.

I went looking for amazing macro nature shots and stumbled on a very gifted artist named Damon Clarke. His macro shots of the forest are what I wanted to share with you today, but given the fact that his work is copyrighted, I couldn't very well use them, even in good faith. But you really should check out his work at www.macrophotography.com.

Inspired by the beautiful worlds Clarke's Forest Collection, I remembered that a few years ago I took a macro photo safari of my own at Pfiffner Park on the banks of the Wisconsin River. That was to test out a set of macro filters (similar to these) for my DSLR camera. Unfortunately, my regular DSLR lens bit the dust when I decided to drop it on my studio floor (and it didn't bounce...imagine!), but I still have those macro filters and one day I will get another lens that will work with it. You just screw these filters onto the front of the lens and turn it into a macro. Of course, to replace, I did buy a more fancy macro lens, but I really loved being able to swap out the filters, and even layer them for enhanced detail. 

Now I mostly take pictures with my iPhone and I did purchase a set of Photojojo magnet snap lens, including a macro/wide angle (but it requires an extreme close up, so it is more suited to flowers and lichen than to jewelry). So this series of pictures made me pine for my damaged lens.

What I love about each of these pictures is the way they all feel like tiny worlds to me. As if I could just shrink down and fall into one to explore the terrain, like an ant scouting a location, charting a course for a brave new world. The one on the left makes me think of the banks of a wide river, like the Amazon, with its twists and turns and coursing currents. The one on the top right makes me think of aerial views of farmlands with crops planted. The one in the middle - my very favorite - feels so alien to me, as if these are dwelling places for some other interstellar race built on the top of a verdant mountain.

So, since there is a shift in the seasons upon us, I thought that these would be a fitting inspiration for September. I am really looking forward to seeing how this inspires your designs!

What inspires you about this world within a world?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To participate in the We're All Ears creative challenge:

Make earrings inspired by this picture.

Write a post on your blog.

Add your exact blog post URL link to the
InLinkz code right here on 

Friday, September 19th.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tender Greens

It's finally here - that time of year when trees start to take on a misty green hue. Buds appear, swell, and burst into leaf. Skeletal gray branches come back to life, filling out and reaching toward the sky. It seems like this past winter was more brutal than most for those of us in the US - you can certainly tell by the recent posts here on Earrings Everyday! It seemed like Spring would never get here, but that's the beautiful thing about nature, you can't stop her...

Coming off of a 70F degree day full of warm sunshine, daffodils, and singing birds, I thought I'd post about a recent pair of earrings that celebrate the tender, sweet, young green of Spring. 

 


This sweet, simple little pair

features a pair of my own polymer clay "bud" beads that dangle lightly from the bottom of two amazingly craggy raw green garnet stone nuggets. I textured and painted the poly beads and then kissed them with a little gold on top for some warmth. Each bead has been crowned with wee etched nickel bead caps from Maire Dodd.

 

I hope everyone is able to pause and soak up the season this week <3

Nikki 

LoveRoot on Etsy