Earrings in April again

What a great couple of days!  An extra day off from the shop for Easter Sunday and then spending that day with our kids and grandsons.  Beautiful weather and an hour in the garden today.  Maybe all that fresh air inspired me to sit down at the beading table and - yep! you guessed it! - make a pair of earrings.

This pair came about through just messin' with the beads.  Back in 2008 or 2009, i bought some glass discs from Bokamo Designs.  Steve works in borosilicate glass which is a hard glass that was developed originally for cookware (under the trade name PYREX) and scientific glassware such as test tubes.  Borosilicate makes for a different looking bead than the lampwork beads that are made with soft glass.

Anyhoo.  The point is that i've had this set of beads for quite some time.  The problem has been that nothing i tried showed them to their best advantage.  Well, sometimes it's difficult to track the train of thought that leads to a final design so suffice it to say that i tried this and i tried that and i redid the other until i was satisfied. 

Here.  I went down and took a quick picture of the remaining discs.  A thousand words and all that.  Aren't they beautiful?  I love that shiny, translucent quality.












Fortuitously - try spellling that one with your eyes closed - i had some little glass daggers in the same bluegreens.  So far, so good.  I settled on brass wire because the warm color looked good with the discs.  Lemme tell ya, though, brass wire is SPRINGY!  But i bossed it into submission so all was well.

Supplies
(2) borosilicate discs from Bokamo Designs
(12) small glass daggers
length of 24ga brass wire
(2) interchangeable ear wires in antique brass

Thread six of the daggers onto a manageable length of the brass wire, form into a teardrop shape and secure with a wrapped loop large enough to accommodate one glass disc.  With a second length of the brass wire, make a second loop large enough to go through the same glass disc and give it a couple of wraps to seure it.  With the same piece of wire, form a second wrapped loop to attach to the ear wire.  Slide the finished earring onto the ear wire
Repeat for the second earring.   Nice, huh?  Now it's your turn.  Go to Bead Blast, coming up the first weekend in May down in Overland Park KS, look for Bokamo Designs and pick out a sweet bead or two for your collection.  Only, don't let them sit for years like i did.  Make something pretty!