Tin Moon Madness

Hello, my Beady Friends!

Happy September!  My workshop is in full Halloween mode now!

    I happened to find this Chocolate tin from at least 20 years ago in one of my nightstand drawers.  It was given to me long before I started making jewelry, so until a few days ago, it was just a cute tin box.  But now, I'm looking at through new eyes!

 

I put my disc cutter to work and began to punch out as many discs as possible, not wasting one bit of this adorable tin.  For this design, I'll just be using the large stripe discs and will save the spooky eyes for another day.

The lovely enameled bats are by Israeli bead artist, Pearly Karpel. 

Thanks for stopping by to see what's happing on my worktable today!  I'm excited about Autumn and looking forward to digging deep into all kinds of Halloween designs for the next couple of months!

 Loralee xo

www.loraleekolton.etsy.com

Gypsy Gold

Gypsy Gold

These earrings make me think of a Gypsy lady, wearing her earthly fortune in gold and silver. I think it's these striped beads--I always think of striped carnival tents when I use them. I have no idea if Gypsies use striped tent fabric but for some reason this is embedded firmly in my mind.

Ha! Stripes.
"Two Gypsies" by Francisco Iturrino 

I started this pair with rustic, brass finish Mykonos "cornflake" charms from Stinky Dog Beads and built a subdued palette around them in silver, cherry red, olive green and ivory. The little striped Indonesian glass beads, as well as the big "Casbah" pewter bead caps, are from Happy Mango Beads. The big clear glass nugget beads were cannibalized from a necklace a customer once gave me--I will be so sad when I use them up, I just love them! I haven't seen anything like them anywhere else.

I leave you with Vincent:

"The Caravans - Gypsy Camp near Arles"
Vincent van Gogh

Keirsten