Earrings Everyday We're All Ears Challenge - Tidepools

I'm so excited that I finally was prepared enough to participate in the Earrings Everyday Challenge this quarter - Tidepools! These photos from the Earrings Everyday blog show some awesome inspiration for the challenge.

 Illustration by Hashime Murayama

Hashime Murayama was a Japanese illustrator, born in 1879. He used to work for National Geographic until 1941.

 

Illustration by Theo Carreras 

Theo Carreras was an illustrator of some well known books about insects, like "Marvels of Insect Life," and was known for his detailed still-life illustration

You may know the beach constantly changes over time - sometimes there are tidepools and sometimes there are not.  I have been going to Hilton Head Island since I was about 16 years old, and have been taking my children since they were 6 weeks old (they are now 20 and 17, so that's a LONG time!).  One of my favorite memories ever is of my son, who was 3 at the time, looking in a tidepool and seeing little tiny fish caught there.  He plucked one out of the water like he was a little expert and then put it back in!  My daughter and I looked at him and said, Sean!  How did you do that?  because we were trying to do the same thing.  He looked at me and said, Like this!  And plucked the fish up again!  It was sooooo cute!

The tidepools at that beach also have jellyfish from time to time. That was my inspiration for these earrings. I had made these awesome colored disc beads, wrapped in pure silver wire, and was wondering what to do with them.  And then I saw that I had some leftover enameled headpins - they were just waiting to be paired up.

 These weren't the easiest earrings to make.  I used my round nose pliers to twist the headpins to mimic the tentacles of the jellyfish.

 I had to spend a lot of time getting them just the way I wanted them, and then make a wrapped loop with three layers of copper wire, and each copper wire was a different length due to the number of twists on each of the tentacles.

 

 However, I'm really pleased with the way they turned out!  This glass is from GG Glass and she has the most wonderful vieled colors of glass - this glass is lemon with lavender highlights and was perfect for this design!

I have disc beads listed in my SueBeads etsy store if you're interested and I will be making some enamel headpins today and will stock my store as soon as I can!

I will also be making a tutorial for this design and will be posting it on my other team blog, Art Jewelry Elements, on July 7th!  Thanks for checking out my earrings today!