Nov 14, 2011

Lavender Lampwork and Chrome Diopside Earrings

Sometimes things just don't go according to plan - and that's exactly what happened when I was designing a piece of jewellery to showcase three absolutely gorgeous Lavender Lampwork beads by Lavender Beads. My initial design plan had been a necklace with a "vine" created from wires as the base of the necklace, a few wire shaped leaves with some Chrome Diopside, and the lavender beads. I wasn't terribly happy with how it was going, but it all came crashing down completely when, in hammering the wires, I accidentally caught the edge of one of the lavender beads - Disaster!

So, suddenly only having two beads I could still use it was back to the drawing board. I didn't however totally discard the idea of a vine as this still appealed. Knowing that just two beads wouldn't really provide the right balance for a necklace, I decided to focus on coming up with a design for earrings. The priority was still obviously to focus on showcasing the beads.

Thinking through the idea of a vine I therefore decided that I could use my "vine" base to provide a loop around the lavender beads. I therefore twisted two wires together in a circle shape, deliberately making the twist uneven to enhance the idea of two stems wrapping themselves around each other, and then drew them down the centre of the loop for the lavender beads. I still also liked my original idea of using my gemstone Chrome Diopside beads, as I felt their glorious green colour would provide a perfect foil to the lavender. I realised that wrapping these beads around the loop would actually enhance the impression of a vine, effectively giving me a green vine. My Lavender and Vine loops were then suspended on hand forged ear wires to complete the earrings.

So from a disaster of a necklace that never ended up happening, I ended up with my beautiful Lavender and Chrome Diopside Earrings.

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