Venice in Spring Time

...or at least, that's how I felt yesterday after my exams! The inherent need to see something fresh and springish eventually led to these:


Spring Greens: 20ga sterling silver hand-crafted earwires, cloisonne green beads, Czech glass bellflowers, Czech glass green beads. RM25




This pair of earrings actually required a creative work-around - I don't have 20ga silver wires, and I wanted to make a pair of ear wires to finish off the dangles. Then it occurred to me that I actually had purchased some long sterling silver headpins in the past which were definitely thinner than 19ga wire and thicker than the 22ga I had, so they were definitely 20ga for sure (at least, the last I checked, wires don't come in half-sizes.) So I cut the headpins up, made the dangles with one half and the earwires with the other. No wastage and the ear wires turned out great! They measure just over 1.5 inches, from the top of the ear wire to the bottom of the dangle.

And, specially for Swati, here are closeups of the Venetian Necklace and how it turned out. I was trying out the wonderful Old-Fashioned Chain tutorial by Bobbi and the Small Chains tutorial by Diny of Natural Jewels over at JewelryLessons.com. I think it didn't turn out too badly!


Venetian Necklace: 18ga and 24ga silver-plated copper wire, 20ga hand-crafted chain links, 0.4cm rhodium-plated copper jump rings, antique faux pearls, glass pearls, China fire-polish glass rondelles, 2mm pewter beads, silver-plated butterfly toggle clasp.








And this is another of Mei's Sparkly Rings which I made to match the necklace, though I accidentally got the wires crossed due to it being 3am in the morning when I was attempting it. Lesson: Don't try to make rings at 3am if you're not wide awake. However, I was also trying out a wonderful finishing tip by Perri - and let me tell you it -works- beautifully. The wire wraps came out so neatly I was floored. Bravo to Perri for sharing such a wonderful tip!


Venetian Pink: 22ga Argentium silver wire, 4mm Argentium silver beads, Czech fire-polish glass bead, swarovski crystals.

And now before I get any more weird wire ideas, I better go to bed as I have to write up a quiz for my sight-singing students tomorrow. It's far too easy to get sidetracked by shiny things --oooh, is that another ring tutorial I see --err, bed! bed! Now!