My Take – We’re All Ears, April Challenge

In my last post I mentioned Earrings Everyday.  This is a blog site I found a month ago, managed by a group of interesting artisan editors with different types of styles.  Their mandate:

“Earrings Everyday hopes to inspire those who make earrings

and adorn those who love to wear them!”

On the first Friday of the month an inspiration photo is posted and everyone is invited to design some earrings using the photo as inspiration for the design, colours, shapes and materials.  The reveal in on the third Friday of the month.

Here is the inspiration photo for April:

The sweet little skylark is so special.  Unfortunately I did not have the right colours on hand to do it justice.  The earrings for this blog hop are made of gemstones and copper; gemstones because they are what first pulled me into the world of jewellery design, and copper because it just went so well with the colours in the inspiration photo.

And here are my designs:

Skylark Inspired

This first pair, Skylark Inspired, started with the square Serpentine beads.  I thought the colour matched the mint leaves.  I paired the Serpentine with Yellow Jade, honoring the colour in the bottom of the glasses.  As a finishing touch I encircled the Yellow Jade with woven links of antique copper, which bring in the texture and colour from the twisted rope placemats.

Skylark Dreams

I call the second pair SkylarkDreams.  This pair also has Yellow Jade, this time large carved ovals.  I matched Turtle Jasper beads to the colour of the napkin at the top of the photo and the olives nestled in the bowl on top of it.  The Turtle Jasper beads looked a little wimpy beside the larger Jade beads.  I decided to make some copper domes with open centres to surround the Jasper.  I gave the copper a very slight brushed texture and left it natural so that it will patina over time.  And then I accidentally removed most of the brushed texture while making the domed shape.  Oh well, a skill to work on…