Do You Know Where I Got This One?

About a week ago, someone asked me on the Etsy Forums where I got the names for my beads and jewelry that I post in my Etsy Shop.

The names of the beads and sets come from a number of different sources. Sometimes, it's just what comes to mind when I see item. Sometimes color is the overriding item that gives the piece its name. sometimes it is what the piece reminds me of like a movie, favorite memory, a song, or something from a book--fact or fiction. The name doesn't have to make sense to anyone, but me.

So, with that in mind, let's see if you know where I got the name for this pair of earrings.

Using a base color of the hot new pastel purple I got, I decorated the beads with warm tan and brown shades from a silvered stringer. The silver creates the variation in the colors and makes these beads really stand out.

Strung on sterling wire with hematite bead accents, these earrings are ready for anything.

Their name, you ask? I'm calling this pair, "Voices Of The Mountains". Do you know where this reference comes from?

If you do, be sure and post your guesses here on the blog. The first correct guess will win something from my shop. Good Luck!

I'll be adding this pair of earrings to my Etsy Store tomorrow morning, so be sure to come check them out.

Let the guessing begin!

Wander Down An Afternoon Trail...

Sunny afternoon skies, dirt trails through a late summer meadow, warm wind on my face. The world alive in warm, earthy colors. These are just some of the images that come to mind when I think of walking along a trail in the afternoon.

These were the inspiration for this latest pair of earrings that I have named "Afternoon Trail". What a coincidence!

Unlike my earlier earring pairs, this set is hung from sterling silver posts with a spiral design on the front of the findings. Warm shades of tan, brown and orange all collide in the focal beads of this pair. Cream colored stone beads with a wonderful mottling of variation in the stone have also been included in this set with some zinc star accents. All hung on sterling wire.

This lovely pair will be added to my Etsy Shop in the morning and I hope you can stop by and take a look.

Have a great night!

Web Site Update - Earring Gallery

As I'm typing this blog entry, the Earring Gallery 2008 on my web site is being doubled in size with 34 more pictures of my latest earring designs.

I've got more to make yet, so I'm not done, but I've run out of earring findings at the moment and will need to order up some more soon.

I hope you enjoy these new designs. Don't be shy about it. Let me know what you think by posting a note either here or on my web site--www.LampOfLuxury.com.

Check out the web site's What's New section for more information on the update.

New Tools Coming

I've ordered up some new tools tonight that I cannot wait to get my hands on and try out. I've been wanting these tools since last June and now I have ordered them up.

Hopefully they will ship soon as these will enable me to take my beads to a new level of design and different plane of execution...I hope.

When I get the hang of the tools, I'll be sure to let you know when the beads from them are coming and let you be the first to check them out.

Take Care!

Ever Been To Neptune?

Well, neither have I, but with an out- of- this- world pair of earrings like these, you might feel like you have been!

This pair of earrings is entitled, "Oceans On Neptune" because the rippling blues remind me of pictures of this lovely planet.

The purple base in these beads is another new color that I'm so pleased with. It's a lovely pastel purple that doesn't come out lavender or eggplant. I cannot wait to try it out in some other designs soon.

I've used hematite disks to offset the lentil focals in this pair and accented the top and bottom of each earring with a pale blue stone (I don't remember it's name, sorry) that is nearly translucent. It's rather like a blue quartz and may indeed be a quartz variant.

Strung on sterling silver wire and leverback earring findings, this pair is ready for some adventure with you this summer and beyond!

I'll be posting this pair into my Etsy Shop tomorrow morning.

I'm hoping to have a web site update tomorrow for you with lots of new pictures. Things have been rather busy lately, but I will be home tomorrow night in time to work on them.

Take Care!

Beware The Temptress!

Tomorrow morning will see a new pair of earrings being added to my Etsy Shop in a brand new color.

This set of earrings, named "The Temptress", uses a new color from CIM--Lipstick. Specifically, these beads were created using the light shade of the colors which gives them a reddish-orange color that is very interesting.

Subdued when it wants to be, but also bold when it has to be. Much like the ladies, I'm sure, who wear this color!

Each bead was accented with black as the secondary color for an almost tiger stripe appearance to the beads.

Black onyx beads and metallic spacers are also included in the design. Each earring is strung on sterling silver wire with sterling leverback earring findings.

Don't forget to stop by and check them out tomorrow in My Shop.

Have a great night All.

Have You Seen Amethyst Bubble Before?

Probably not, but I've named this fun and funky set of earrings "Amethyst Bubbles". Can you guess why?

Strung on sterling silver wire, two round lampwork beads in a pale shade of pink with tan highlights have been layered between hematite disks. On the bottom, large, lovely chunks of Amethyst have been strung. On the top, round amethyst beads have been used to echo the shape of the focal beads.

All of these elements hang from sterling silver leverback earring findings with a clamshell design.

This pair was a bit of an experiment since I don't usually use the gem chips in my earrings, but I love how these turned out (hint: more are coming in various colors in the near future). When I took them into work for my test market, they were very well received. Let's hope you love these too!

I'll be putting them into my Etsy Shop in the morning, so please be sure to stop by and take a peek.

Have a great night and thanks for stopping by.

My 100th Posting!

Well, I cannot believe it, but this is my 100th posting on my blog. It's quite a milestone for me since I didn't know what I would have to write about initially, but I just decided to jump in and talk about my passions--glass, lampworking, and creating beautiful art.

While there have been a few bumps along the way as I have been getting my feet wet in blogging, I am very happy that it has been interesting enough to keep folks like yourself coming back to it over the past several months.

I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me and please keep the comments coming to the blog. I love hearing from you whether you like something of mine or don't. Just feel free to jump in whenever you like!

Now on to the art...

Don't Get Sunburned!

This has been a very productive night. I've managed to make up several sets of new earrings and will be posting a set into my Etsy Shop tomorrow morning!

This vibrant red set is called "Bahama Sunburn" owing to the fact that the blues that run and ripple across the beads remind me of the clean, blue waters around the Bahamas and that sunburns are red. Sounds like a nursery rhyme doesn't it?

Oceans are blue.
Sunburns are red.
If this was your skin,
You'd probably be DEAD!

How's that for cheerful?

The earrings are strung on sterling silver wire and leverback findings along with black onyx beads and zinc stars for the extra pop in the design. These fun and colorful beads (the picture does not do the colors justice, but it's as close as I can get it) would look stunning at any summer event you may want to attend!

This set of earrings was made using a new color that I'm trying out from nice folks at Creation Is Messy (CIM). I have used several of their colors in the past and this new one I really like. It's called "Sangre" and is a very lovely shade which works up so nicely.

I can't wait to try it out as fins on a fish or some other creation. Check out their new colors HERE.

I've got more of their colors coming up in other earring designs that I've been working on, so keep an eye out for CIM. They have some really great glass.

Have a great night, and I hope you can stop by My Shop when you get a chance!

Chat soon!

Feel Like A Treasure Hunt?

I guess it's actually not much of a hunt since you're here already and I'm going tell you what the treasure is and where you'll be able to find it tomorrow morning.

My latest set of earrings, "Amber Treasure" will be loaded into my Etsy Shop tomorrow.

This set of earrings has a warm amber glow from the opalino glass used in the lentil focals while dark trails of silvered stringers create a swirling pattern across their equators.

For those who may not know, opalino glasses are transparent when worked and darken in color while in the kiln. If the glass has not been worked too long, the beads will be semi-transparent in the finished product. I've had trouble with this type of glass before, but either I'm getting the hang of them or the new torch I bought last year is really bringing out the color in this glass. Maybe a little bit of both.

Either way, I really love how this set came out, and I hope you will too!

Life In The Clouds

Ever wonder what it would be like to live high above the ground in the clouds?

Perhaps the world you float over would be a huge gas giant or maybe a watery world with no land a tall where huge leviathans rule the deep.

Or maybe, it would be small world with a huge blue sky and bright amber clouds that flow on the gentle winds. That's the world that the focal beads in this set of earrings makes me think of.

As you might have guessed, the earings are named "Life In The Clouds" and are a bright blue color with warm shades of amber and brown weaving around them.

This set of earrings features heart-shaped stud earring findings in sterling silver. The dangles contain copper accent beads and black onyx along with the two lampwork lentil focals on sterling silver wire.

The earrings will look great year round and are perfect for those new summer outfits that you need to buy. Aren't they?

I'll be adding them to my Etsy Shop tomorrow morning, so I hope you can stop by sometime.

Take Care!

Earrings Anyone?

I've posted a new gallery of earrings from my mad jewelry making weekend on my web site.

Come check out the 46 new pictures of earrings and let me know which ones are your favorites. You can read about the newest addition to my site in the What's New section of my web site.

All of the earrings are strung on sterling silver wire with natural stone of one type or another. Some use leverback earring findings and others are posts. Both earring finding styles are also sterling silver. There's also some with accent beads for an added touch of bling.

Due to the technical difficulties of this morning, I will not be adding a new pair of earrings into My Shop tomorrow morning. Another new pair will be loaded on Thursday though, so check back tomorrow night to find out which pair will be coming!

Have a great night!

I'll Bet You're Wondering...

Hey, where are the new earrings that were promised in the shop this morning?

Well, funny thing, Etsy updated the loading process of the listing pictures since I last added an item to my shop which caused me to not be able to load them at all this morning.

For whatever reason, I've always had issues with Etsy needing to have its picture loading pages stopped in the browser and then re-clicking the Upload button in order to load the images.

Apparently, I am not the only one since there was a huge thread about all of the folks that could no longer add images, and I added my name to the list; hopefully this issue will be fixed soon.

A new "feature" they added was to prevent users from clicking the upload button too many times until the pictures were loaded since they were getting a lot of duplicate items. Unfortunately, this made my browser incapable of loading the pictures this morning, and I didn't have time to futz with downloading a new browser and trying it out before heading out to work.

Now that I'm back from work, I have downloaded FireFox and successfully added the images to the listing and the earrings are now in my shop.

To access the earring listing directly, click HERE.

So sorry for the delay, but now it is all taken care of.

Can You Handle Temptation?

It's been a while since I've listed anything new into my Etsy Shop, and I think it's time to give you a little temptation..."Crimson Temptation", that is.

This set of earrings has two medium lentils in a rich red and decorated with swirling pattern around the beads that reminds me of a large feather.  The pattern was created with a silvered purple stringers.  The stringer reacted with the heat and the glass to create an almost raku-like effect which I think is quite striking and interesting.

Black onyx beads, zinc accents and sterling silver wire and leverback finding complete the design.

These earrings could be work for an evening out on the town or just hanging out with friends and a local club.

I'll be adding this little item to my shop tomorrow morning, and hope you can check them out.

Have a terrific week!