We're All Ears - Earrings Everyday February Challenge

I've been dying to get back to participating in this fun monthly earring design challenge!  Love the inspiration photo for this month - some desperately needed color and a reminder that Spring has to arrive (eventually).

 

 

I love the flowers and the soft, romantic drawings - so pretty and feminine!

 

I had lots and lots and lots of ideas for this month, but I really suffered from lack of time to properly execute them.  I think the muse was a bit deluded into thinking she and I could pull off everything that we imagined.  As a result, I'm not overly happy with most of what I came up with - my designs definitely suffer when I am rushed.  Still, I was determined to meet my goal to participate so here's what I came up with that was semi-fit to share:

 

 

 

 

For this first pair, I used Vintaj patina inks on brass blanks and a Vintaj flower/leaf charm and then sanded/polished to let some of the natural brass show through for an aged look. 

 

 

I'm happy with the flower portion, but I think the background piece needs a little more work - another color sponged around the edges or something.  It's "almost" there.  I call this design "Flowering Vines."  

 

 

 

 

This was another experiment with the Vintaj inks - I was trying out a marbling technique that I saw demonstrated on You Tube.  I'm actually pretty happy with this one except that I can see a few blank spots that I missed - my eyesight really is getting so bad!  And I was even wearing my glasses! 

 

 

Oh well, a little bit of touch up ink here and there will take care of that.  I had these aqua/silver floral components sitting around and they matched the aqua color in the ink so well that I thought they'd be a good choice to bring the floral element into the design.  I'm calling these earrings "Aqua and Old Lace."

 

 

 

More of the marbling technique - I think the inks really look like the swirls of a rose.  With this pair, I sanded around the edges of the blanks and then polished them to let the brass show through so they'd look a bit aged. 

 

 

I wanted to sand the bead caps, too, but I ran out of time to get as much shine on them as I wanted before I had to take the photos.  I'll be going back to give them another round to really make them sparkle.  Also, the crystals really do match the ink color much better in real life than it shows in the photos.

 

 

 

 

Lastly, I decided to adapt a wrapping technique that I've done in the past with waxed linen.

I took these brass rings and wrapped and knotted some really lovely dyed silk ribbon all around the edges and then tied it off at the top. 

 

 

 

The ribbon had pale shades of pink and mauve shading into green and even a little touch of teal so I thought it would stand in for the colors of flowers and leaves perfectly.

 

 

 

I frayed the edges to give it a little "shabby" look and then added some pale pink glass pearls and some blue/green Swarovski crystals.

 

Those are my designs for the February challenge.  I hope you enjoyed them!

 

KJ