Stacked Earrings Challenge Reveal

WhooHoo, it's time again, for a Stacked Earrings Challenge Reveal. It's the fifth time around. Five ladies from around the world have taken turns in sending each other a bead lot with creating earrings from them in mind. This time we were all working with a bead lot put together by Heidi Post from New Orleans USA. Oh my, what a lovely and inspiring collection of classy semi-precious stones, nature materials, glass, plastic and metal bits.

I made five pairs all in all, the last one I finished today actually, and took the photos of them today also, so hence my slight delay from everyone else. Sorry for that.



1. The first thing I was drawn to was the copper curved tubes and those cute small green and brown facetted beads. I made my first pair directly when I had received my parcel a few weeks ago. With the larger couple of the tubes. And the other beads in them all come from Heidi's lot, apart from the head pins and the ear hooks. These earrings have actually become a favourite private pair of mine. I've been wearing them a lot lately. I call them Long Legs. Anyway, the aqua blue opal stones are wonderfully almost glowing. I don't know what stone they are. Does anyone else?

2. Next a pair with the beautiful large facetted Llanite rondelles. I love these stones. And I just read at Heidi's reveal post that she didn't remember what they are, but that there was a special story behind her getting them. Well, I recognized the stone when I saw it. So I checked one of my favourite sources for info on semi-precious stones: the Swedish site/webshop of www.StarEyes.se. There I read this: Lllanite is a rare stone, mined only at one place on earth. The little town of Llanite in Texas USA. It is composed of a mixture of granite and lilac-blue shimmering quartz. The colour of the quartz is believed to come from a mineral called Ilmenite. I just have to show you this mesmorizing close up below :-).

3. In the pair below I stacked some of the natural beads from Heidi's lot with the rhinestone spacers, adding swirly patterned polymer clay discs by HumbleBeads. Hanging from sea blue patinated boat shaped links by MissFickleMedia. Handmade copper earring hooks and copper findings






4. My fourth pair - I was so fond of my first pair of earrings with the long legs, so I had to try to make another similar pair with the smaller tubes. The purlpe stone discs are really pretty, kind of glowing when the light falls on them. I do not know what they are though.

5. My final pair that I finished today. This is an unusual construction for me to make, with the two rings joined like that. Therefor I was hesitating about finalising them. But I decided to give it a go, because I really liked the way they looked when I had layed out the beads (but before putting them together). It's the three beads stacked in the center of the inner circle that come from Heidi's lot. A cornflake pearl with a beautiful brownish shimmering colour, and two glass pearls. The large circles/hoops all come from MissFickleMedia.

Finally a group shot of all my earrings. I will be listing them soon in my Etsy Shop. Welcome!
www.etsy.com/se-en/shop/MalindeKoning:



Now you must head over to my friends' web sites to see their reveals. I promise, there are so many great looking earrings to see:

Rebecca Anderson – SongBead – www.songbeads.blogspot.com
Leah Curtis – BeadyEyedBunny – www.beadyeyedbunny.blogspot.com
Heidi Post – ExPostFacto – www.expostfactojewelry.blogspot.com
Claire Lockwood - SomethingToDoWithYourHands - www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com

All my best,
Malin

A few pieces

Hi,
Again it's been a while since my latest post. Here are a few jewelry pieces I've made over the last couple of months. All of them contain one or more Art Beads.

Bold bracelet with 3 large dandelion polymer clay beads by HumbleBeads, a patinated chunky chain by MissFickleMedia, and a copper toggle by myself. I really like this bracelet, so it might be a keeper. I haven't decided yet ...

Bracelet with a ceramic squarish bead made by DonnaPerlinplim, and lovely blue druzy nuggets that I got from SmittenBeads.co.uk (great shop). Transparent glass nuggets and blue waxed linen cord. Copper toggle clasp.

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I recently made my first purchase from NadiaTerra in Bulgaria. Love her style with a matte shabby chic look and lots of new, fun and interesting bead shapes. Like the ones I used in these earrings for instance, they have no holes, just a groove all around. Very interesting! Earrings for hot summer's days. Looking great with tanned skin, a casual white shirt, worn jeans and brown leather sandals.

Ingredients:
Wonderful handmade terracotta clay beads with engobe patina and without holes - NadiaTerra
Irish waxed linen cord
Pewter rings
Heavily oxidized sterling silver handmade earring hooks

I have more jewelry that I haven't yet shown you here, but I hope to do so within shortly. So come back again soon.

Please, if you are interested in any of the pieces I have shown you in this post you are very welcome to contact me:
malindekoning[at]hotmail.com

All my best,
Malin

Stacked Earrings Challenge #4

Hey it's time again. Stacked Earrings Challenge #5. Five beading buddies in three different countries (Sweden, United Kingdom and USA) sending each others a group of beads inspiring for making earrings, preferably in the stacked style. Make as many as you wish. Use at least three beads from the lot in each earring.

Here are the beads Rebecca Anderson sent us this time. What a lovely lot. So much colour. And many flowers. So very Rebecca. So inspiring!

I ended up making four pairs. But I do have a few more laid out as half ready ideas on my work table.

These are my own favourites of the ones I made. I've been wearing them several times. 

My daughter Arabella likes these ones best.

I'd say these one are most Rebbecca-esque of the ones I made. I mean I sense her presence in the beads and in the color scheme.

No there is nothing wrong with your screen, the waxed linen cord is of two different colours. It was a sort of deliberate mistake, since I made them over two different days, and day two I realized I'd run out of the darker color. But you know I like semi-assymetry … so I let it stay like that.

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Every time we have our releases I love seeing what we all made with the same lot of beads. It is such an interesting test of and tribute to creativity. 

Check out:

Rebecca Anderson - Songbead

Leah Curtis – Beady Eyed Bunny

Heidi Post – Ex Post Facto

Claire Lockwood - Something To Do With Your Hands

All my best,
Malin

New Earrings and guest posting at Earrings-Everyday

I've had the honor of being invited twice recently to do guest posts on Earrings Everyday Blog. For the posts I've created some new earrings, that I haven't yet shown here. Here they are:

Ceramic links - Scorched Earth

White enameled curvy discs - PaintingWithFire

Silver ear hooks (oxidized) - E2SSupplies

Beaded beads - Malin de Koning

Rustic olive coloured pearls

Long flower patterned patinated brass dangles - Mary Dodd/MissFickleMedia

Copper ear hooks (oxidized) - RubyMountain

Oxidized copper wire

Cognac coloured rustic pearls

Electroplated hematite facetted square heishis

Rust coloured greek ceramic cog washers

Rustic Tin Works Caps Pins - CrowsCacheSupplies

Silver ear hooks (oxidized) - RubyMountain

Electroplated hematite saucer beads

Bronze and swirly polymer clay bead - HumbleBeads

Bronze polymer bicone bead with edge pattern - GracefulWillow

Green and yellow drop shaped rustic pearls

Copper ear hooks (oxidized) - RubyMountain

Oxidized copper wire

Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing any of the earrings in this post.

malindekoning[at]hotmail.com

All my best,

Malin

Bracelet and Earrings

Art beads and handmade components:

Silver drop shaped links - DaisyChain 

Rustic Tin Works caps - CrowsCacheSupplies

Silver ear hooks (oxidized) - RubyMountain

Art beads and handmade components: 

Ceramic bead - Mari Carmen Rodrigez Martinez

Art beads and handmade components: 

Turquoise Drop shaped ceramic charms - HappyFish

Copper (oxidized) earrings hooks - RubyMountain

Art beads and handmade components: 

Arrow shaped ceramic charms - HappyFish

Copper (oxidized) earrings hooks - RubyMountain

All pieces are available for purchase. Please contact me if you are interested. malindekoning[at]hotmail.com

All my best,

Malin de Koning

Stacked Earrings Challenge #3

Welcome to round 3 of the Stacked Earrings Challenge. We are 5 designer friends and bead nerds who take turns in sending each other a set of beads. (Rebecca Anderson, Leah Curtis, Claire Lockwood, Heidi Post and me Malin de Koning.) From the set we shall make earrings in the stacked style. At least three of the beads from the set shall be used in each pair. These are the simple rules we set up. 

This time it was Leah Curtis who sent the beads. Oooooohhhhhhh just look at them!! Such lush colours, fun shapes and lovely gems. 

If you know my design style you would know that often I am attracted to colours and bold shapes, but for some reason I ended up using more of the beads in the right side of the image this time. Something about the colors and the sizes. I don't have all that much of that in my own stash, so I guess they were more unusual, and hence more fun, for me to work with. Challenge :-). 

1. My first pair, I love those small ridged wooden or clay beads or whatever they are. I combined them with the white flowers and the red flowers from Leahs's set. From my own stash I added the brass head pin and the brass square profiled rings.

2. I really like the irregular effect of the amber/topaz coloured chips together with the side drilled iridescent purple discs. I also used the pale purple round gems, the even smaller turquoise rounds and the little transparent drops. The copper and brass coloured mushroom shaped polymer clay bead is made by Shannon German of MissFickleMedia. The beaded bead is one of my own from the beaded beads craze I had a couple of years ago.

3. Those dark metal links I just had to use. A very unusual type of component for me. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted them to hang from the hooks. What would work well and look good? I ended up creating those horse shoe links myself. I really like creating my own components, it happens way too rarely for some reason. I think I need my studio more suitably set up for metal work. The mini garnets are just adorable. And at the bottom hanging the brown stone drops from Leah's set.

4. I used the beautiful facetted gem lentils (what are they?) from Leah's set, two of the mini garnets, some of the metallic seed beads and the brass bells. The stoneware clay beads with seaside-ish motifs are by BHClaySmith.

5. The purple transparent discs together with pink rhinestone washers from my own stash create almost a space ship like shape. Metallic seed beads from Leah and myself.

Check out all of us here:

Rebecca Anderson - SongBead

Leah Curtis - Beady Eyed Bunny

Claire Lockwood - Something To Do With Your Hands

Heidi Post - Ex Post Facto

Malin de Koning - Beading By Malin de Koning

All the earrings are for sale, please contact me if you are interested in any of them. malindekoning[at]hotmail.com

All my best,

Malin de Koning

Stacked Earrings Challenge #2 ...

... with beads from Claire Lockwood

In January I asked four jewelry designer friends (Rebecca Anderson, Leah Curtis, Claire Lockwood and Heidi Post) if they wanted to join me in a small stacked earrings challenge. The reason being simply because I was longing for some inspiration around stacked earrings. I wanted it to be a small and intimate kind of thing. If you want to read more about the background and see the result of round #1 here's the link. All of us thought it was so nice so we decided to continue, and take turns sending each other small bead sets. This is round #2. Welcome!

Claire sent a fun and inspiring set of beads very much right down my alley. I was particularly attracted to part of the color scheme of pale beige-greens and pinks. And as you will see I used those colors a lot in my earrings. From my own stash I picked more beads that would match and fit into the same color category. In three of my designs I also added an attractive hyacinth type red. 

Group picture of the 6 earrings I made. I followed the original rules and used three beads from Claire's lot in all of them apart from the ones furthest to the right, which only contain two of Claire's beads. They are also the only ones which contain Art Beads.

The first pair I made. With only beads from Clair's lot. I added the oxidized copper wire and the ear hooks.

Claire sent two pairs of buttons. I don't often use buttons in my own jewelry, although I really like when others do. I want the buttons to not look so much as buttons as simply just beautiful components that add something to the design. I decided to give it a go and chose to build a design from the button pair with two holes. You see them (white) at the top. From Claire's lot comes also the transparent kind of icy looking large holed glass spacer beads. As do the pale pale green-beige round bone beads. The pink-brownish coin beads are two holed ones. The red facetted beads are vintage Swarovski ones with a very beautiful sparkle to them. The overall look is bohemic/rustic, but with a touch of class at the bottom.

In Claire's lot the green and whithe plastic beads where the ones that first caught my eyes. So pretty and special. I combined them with the green leaves and the milky cream spacer beads.

Three beads are from Claire, except the hyacinth red faceted ones and the pale green-grey matte washers. Lots of messy wire wrapping :-).

These earrings are really long, as you can see in the group picture above. Not heavy at all however. I picked some beads from my own stash that resembled ones from Clair lot, as I started to run out of ones that I was really inspired by and wanted to use. The fantastic magenta and grey-silvery patterned polymer clay beads are a recent acquisition, made by Claire Maunsell of StillPointWorks, a favorite Art Bead maker of mine.

The white flowers, the grey wooden rounds and the small silvery beads are from Claire's lot. White flowers stacked on brass wheel/snowflake spacers and patinated bone discs. These are very sweet and I've already worn them myself a couple of times.

Thank you so much Claire for a very fun round with very inspiring beads! 

Check out all participants here:

Rebecca Anderson - SongBead

Leah Curtis - Beady Eyed Bunny

Claire Lockwood - Something To Do With Your Hands

Heidi Post - Ex Post Facto

Malin de Koning - Beading By Malin de Koning

Next inspirer out for round #3 will be Leah Curtis.

All the earrings in this post are for sale. Please let me know if you are interested in any of them. malindekoning[at]hotmail.com

All my best,

Malin