An Earring a Day

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Today's design has been percolatin' in my head for some time.  I like to knot pearls and even gemstones so i thought i could incorporate knotting into an earring desing.  Design, even.  The only string i had on hand is C-lon in a burgundy and micro C-lon in a redder shade.  The micro was too thin so i went with the burgundy and for beads i used glass drops.  C-lon, by the way, is a nylon cord that comes in four weights, or thicknesses, and a wide variety of beautiful colors.  It's great for macrame and kumihimo, and we carry it at the shop.

For a knotting project you need string about three times the desired finished length.  Knotting uses a surprising amount of cord.  Not really knowing how long these earrings would be, i cut a 24inch piece and threaded on the bottom bead and tied a knot above it with both strings.  Then i just alternated clear glass drops on the left and right strings and knotted in between, tied on the soldered ring and attached the whole shebang to the gunmetal ear wire.  Not bad.  I think i'll put a gunmetal crimp cover over that last knot which will minimize it and add a touch of black to the top of the design.

Don't know how to knot?  Come see us;  we're knotty girls.  A couple of good web sites include http://www.karipearls.com/ and http://www.jewelrymaking.about.com/ .

Woohoo!  Two pair in two days!  I've got a streak going!

On the Road - Challenge 2012

Maybe it's obvious to some that i missed yesterday's blog.  Technology and fatigue combined to deter me from completing it.

We left SF later than planned but not by much.  With the car (over)loaded, we headed across the Bay Bridge on I-580 and then south into the Central Valley on Highway 99.  What a great ride!  Remnants of the extensive agricultural lands that once dominated that area still border the highway.  Fruit orchards in manicured rows.  Cherry trees pruned and groomed to a fare-thee-well festooned in pink flowers.  Livestock in abundance.  The land is flat flat flat looking all the way west and flat flat flat til it meets the foothills to the east.

We ran parallel to the Sierra Nevada Mountains on our eastern side, passing the turnoffs to the fabled parks of Central California:  Stanislaus National Forest, Yosemite, Mammoth Lake, Kings Canyon.  We cruised through Bakersfield to our destination for the day:  Barstow.  On the edge of the Mojave Desert.

What an adventure this is!

And the nature of an adventure is that you just never know.

Inspired by the sweet beauty of the cherry blossoms, i made a pair of earrings, photographed them....and then discovered that the hotel's WiFi wasn't working and that Terry's hotspot wasn't working and thus if there is no internet access then there is no blogging.  OMG!!!  In the midst of my great dismay of not being able to blog - OMG!!! - i had an internal headslap and realized that making earrings every night while on vacation with Terry was undercutting our time together.  So i'm cutting back.  I obviously now won't be making 365 earrings in 365 days - darn it! - but ima gonna keep on making earrings and ima gonna keep on blogging and ima gonna hope you'll be following along.

Here are the earrings from yesterday.  I had a strand of pink glass flowers that, naturally, i've had forever and i combined them first with pink Swarovski crystals and then Terry said i should use red so the second earring has dark red crystals.  And i just let them be.  You decide which color crystal you like best.

Also!!!!  We're on Twitter!!  I'm not sure why i'm so excited about it or what exactly we're going to do with it, but we're @BeadBoutiqueKC so follow us!

Earring count:  33 pairs/35 days

Special Forces Warrior Foundation Challenge - week 2

wow!  There is a LOT about the kit components that i don't get.  The mix of colors - wait! the pinks don't match!  The nothing-but-crystal and pearl beads - what no stones? too girly! And they are all so different that i am stymied by how to combine them. 
My latest favorite technique is knotting so, naturally, i tried that.  mmmm...has potential but it doesn't excite me.  Good fallback technique if all else fails.  Simple stringing....oh wait! there's more i don't like!  I can't get a pleasing symmetrical pattern with these beads.  Melissa reminds me that it's a CHALLENGE.  Well, i'm feeling challenged alright!  And have you seen the company i'm keeping?  Yikes!  They're scary good!  Real beaders with vast repetoires of technique!  I want my contribution to bring in lots of auction dollars for the Craft Warrior Foundation, too!
Then inspiration strikes!  Not too long ago, i dangled a bunch of oddball glass beads from six inches of chain and added enough of a length of multi-strand seed beads to make a necklace.  Customers loved it!  That's what i'll do!  And it'll be great!  What do you think?