Studio Musings

Thursday, February 2, 2012

30 Pairs of Earrings in 31 days, plus 2 pendants

So that's my final total for my January Earring Challenge.  I thought I had made 31 pairs, but when I counted yesterday morning, I discovered that either a set had disappeared over night, or I'd miscounted.  I'd love to think that it was the former, but I'm guessing it was actually the later.

First two weeks of the Earring Challenge
I've posted an number of the pieces to Facebook, but I'll do a recap here.  The collage above includes pretty much all of the earrings I created in the first two weeks of January.  I stuck with freeform peyote and random right angle weave for all of these. 

I found myself working in series as often as not, creating a couple of pairs of earrings from the same basic design.  The flames to the lower right were the start of my largest series.   I couldn't seem to stop stitching them.  I think it had something to do with their warmth and the snow falling outside during that particular point.  A friend wondered what they'd look like if I reversed the colors, so I made one of those too, with an orange heart instead of the ultramarine blue.

I love the warmth of these!
In the second half of the month, I branched out, with a little tassle-making and some wire working.  I made two pairs of oak leaves - one with green stone hearts, the other with smoky crystals - as well as the more abstracted oak leaf pendant.   The heart beads came from the Seedbeaders' meeting and there's a definite valentine's flair to a number of these (valentines a la me - no pinks here!)

Second half of January

But at the very end, I went created two more pairs of earrings combining peyote stitch and random right angle weave.

These remind me of green pinecones


So there you have it - I think that's the lot of them!  In case it isn't, here's a photo of them sitting in their tray. 

And if you'd like to see more earrings, go check out Backstory Beads, who's also participating in the challenge; her work is gorgeous!  And of course, there's the Bead Along gallery at Beading Daily.

8 comments:

  1. WOW!! Karen, you have been busy!! they all look wonderful! i wish i had the patience to work with seed beads like you :)

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  2. You Did It!!!! These are fantastic! Pinecones, flaming hearts, oak leaves, wings...all are gorgeous! It must be a great feeling to have made so many beautiful pairs of earrings (and pendants). YAY!

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  3. Fabulous colors! From the perfectly casual to the truly elegant, I tried to find a favorite, but simply couldn't. Congratulations on meeting the challenge! (I'm sure that last set will show up!)

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  4. Karen, wow!!! What beautiful earrings.

    I love the flames. I could see a bunch of flames together in an epic necklace, too. :)

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  5. What a great variety of beautiful work! Fun, fun, fun!

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  6. Congratulations on reaching your goal. The earrings turned out very well. Of course I like some better than others, but don't ask which because I don't think I could come to saying. :)

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  7. It was definitely an interesting challenge, coming up with enough different designs. I'm used to larger projects, which take more time so you don't have to try to come up with a new idea every day.

    Of course, I cheated there a little with the different series. But it was really hard to pull out the beads to make one set of earrings and then put them back away again.

    And I am indeed toying with ideas for a larger project involving the flame shapes. :)

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  8. They're all beautiful, and look like they took SO much work!

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