Crema di Mascarpone - tasty earrings

These earrings are made for The Wire Artisan Teams monthly challenge (www.thewireartisansguild.blogspot.com). And the theme of the month is Tasty.

I just love ice cream - it´s one of my addictions. And an ice cream sold in Sweden is called Crema di Mascarpone. It´s nothing like the Italian original I suspect - but I love the taste. It´s ice cream with mascarpone cheese, raspberry and pistagio nuts. SO TASTY!I covered these earrings in the colours of Crema di Mascarpone.

Material:925 sterling silver wire and findings (oxidized and tumbled for a nice shine). Pink topaz, green amethyst (prasiolite), tourmaline and white fresh water pearls.Size:5,5cm/2.15" including leverbacks

This is the first time I used 30g wire - only 0.25mm thick. It was very smooth and easy to work with. And I love the result - so even. I will definitely convert to 30g and wave good bye to 28g. But I did notice that some of the tiny tourmaline rondelles had 0.25mm holes. Imagine that drill!!!

Fabric + jewelry = TRUE LOVE!

Right now I´ve got a thing for jewelry with textiles, lace and embroidery-like solutions. And suddenly I see it everywhere. A trend perhaps?

I´ve tried to figure out what it is that I like about the usage of fabric in jewelry. And it must be the textures and the contrast between hard and soft, if the jewelry also are made of metal. Fabric and metal makes a great clash between cold and warm. Since I´m a swirly girl, the usage of scrolls, vines and flower embellishments could also play a part…

My favourite jewelry designers using fabric are Tinctory ( http://www.tinctory.etsy.com/) and Edera Jewelry (http://www.ederajewelry.etsy.com/).

Tinctory stands for a more strict, modern look. I just love her choice of colours – always great against the base which is oxidized silver. Edera jewelry are more like traditional brocade, full of intricate patterns. I always dream of wearing her jewelry with Versailles or some other “little house” as a fond…

Two designers that recently started to experiment with fabric in their jewelry are Eclettica, (http://www.eclettica.etsy.com/ )and Meristem (http://www.meristem.etsy.com/) .

Both Eclettica and Meristem are gurus for me when it comes to colour – and now they impress me with their courage to experiment with fabric too. Check out their latest pieces and enjoy the fantastic work - fabric included or not.

So will fabric reach my jewelry? I might tie a descrete ribbon bow on a pendant soon. But that´s as far as I will dare to go I think…:)

The source of my style

If it´s possible at all to point out a certain object to be the source of my style it has to be this necklace. My great grandmother, Fanny, a lady with Sami origin (natives living in the north of Sweden) got this as a gift 1947.

It´s a 925 sterling silver pendant with a rococo lady and beautiful ornaments. I´ve always adored this piece. The design contains everything I want to achive with my own jewelry; interesting swirly details, a feminine expression and a wonderful balanced composition (even though it´s assymetrical).

Ever since I got this necklace in my hands I´ve loved it. And when I found it again today and polished it - it all seemed so clear to me. This necklace must be the explanation for my love for swirly jewelry. Of course being brought up in the 70´s with stripes, large flower patterns and pine wood furniture can also be reason to my preferance for inricate, swirly and shiny materials :).

Being a Swede I´m supposed to embrace the nordic "blond" minimalistic designs so common here. I think no other people has taken "less is more" as serious as the Swedes. :)

I don´t have any daughters of my own, but will hopefully have grand daughters to pass this on to. And I´m sure they will treasure it like I do – even if fashion changes all the time and it will only lie in their jewelry boxes.

Do YOU have a particular object that can be the source of your taste and style? I´d love if you shared the story here. It doesn´t have to be about something that inspires you to make jewelry - it can be anything.

THUMBELINA - long eye catching earrings

Today I finished a pair of long sexy and sparkly earrings for my FAIRY TALES collection.They are named after Thumbelina the tiny character in Hans Christian Andersens story about the lady who wished for a child and got a tiny little girl no longer than a thumb. The lady was ever so happy for her little girl. But one night a large toad takes Thumbelina with him as a wife for his son. After that she´s lost and meets with all kinds of unpleasant creatures that wants to marry her. But a swallow, Thumbelina has nursed, rescues her and takes her to a whole little kingdom of tiny people in her size. Of course she meets Mr. Charming and marries him.

When I new I wanted to make something for this story I first thought of red petals and tiny things, but all my sketches felt too cute. But what if she had lived today; young, beautiful and famous. She would surly turn up in gossip magazines, with shots walking the red carpet somewhere. Wearing something bright coloured, shoulderless and sexy. So here are the earrings to go with that dress!These earrings truly make a statemen! The large grape amethysts touches the collar bones and enhances your neckline. The dark red rubies and garnets make a beautiful contrast to the shiny golden tones.

Thumbelina is ready to receive an Oscar! JMaterial:14k goldfilled, 24k vermeil. Earposts are made of 14k gold filled. Grape amethysts, rubies, garnet and tiny rhodolite garnet.Size:4"/10cm long, including earposts

RETURN OF INNOCENSE - new necklace

This is a piece I started sketching on as my contribution to The Wire Artisans Guild challenge ART NOUVEAU. But somewhere along the way it travelled in time and ended up more as an EDWARDIAN piece. But the two styles where very close to each other in time.

The Edwardian era are sometimes referred to as the “belle époque”. Swirly intricate designs where common and platinum and pearls where highly preciated.




Read more about the Edwardian era and the jewelry of that tim at “Antique jewelry at Topazery”.
Even if this necklace doesn´t fit as an entry for the challenge, I like it a lot. So swirly, and intricate.

With this piece I wanted to give more density to the style I usually have, and I really think I managed to achive it. Even though it took me more steps than usual.




As you can see on the pic showing the sketch and the finished result I made some changes while creating as usual. And at first I left the piece shiny but decided to oxidize to enhance the detail.

This piece is so feminine, in a way women strived to achive in the past millenium, so what name could be better than the titel of the old ENIGMA song RETURN OF THE INNOCENSE.





Material: A lot of sterling silver went into this piece! 925 sterling silver wire and findings. Hundreds of tiny 1mm 985 silver Karen Hill tribe beads. Cultured white fresh water pearls.Oxidized to enhance the details.

Size:Chain 11", pendant 3" including bail, 2.5" without bail and ring.

1300 hearts!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, I´m so exited! Scaring my neighbours right now with my own wild celebration choreography.
I´ve reached more than 1300 hearts at Etsy. When someone save you as their favorite shop you get a "heart".
I´ve been waiting so long to take the step past 1300 hearts. And been having so many defeats. Just when it was 1299 it dropped down one or two hearts. People must have been cleaning their saved favourites after Christmas perhaps.
But now I reached my goal!

Learn to mix and match colours

Even if I´ve been making jewelry since 2004, I still have a hard time to combine colours. Most of the time I end up with using only hues of one colour. And I so admire jewelry artists that are good at combining three or more colours like Sky Dreams or Elle a Belle. But I work hard to get by this and I think I´ve become better in the past year.

I use some tricks that I want to share to you poor designers that are in my situation...I know most of you are not. So I guess this post will not help many, since most people seem to manage this fundamental skill !

The first thing you should start with if you want to approve how you handle colour, is to read some about colour theory. You may recognize some words from this in the back of your head, you probably heard them in school; primary colour, complementary colour and so on. This kind of theoretical information is great to know, but are not very inspirational.

Today there are many tools available at the Internet to help you mix and match colours. Mainly they are developed by web designers, but they can be handy for more people depending on colour. For example, try the “colour wheel machine” you can find at Colours on the web. There you can spin the wheel virtually and get examples of colour combinations you can use in your jewelry. The tricky part can be to find stones that match the example. If you want to use what the pro´s use you can download Color Wheel Pro where you can get more variations. Eni Oken, well known jewelry designer, has a colour match program for free download too.

But finding combinations you like are actually easier than that. Just look at nature, on butterflies, flowers and birds. Nature never chooses wrong and you can find amazing colour schemes that you can transform to your jewelry. Or why not take that pile of glossy magazines saving dust on your coffee table and use it for this purpose. Pictures of interiors or fashion photos give you an endless combination of colours.

All the examples so far are great, but my favourite way to find combinations is from fabrics with patterns. I just choose one I like and try to dissect which colors they´ve used, and I often end up with 5 colours or more. I also note which one is the dominant to achive the same balance.
So far I´ve never had that many matching stones at home, but I have managed to use this method to come up with a combination of three colours. And that is much for me!!!!
Make 2009 your colour breakthrough!