Wire Flower Earrings

I found a tutorial video on YouTube (see 'Easy Wire Wrapped Jewelry Tutorial : Flower Earrings') for making wire flower earrings and thought I'd give it a try. It's a lot more fiddly than I first anticipated but I thought I didn't do too bad for my first try! I also made a co-ordinating box from some 10" square colour cardstock.

I decorated the box with some floral paper that I added glitter glue to, to highlight some of the detail. To finish I added some lace ribbon, a message tag and some silver liquid pearls.

Blue and Purple Spiral Earrings

Here are some simple spiral earrings that I made from coloured wire. You make the spirals by twisting both ends of a length of wire (in this case 4" long) in opposite directions and then wrapping them into spirals using flat nosed pliers. To make the top spiral, you only make one end into a spiral and simply curl the other side into a loop (just over 2" of wire needed in this case). I then attached these together using silver jump rings and attached them to silver hook earrings. I made a blue pair in a co-ordinating gift box...

 ...and a purple pair in the same style but with one extra spiral:

Wire Cage Bead Earrings

Here's a couple of pairs of spiral beaded earrings that I made, they're actually surprisingly easy to do! I found a video tutorial online (see "How To Make Wire Caged Bead Earrings" on YouTube) and here's my finished sets...

A silver and blue pair:

And a gold and maroon pair:

Handmade Earrings and Gift Boxes

Afternoon folks! I've found a way to tie in my paper craft skills with my new found interest in jewellery making: creating boxes for my earrings so I can give them as gifts. The boxes are about 5cm squared (made from 6 inch pieces of card) but you could make them whatever size you want, provided you have paper big enough. Here's the four that I've made so far:

A green, pink and red one...

A brown and peach one...

A blue and red one...

And (finally!) a powder blue and pink one...

All the papers and the wee sentiments I used are from Craftwork Cards, but the Kraft card and Mirri board are from docrafts. I made all the earrings first and then made the boxes to match because I have far more choice in papers than I do in beads! I hope to make some more over the Summer but it's getting into exam time now (eeek!). That's all from me today, happy crafting!

Simple Gold and Pearl Earrings

Here's a wee pair of earring that I made for my sister. They're just simple gold stud and hook earrings with a pearl bead drop...

She was looking for something simple that she could wear during the day so the drop is only about 3cm. Not the most technical thing I've ever made but I'm a bit of a beginner jewellery making-wise!

Spider Earrings

I was looking for something to do over the weekend when my friend asked me if I wanted to go see the new Spiderman movie that comes out next week. I was looking online for running times and things and somehow got side-tracked onto looking at spider themed earrings. That's when I stumbled across this neat tutorial by atomicrose on how to make Beaded Spiders (see http://www.instructables.com/id/Beaded-Spider-Tutorial/). I'm always up for a challenge so I had a go at making myself a set of earrings. The technique is a bit fiddly and I'm a bit of a novice at jewellery making but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out...

The spiders are only about 4cm across and 3cm high so they're not too bulky (which I was worried about to begin with!). You have to be REALLY careful with the legs as well, I secured mine at the back with glue but they have come unstuck a couple of times already so I must remember to use something stronger next time.

Long time, no blog!

Didn't realise how long it had been since I updated this, my word! Anyway, better late than never as they say so here it goes. I've not really had all that much time to craft since I've been back at uni this year BUT I was given the opportunity to design some pieces for the docraft Creativity magazine. I had a great time doing it and my work is in Issue 44 of the magazine that comes out this month. On another note, I've been doing some more sketches with what little crafty material I have in my flat! I bought a kit from Miller's (before it shut down!) with some coloured pencils in it, only 12 or something like that so a lot less than I'm used to! I found a picture online to draw from and I'm still working on it, but here's what I've done so far...

Not sure whether to do a background or whether to just leave the contrast between the colour and the white...think I'll wait until I've finished the parrot and then decide! Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year and I hope to be posting some more soon!