Bridal Chandelier Earrings

Last night, I have been rolling on the bed for long and I just couldn't fall asleep. Beads are all over my mind. So, I woke up and went to my beading table, look around and fetch my roll of sterling silver wire (a new roll). This is it, the one I bought from USA.


Sterling Silver - Round - 22 Gauge - .025" - Soft

I wanted to make chandelier earrings... yes, again! I get hooked after I made the first one with sterling silver. I ran through my beads collection, and drag some Swarovski Pearls. After tossing them a while, I knew that I was going to use them.

I take out a piece of paper and draft what kind of chandelier earrings I would like to make. After drawing for a few patterns, I decided on the first one that I drew... what a troublesome me!

Moment later... I had finished with one earring (forgot to check how long I took, oh well, I was half-asleep!). As usual I took time to perfecting the shape and design. This earring is missing her sister as I got tired and crawl to bed. However, I finished her sister this afternoon. And oh how lovely this pair of earrings! Remind me of a pearl chandelier that I have made long time ago (that was sold to a bridal shop). I guess I will have to dig out my old picture!

Miss Z: Cut the crap, I want to see the earrings!

Ok, ok, without any further "useful information" from me, here is the earrings that I made.



Pretty, ain't it? Oh yes, perhaps I need a better photo.

This earrings measure 35mm excluding the earhooks. It is "mini chandelier" to me. It looks cute and at the same time elegant. This pairs are suitable if you are going to any formal party. It is also just suitable for the bridal!

I might do a longer version soon!

*This earrings has been added to my website*

Making Own Clasps

Being attracted to sterling silver, it encourage me to make a full piece with just a piece of wire. Hence, I decided to make my own clasp. Of course, before trying on sterling silver wire, I have practiced on craft wire to make sure I am doing something right. After few minutes twisting the craft wire, this is what I come out with:




The smallest S-Clasps (the second from the left) are 10mm long and the largest are the first one from the right, 18mm. S-clasps are good in two way, secure and long lasting.

Secure - it is unlikely to get undone easily.
Long Lasting - the design will not "out-dated" and easily acceptable by everybody.

Though, there are many ready made sterling silver clasps out there, but I feel that it is good if I can add some handmade touch to the whole piece including the clasps for my jewelleries. That's what handmade is to the end. Buying mass-produced findings are easy. Easy as in, everybody will be able to buy them. Therefore, I am hoping the best about my handmade jewelleries for handmade-jewellery lover out there. It might be you :D

My Choice of Chandelier Frame for Earrings

There are a lot of mass-produced chandelier frame out there but it is hard to find what I like here locally. I have been searching for a simple yet beautiful chandelier frame for some time and I have found one at last. This is it:



This chandelier frame is a teardrop shape with 3 loops at the bottom. There are many version of this frame. Some are round, and some are rectangle. Some do have 5 loops or even more where you can create a lot of dangly from. I am still searching for more of them, the similar design, preferably locally.

What is so special about this chandelier frame?

I feel that this chandelier frame is very simple yet very pretty. Earrings make with this chandelier frame are simple and elegant. At first, I found it hard to make a pretty design out of this frames. The size of the frame and the distance of the loop makes it a little hard to make a balance design. Too many or too little beads makes a yucky design. Too big or too small beads makes the whole earrings looks handicap. After a few run through my collection of beads I have come out with this.



EA016 - Chandelier Earrings with Czech Pressed Glass Beads.



Another attempt at picture taking using a different background.


I am very satisfied with the result. This pair of chandelier earrings consists of Montana Czech Pressed Teardrops with Silver Blue Czech Firepolished and Montana Czech Firepolished. I felt in love with this after I finished it. If I had any piercing, I will definately try it out myself, but I did try them by placing near my ear to see how good they are. Oh my... they tempted me to get pierced!!!

Feeling happy with this pair of earrings, I try to make another pair with softer colour. After run through my ever growing beads collection, I have come out with this.



This pair is made with Clear Tablet with Green Stripe Czech Pressed Glass. I love this green beads very much. Each beads are different. They do not have the same exact green stripe. I like it that way so it will show more movement while you are wearring them.

Although I had been looking for this type of chandelier frame for a while, I found out that I do not have enough suitable beads to go with them. I guess its time for bead shopping!

Earrings Display

Ever since I have addicted in jewellery making, I have think of the jewellery display as well. Mainly for picture taking. It is hard to show a nice pair of earrings by laying them out flat on the table. Therefore, I have tried to make my own version of earring display.

These are what I have come out of:



The one at the most left is my first creation out of galvanized wire. I have twisted them nicely into shape, and tie them up nicely with 26 gauge craft wire. Finally it was sprayed into black (thanks to my bf for that) and I was very happy with it. The middle are my second creation that I made when I feel that I need more then one display. It is made from galvanized wire too.

I have work with both of that for some time and it just came to my mind that I wanted to make another, because I don't feel I have enough earrings display so I come out with the one at the right. It was made with craft wire, much softer to work with. But of course, it is easier to get out of shape comparing to the first two displays. This one I had it sprayed white as I want to have something different. White gives a nice effect too!

When I had finished with the third one, I think, they still won't satisfy my need to display the ever increase numbers of earrings that I have. I have a commercial earring display but it just don't serve the chandelier earrings right.

So, while watching anime yesterday night, I tried to twist more and more craft wire and came out with this that I called "The Earring Tree":



And I was.. "Woooot! This is nice!"

True, I can hang a lot of earrings with this! How?



Its a total of 8 earrings =) But this display is a little unstable, because it is made of craftwire and whenever I am trying to display earrings with it, I have to make sure it is balance both side, so that it won't fall down.

Maybe if I feel the need to make more display, I will make with galvanized wire and make 8 branches!

P/S: My bf called this "The Lollipop Tree"

I have work on this 2 nights

Imagine what you can do with this stuff:

Yeah, some Swarovski beads, some sterling silver (925) wires and pliers. And oh yeah, and a cutter :)
Here's my cutter:

This is a side cutter, it cuts the wire flat (not sharpy like cutter in your dad's toolbox can do). This is rather rare cutter that I couldn't seems to find anything similar at common hardware shop. Somehow, I found one in the hardware shop in USJ17. Hooray! This side cutter is for delicate job, where you need to cut something at the very tip. But I need this because it gives me a flat end of the wire.

So what did I made?

These stuff made me addicted for a while now, and with these, I made a piece of creation with sterling silver wire (925). After battling an hour and a half for two nights (that makes 3 hours) I had finished this:-



The earrings of course.

Miss Expert: Wut?? Three hours? I can make two the same in three hours!
YL: Oh hehe.. I was watching anime while I make this. ^_^

I call myself my worst customer. I like to perfect my creation. I measure all the loops make sure they are consistent and tidy. That's why I took longer then I should to finish this piece. This delicate piece of earrings are very satisfying.

Frankly speaking, this is the first piece I made using sterling silver.

Miss Expert: Why?
YL: Stop questioning me will you?

Ok, I am not confidence enough in using sterling silver as they are quite pricey and its difficult to find a local supplier. I have search high and low for silver supplier and all I found are the supplier from international. I have actually bought some 22 gauge sterling silver wire from USA and they were in my drawer for months before I actually use them.

I had been using silver tone craft wire (silver colour plated on copper) and been happy with them for a while till recently I started to cry seeing them turning black. I had actually made a pair of similar earrings months back and I shall show you what is the different between using normal craft wire and sterling silver wire.


The left one was made with silver coloured craft wire that turns black over time. While silver are bright and shine. Although silver might tarnish over time, at least you can wash or polish it with proper silver cleaner. And that encourage me to start using the real silver wire for jewellery.

I felt in love with the sterling silver wire once I had using them. They are real soft (I had the soft wire) and they shines beautifully. I was thinking of not using craft wire anymore... but not many people will afford buying sterling silver jewellery. I hope I am wrong, but I am sure I am going to get more real silver wire in the future.

Watch out what I am going to make soon!

A fresh start.

I think I will just leave my old blog alone and start a new one, with my current passion. It had been almost a year since my last post in the other blog, I feel that I am different from what I was, so here I am, the whole new blog, with my new passion following me.