Our daughter had a pair of earrings that were her absolute favorite. She called one day and told me that she lost one and wanted me to make her a new pair just like them. The picture below is the original earring. It is made out of a thin strong metal with a baked enamel pearl-like finish.
It is nice to know she has so much confidence in what we can do but when I looked at this earring I was wondering how I could imitate it and yet still keep the sleek thinness without it being too fragile? She also knows that I love a challenge, so of course I told her I would and once I sat down to work, the idea came to me on what to do.
I decided to dress it up a bit and do the fronts using a mica shift technique. This is a technique that creates a "ghost-like" image in the clay where it appears to be textured but in fact it is silky smooth. I will show how this is done in our "How We Do It" series later.
I love how the earrings came out and so decided to make a matching pendant which I hung from a navy blue ultrasuede cord and embedded a Swarovski crystal for a little added sparkle.
To finish them off, I decided to add some texture to the backs which gives a slight 3d effect when the earrings swirl around at times.
I am really glad I took on this challenge since it has inspired me to make more of these but with variations in design and color -- something I can really have fun with!
We will have some of these fun pieces in our
Art Fire Studio soon but in the meantime, enter our
Birthday Celebration Contest to win a $25 gift certificate towards anything in our shops. Contest ends this Saturday evening.
