Skillz ta pay da Billz

...even though no one's buying oh well.

 Just reading Sparrow's most recent post where she mentions the urge to just connect these ScrochedEarth drops to earwires and call it a day. I feel ya, girl. They need very little else.

I'm using my new sterling wire in all of these. The wire rounder worked not at all. I wonder if that's because it's full hard? Ended up still using sand paper. Feels wrong every time I say "full-hard."

Why can I not get enough asymmetrical when it comes to earrings? It's just more interesting to look at by far. How about on a head though? As long as they're not too insanely different... I have too little experience wearing earrings to be making so damn many.

I had to wind some wire around these hoops to make them less perfect and a bit more wabi-sabi.

Here's my last ScorchedEarth pair, with some crosses. I guess one being sort of African-ish and the other sort of Celtic de-Catholifies them enough for me. Oh I can't help it I just love Catholic imagery!

These ladies aren't stampings but castings. They're just awesome in design and detail. I added the titanium cubic nuggets to get some cosmic in there. Oxidizing the rhinestone connectors was a bitch, I had to sand off the entire gold plating entirely or it wouldn't take. I hate non-tarnish plating! And these really needed the ox to balance with the girly rhinestones and ladies. But in the end I think they work.

So Patroness had a necklace with lots of Roman glass and garnet. Unfortunately, the sections were wrapped with very thin and wonky wire that, being fine enough to fit through the garnet rondelles, was not a good match for the very thick and rugged glass.

My inspiration was to take the sections apart, solder the wire together and pair them off into earrings.

 I had to file down my soldering results a to make the shapes a little smoother. More work! I added very light lower dangles since the glass itself used up each earrings allotted weight allowance. Allotted by me. 

Here I chose a heavier coin dangle on the right to compensate for the lighter weight of the smaller, broken glass. That's another asymmetry challenge- equal weight of both earrings.

Only as I was photoing these did I realized the chains were not the same length. Goddamn it. Actually it was only when I laid them out lying down. What do you think, does it matter? Urg, I think it does. But I thought you loved asymmetry? Well sure but it has to serve an aesthetic purpose. If one earring looks better than the other, it doesn't work. In this case the longer strands look better. If y'all managed to convince me otherwise, that would make my day. I guess there's the possibility of adding, like, three microscopic links by hand to each of the short lengths. Ugh. I think that'll have to be the fix. Damn you all for not convincing me otherwise! (Even though I haven't posed this blog entry yet. I meant in a premonitory clairvoyant communication kind of way...)

Here's two different sun coins from Uruguay. We are all about the sun down South. Which is why I must huddle indoors with my pasty white self. These fat tubes are odd. Never been much for tubes but oh well.

These are a semi-repeat design because I had these bits still left.

I may have been using triangles from this tin too much (well, 2 other pairs listed), but I can't help it they just combined so perfectly with these quills. The wire connectors of the quills are ringed together at the base of the loops to keep them in a V form so they'll fall to either side of these vintage glass drops. And the teardrop hoops are hammered and I just like them so there.

 Do you guys remember those ribbon barrettes we used to wear in elementary school? In the tackiest decade of human history, the 80s? They inspired my next project: hair pins with cascading bead strands. They're certainly unlike anything I've done before. What do you think? Too weird?

A friend had these orange citrines and three beautiful Ethiopian glass whatsits, so I made her a couple of layering necklaces, trying to make it wearable and not too nutty, since she's not, you know, a futuristic tribal priestess. 

 Here's a pair for a cousin who's going through a real tough time. Wildthorn Kim gave me the idea to make her a gift, I would never have thought of anything so nice.

Again, I'm going for not too weird here. Wearable. I guess without thinking about it I was trying to use not-too-precious bits. I know, I'm awful. Why would I even admit that?

 More for secondary patroness. She sent this giant angel with huge brads In back that I used to mount it on her feather stamping I hammered flat then curled.

Trying to get the angel to lie curved I broke off its foot. This is good cuz now I can pont it along the feather. Then when I was drilling a hole for a (fake headpin) rivet, I broke the foot in two. Now its held together with steel re-enforced epoxy. The fixes are fun too, you know.

A kuchi section hooks on to the stamping as a closure. Since I know her exact wrist size, no need for an extender chain. This works because the crucifix serves as a dangle unrelated to the closure.

I took apart a couple of the box clasps I mentioned to use just the rhinestone bit and soldered these rings with my iron. I'm all about soldering rings now- everything's so secure and no overlapping the ring ends or anything.

Here's me burning my hand on the solder. But why are you all soaked? It was a hot day and I needed to cool off. But why are you a cat? Oh did I not mention that? I'm a cat.