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

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

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

Stacked Earrings Challenge

I invited four dear friends in the international online beading community to join me in a Stacked Earrings Challenge. The reason being simply only a lust for an inspiration boost by some designers I really like.

• Claire Lockwood - Something To Do With Your Hands
• Leah Curtis - Beady Eyed Bunny
• Rebecca Anderson - SongBead
• Heidi Post - Ex Post Facto
• Malin de Koning - Beading By Malin de Koning

"
Dear Ladies, 
Would you be interested in a small humble earrings challenge arranged by me? The idea is that I give each of us the same set of beads. Beads that I believe would be nice to use in earrings. Nothing exclusive, and no art beads. Just a group of different beads that I myself believe can be used in fun and interesting ways in earrings in a stacked style.

Over the last few months or so I have been particularly fascinated in stacked designs in earrings. So most of the beads I have picked are of that nature. I am only including the beads, no hooks or studs, or fibers or other components.

I love the way all of you design, and I find a lot of inspiration in looking at your jewelry. I am longing to see how we all use the same things but in different ways. I am thinking we could all make at least one pair of earrings, but hopefully more. And that we are free to add our own extra beads and/or other components, if we at least use three (3) of the beads from my set in each design. How does that sound?
"

Here's the set of beads. I did not use all of them myself. For instance I tried several things with those shiny silvery beads, but was never happy with what I created. As well as for the milky white flower disks. I am really looking forward to see if any one else managed to use them in a creative and/or attractive way. And I am longing to see all of your designs and be inspired by them.

I created 5 pairs of earrings.
I didn't do all my designs exactly the way as what I had had in mind myself in the first place when I put this challenge together. But that is the beauty of it all I think. Self-surprise! Is that even a word? Well, I guess it is now ;-).

My first pair. A bead stack hung from a pair of sparkly links (SmittenBeads) and oxidized silver ears hooks.

If you are already familiar with my design style, you might already have noticed that I am very fond of messy wire wrapping. In the two following earrings I didn't only use the technique/style for the assembling, but also for making whole components on their own. That was fun, and I am sure I will keep playing around with that.

The stacking in these ones consists of the three wood beads on top of each other. I made the fabric links myself with recycled sari silk and two different gauges of oxidized copper wire. A heavier one for the inside, and a thinner one for the wrapping around. I think they turned out rather attractive. A soft bohemic style to them. Oxidized copper ear hooks.

Back to a combo of many different beads stacked on top of each other. I made the messy wire wrapped circular dangles/charms myself. I will definitely continue doing such things. Fun to do/make and a very versatile way to use in my designs. Rustic and bohemic. Oxidized copper ear hooks.

Was this cheating? I don't care, because I really like the way they look. I only stacked three stripey seed beads (and not different beads combined). Using a ball head pin for the wire wrapped link. Hung two patinated copper charms by MissFickleMedia. Oxidized copper ear hooks.

Oh, and another cheating one perhaps ;-). I only stacked two beads (not three). I do have more of those gold painted square wooden beads, and I could easily have used three or more. But somehow I liked this better, so … looks goes before rules. At least in my book of design. Patinated copper dangles/charms by lovely MissFickleMedia. And oxidized copper ear hooks.


Here again are the links to the other participants in this challenge. Hop on over to their blogs and check out many fun, exciting and lovely designs for earrings. :-)

Claire Lockwood - Something To Do With Your Hands

Leah Curtis - Beady Eyed Bunny

Rebecca Anderson - SongBead

Heidi Post - Ex Post Facto

Malin de Koning - Beading By Malin de Koning

All my best,
Malin