Gift #1148: Winter Jewelry

My neck of the woods is filled with a day’s worth of wintry precipitation (read: rain, sleet, and ice pellets) followed by an afternoon and night of snow leaving several inches on top of the ice layer.  I’ve spent the entire day inside the house and it’s looking like that might be tomorrow’s forecast as well.  As long as it clears up by Monday morning’s work commute I’m contented to enjoy some wintry weather and enjoy the comforts of snuggling in warm fuzzies, hot chocolate in hand, and watching the snow fall…. and crafting.  I’m working on a couple of challenges for January which are still in progress (or in idea phase) but today I wanted to share some pieces I’ve made that are winter-themed.

In December, my favorite bead artist, Humblebeads, released some lovely faux tin pieces that were all the more special because she used her own illustrations as the images.  I bought a few in a trunk show and have enjoyed creating with them.

My first piece I’ll share is called “Cardinals at the Window”.  I fiddled with a couple different layouts for this necklace, but the tin piece was adamant about not wanting anything except copper chain and a flower dangle.  So that’s what I went with.  And we’re both happy with that choice.

Earrings are kept a bit simple too – I paired crimson Czech glass flowers with the faux tin charms.  They needed just a bit of something on the bottom of the charm and I cut some tiny teardrops from some etched copper I made.  I’m in love with the scarves the cardinals are wearing and wish I could knit little scarves for all the critters so they could stay warm and comfy during the snowy weather.  I have a penchant for illustrations of woodland creatures wearing scarves in winter.

From cardinals we turn to “Warm Woolen Mittens”.  I thought these hand drawn mitten shapes were so clever and original.  For this necklace, I added the mitten, a mother of pearl charm, and snowflake as dangles to a silver loop.  A stack of Humblebeads disc beads and a ceramic bead by Grubbi Ceramics are sandwiched with silver twisted jump rings and strung on navy leather cord.

“Snowy Mitts” is made from my other mitten purchase.  For this one, I strung the mitten to a silver jump ring and to a navy snowflake bead from Humblebeads that she gifted me in my order.  I wanted to make this necklace look a bit different so I decided to use silver chain.  At a bead store several years ago I had bought a few lengths of gemstone beaded chain.  However, in a fit of insanity I apparently only bought 6 inches of chain – I don’t know what I was thinking I’d do with that.  So I doubled the aqua stone chain and added it for a bit of visual interest.  I think it worked out pretty well.

And I made a pair of earrings that conveniently match with both mitten necklaces (this is because I was feeling lazy and also because I was running out of snowflake charms).  This incorporate elements from the necklace including the twisted silver jump rings and clay disc beads.  I needed a silver spacer to separate the disc beads from the navy Czech beads but none of them looked right.  Then I decided to see how a jump ring would look – one was ok, but two was better.  I linked them together so that they would have a twist and I’m thrilled with how they look.  I’m going to use that trick again for sure.

I hope you’ve enjoyed having a look at what I’ve been up to.  The background for the jewelry pics are a pair of knitted mitts I made over Christmas break.  They matched the pieces and the theme perfectly.  Hope you are staying snug and warm this weekend.

Blessings to you,

Sarah