Back to the Beach

At least briefly before the summer’s over!

We used to get to our favorite beach at least 2-3 times a year before the little ones came along making such trips more hazardous (and expensive!).  Maybe that’s why I was inspired to combine these little blue and cream shaded opal rondelles with a mother-of-pearl backdrop!  It just seems like an early morning sky at the shore to me.

The pendant drop is about 2 1/4" and the chain adjusts from 16.5 - 19.5".

Blue and cream opal buttons against mother-of-pearl: necklace

And because we all need to be coordinated in our beachwear…  matching earrings!

Earrings have sterling silver earwires and hang a mere 3/4" from the top of the curve

Pretty soon, it will be time to back to the warm tones of fall.  I’m having a hard time letting go of the cool summer colors though (probably because it’s SO flippin’ hot and muggy out) so you may see more summery stuff before I reluctantly move to fall.  I know, I should’ve gone to fall already.  The business aspects of jewelry design seldom occur to my creative side.  Unfortunately.  Still, let’s enjoy what’s left of the summer.  Before I know it, I’ll have a newborn in the house again and life will be crazy (well, crazier!).

Cheers all!

K2

More??!

Yes, after how many weeks with no new jewelry, here I’m back with more new stuff within the week!!  Go figure.

Suffice it to say that the creative feeling depends a lot on my mood.  The more gray things seem, the less creative I am.

Here, however, are two new pieces – a pair of hammered, mixed-metal earrings (expanding on the riveting theme – yes, I’m backwards, going from tube rivets to wire rivets but, hey, it works for me!) and a shaped sterling petal pendant with a garnet stamen.

Let’s start with the pendant…

Sterling silver shaped into a petal and polished to a high shine and accented with 3 garnets

view 2

yet another view - I love the glow in this photo (and it's actually in the photo too, not added later)

And on to the earrings.  I accidentally damaged the head of my hammer by riveting and I am most annoyed at my stupidity, but, on the plus side, it makes a cool pattern now when hammering…

Hammered, textured, copper and sterling silver earrings

(another view)

I am bursting with ideas for more rivets… so, as long as I can scrape out some time, you’ll be seeing more soon!

Riveting!

(Or not … I guess it depends on your perspective.  Me, I found it quite absorbing…)

So, rivets.  An interesting challenge to be sure.  Here are a couple of pics of my riveted bangle.  It’s a WIP but I’m setting it aside until I can learn to solder for now.  Since I teased you with mention of it, I figured I’d best post a picture!  Also below are a cute pair of riveted earrings I made up with the bits and pieces laying about on my desk.  They do have an almost mirror finish that doesn’t really show in the picture.

Hope you enjoy!

Alternating satin and mirror finished sterling slabs are riveted to form a sterling silver bangle

another pic of the WIP

And the Rosie earrings…

Riveted, polished sterling silver slabs hang from sterling ball post earrings.