It's about time I revive my blog! And what better way to do it than with a challenge? The lovely Malin de Koning invited me along with Claire Lockwood, Rebecca Anderson, and Heidi Post to join in an earring challenge with her.
Malin put together an inspiring pack of mixed beads for us to use: wooden beads, glass, tiny trade beads, gems, and coral...it was quite a selection! Malin is the master of earrings in my book and has a wonderful eye for detail. I can really see 'her' in these beads.
The challenge was to create at least one pair of earrings, ideally, with at least 3 of the beads from the pack. There was such a great selection of beads, the real challenge was deciding on how to use them.
As soon as I received the beads from Malin, I got started on a few pairs of earrings. I actually made the final pair last night. There are 6 in total.
Here's the first pair...I used the tiny, green howlite washers along with the green discs and stone-like cogs (one of my favourite beads in the mix). I paired them with my own enamelled leaves and copper earwires.
Next up is a pair of seaside inspired earrings. I loved the golden wooden nuggets Malin chose for us and immediately thought of something light, and beachy. I mixed up some of the wooden beads with a pair of mismatched starfish art beads by Majoyoal. Finished with bronze findings I made.
Now on to something a bit different...You can see one of my favourite beads (they're all lovely!) from the pack was the green howlite barrels. These are slightly mismatched with the faceted glass beads, howlite, tiny metal beads, and glass pearls. I wire wrapped some of the beads onto a tassel of recycled leather with lampwork art beads by Earthshine Beads.
Continuing on the tassel theme is a fresh, Springy pair of earrings using the plastic flowers (love these!), juicy striped seed beads, more of the lovely howlite along with recycled leather and green garnet from my stash.
What I loved about this challenge was that, although I loved the beads Malin sent, there were some that I might have overlooked myself. The silver coloured beads were one of those. They are lovely on their own, but I don't normally use silver. However, they fit nicely with the mismatched flower caps and striped seed beads for a bohemian pair of earrings. The lampwork discs are by Earthshine Beads.
Last but not least is the pair I made last night. They're a bit funkier than the others, but I like something about the flow. I used the lampwork discs Malin sent, some of the coral, striped seed beads, and some glass beads and petal bead caps from my stash.
A huge thank you to Malin for this wonderful challenge! Check out what everyone else made for the challenge on their blogs. I can't wait to see!
