Summer jewelry by Alery

When I first saw colorful earring and pendants by Alery I instantly fell in love! Bright summer colors of Alery earrings radiate positive energy and make me think about ocean vacation, exotic flowers and refreshing cocktails at a beach.
I was curious about the technique and materials these bright pieces are made from. Thus, I simply had to talk to Avery and share what I’ve learned.

Could you please tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Valery and I was born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine. It’s a beautiful city with rich history and beautiful ancient churches. A few years ago my husband, our two children and I moved to California where we now live in a small city not far from San Francisco. I work in IT but in my spare time I turn into a jeweler.



How did you start?
I’ve always been into crafting and art. Over years I’ve tried different crafts, techniques and fibers. Finally jewelry making became my main passion. I started about six years ago with incorporating precious stones and beads into my jewelry. Later I moved to wire wrapping techniques and metal. Nowadays I mostly work with hot enamel. I love to experiment and to incorporate completely different techniques into my creative process.



What are your main sources of inspiration?
On one hand I’m inspired by the diversity and sophistication of nature. One can indefinitely contemplate intricate creations of nature finding something new and surprising every time.

On the other hand man made objects can be as beautiful. Apart from nature architecture and art serve as great sources of inspiration. The simplicity and elegance of minimalism where every shape and every line have a well defined meaning and purpose prompt me to create simple yet bright and colorful jewelry items.



Could you tell us about the technique you use in jewelry making?
The technique I use is called enameling. A metal surface is covered with a finely grounded glass powder. The surface is then heated to about 1450F so that the powder melts and fuses together. One can use either kiln of hand torch to heat the powder.

It usually takes a few melting iterations for a jewelry piece to be ready. With each iteration a jeweler can change the color of the glass powder, its quantity and transparency. As a result most of the pieces turn out to be one of a kind and completely unique as it’s simply impossible to replicate them.

The process of enameling offers a jeweler a lot of freedom for creativity and experimentation. The results are sometimes very surprising and unpredictable. I totally love it!

DIY How to make felted watermelon earrings

To make bright and happy summer inspired watermelon earrings we will need felting wool in bright red, green, white and black, soap, pure water and bubbled wrap paper.

To make a watermelon we will need to lay out wool in a shape of “hot dog”. First we cut a piece of red wool of about 5 inch. We mix red wood with a bit of black wool to make it look like our watermelon has seeds. On top of red wool we lay white and than green wool. As a result we will have a green wool “hot dog” that inside will have red, black and white wool.

Once our “hot dog” is formed we wet is with water and soak it in soap. As it gets wet and soapy we start rolling in on a piece of bubbled wrap. We roll it on a plastic wrap for about 15 minutes until it gets firm. The wool will shrink by about 30%. Let our felted piece dry well.

Our next step will be to cup our “hot dog” into equal parts. You can cut it with scissors. As a result we will get round pieces of felted wool that will look like freshly cut watermelon. If you attach pieces of felted watermelon to simple earrings hooks you will get nice and fresh watermelon earrings.

The watermelon earrings look fun and bright. They will be a truly hand made item as I doubt you can buy anything like that in a jewelry store. The fact that you've created them with your own hands will make watermelon earring even more special.

Dyeing hand felted bracelet with blue Kool Aid

Since I bought plenty of blue colored Kool Aid on line I continue experimenting with dyeing different hand felted items in bright blue. This time I decided to create a hand felted bracelet.

I first hand felted eight beads mixing white and dark blue wool. To read more about how to make wool beads please visit my earlier post.

To create a blue dyeing mixture I poured Kool Aid blue raspberry drink mix into a plastic container with water. It's important to stir the mixture well before soaking beads in it. Thus, the color will be applied equally on all the beads.

When my dyeing mixture is ready I placed all my eight hand felted wool beads into the container and microwaved it for about 3 minutes or until it starts boiling. Don't overheat the beads as they can get burned! Please be careful handling beads after the microwave as they get extremely hot!

My beads absorbed bright blue color. They now look like marbles with spots of light and dark blue.

Dyed beads could be turned into a necklace, a bracelet or a pair of earrings. I decided to create a jewelry set this time. First I made a bracelet chaining six beads together. I still have two blue beads left. They will look great as a pair of earrings.

The set is of bright colors of sea waters, ocean lagoon and sky. It's completely unique as beads were hand dyed and now have their own special color. That's the beauty of hand dyeing. It creates unique colors and special items!

Bright tangerine summer swing earrings

I believe that summer is all about bright and vivid colors. I created my new hand felted earrings of wool in tangerine, carrot and ginger colors. Deep blue beads serve as additional decoration and metal chain let my beads swing freely around the owner's neck. The earrings are of that happy orange color that lifts one's attitudes and helps a person live happily through a day!

Crocheted earrings in white and beige

I've created white crocheted earrings as my last nod to this season's winter. Cold weather and chilly winds are still around but we are inevitably approaching spring with its burst of colors, warm sun and positive attitudes.
Although I'm really looking to the spring season, winter has its own beauty. I'm celebrating it now while white landscapes are still around.

Summer earrings in green blue cream

The winter is almost over! I don't know about you but I'm already thinking about deep blue colors of the ocean and pale yellow, cream, bleached out colors of a beach. I'm ready to have a break from white cold snow and immerse myself into sunny days somewhere near the sea. Blue, green, yellow, cream are my favorite colors these days!

Spring Green Earrings simple and beautiful

Green is the color of spring. It's very happy, positive and beautiful. I started creating items in green to get ready for the upcoming season. Felted earrings are light, durable and stylish. They look quite different from many other standard jewelry items and are natural and eco-friendly.

Felted bead earrings in red

I've recently started experimenting with felted earrings. There are so many things one can do with felted beads of red, brown or any other color. One can create felted balls add a few bright Czech glass or wooden beads and get a vivid pair of earrings.

Those earrings are very light and elegant. They are durable and will never break unlike glass earrings. They are easy to make as well. If it happens so that you lose one of the earrings it's not a big deal. Just make a new felted ball and here you are beautiful and romantic with both earrings swinging in your ears. Everyone will notice! I promise!

Fine jewelry inspired by Northen beauty from Arctida of Sweden

While searching for beautiful jewelry items created by European artists I came across Arctida, an amazing jewelry designer from Sweden. All her items are absolutely unique and inspired by white and snowy Northern winters, short and intensive Northern Summers and the beauty of country's deep blue lakes and rich forests. I'm always curious to learn more about talented artists, their everyday life and creative processes. I'm very grateful when they are willing to share their experiences and insights as this knowledge enriches us all!

Q: Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Alecia and I'm a mother, wife, scientist, jewelry designer, photographer and a digital artist. I live on the beautiful East coast of Sweden with my husband and our sweet baby girl in the 750 year old city of Stockholm. I have M.S. in Molecular Biology and during the day I do cancer research at Karolinska
Institute in Stockholm. During the night, however, I dive into my world of handmade and digital creations.
My Etsy shop is called Arctida. The name refers to the hypothetical polar continent that is believed to have existed in the geological past of our planet. I was born far up to the North and it felt right to name my shop after a Northern legend.

Q: How long have you been designing and creating jewelry?
I've been designing jewelry for over 9 years now. Gemstones of different colors and shapes are my passion. I started to make my own jewelry as I could not find any fine jewelry with high quality gemstones of different colors here in Sweden. Ever since I stumbled upon Eni Oken and Iza Malczyk tutorials, coiling and wire work have had a major influence on me. I should admit, however, that I occasionally use torch in my creative process as I love to combine styles, techniques and materials. To make life easier for other jewelry designers I started Arctidas Supplies shop on Etsy that sells high quality precious and semiprecious gemstones of different cuts and colors, pearls and precious metal findings. I know how hard it is sometimes to find reliable suppliers that offer quality gemstones.

Q: What inspires you?
My main source of inspiration is Northern nature with its crisp polar nights and gleaming Northern lights. Northern sun almost never goes down during summer days creating unique and beautiful white nights. Our lakes are vast and blue and our sky is infinite. All these beauties are ideal sources of inspiration!
I also enjoy studying Mythology of different cultures and from time to time create pieces of jewelry inspired by different myths, legends and folktales.

Alecia, Thank you for sharing!
Alecia was interviewed by TonyaUtkina

My First Fall GIVEAWAY results

Thank you for participating in my Red Berry handmade earrings Giveaway. Believe it or not but the number generated by Random Generator was 66!

Let us congratulate Lee who won Red Berry handmade earrings today!!! Congratulations Lee!!!

Halloween countdown gifts on Etsy

It's Halloween countdown and we already started decorating our house for the upcoming holiday. My kids are very excited and a bit frightened by all the spiders and witches hanging on our neighbors' doors. It's a lovely holiday and so much fun for both kids and grown-ups. I picked up a few nice Halloween gift and decoration ideas on Etsy to share with everyone looking forward to this great holiday!

I featured the following wonderful Etsy artists in my collection:
CheekieBottoms, FleetingStillness, KarisaGraphic, YuliaKazansky, TonyaUtkina, bumblestore, honeypunk1, TomBjornDesigns, FineEmbroidery, ArtHarmony, socksandmittens, CityCrochet, cushyadornments, katrinshine, graphicland, CuffeShop

GIVEAWAY: Red Berry Earrings

Fall is a lovely season with so much vivid and beautiful colors around us. It will be followed by a rather colorless winter so let's enjoy this feast of color while it lasts! I handmade this juicy Red Berry earrings of bright Czech glass and silver plated wire. They are absolutely unique and each piece is carefully crafted in an eco-friendly and inspiring surroundings.
I'm hosting my first Fall giveaway! One lucky giveaway participant selected by True Random Number Generator will win my handmade Red Berry earrings next Thursday, October 14, 2010.

To enter:

Please visit my Etsy shop TonyaUtkina and leave a comment about your favorite item in my Etsy shop. Don't forget to leave your e-mail address so I can contact you in case you win. Your e-mail info will NEVER be used for any other purposes!!!

Extra entries:

Please leave one separate comment for each entry. (So if it is 2 extra entries for example, leave 2 comments, etc.)

1 entry - follow my blog with Google friend connect

1 entry - follow me on Twitter TonyaUtkina

1 entry - like my Facebook Fan page TonyaUtkina Jewelry

1 entry per day - retweet the following message and post a comment about it (just copy and paste the following into the twitter window). Can be done daily:
RT @tonyautkina GIVEAWAY Red Berry Earrings! Visit my blog http://tonyautkina.blogspot.com/2010/10/giveaway-red-berry-earrings.html

2 entries - grab my button and put it on your blog

3 entries - blog about this giveaway

No purchase is neccessary, but if you happen to buy something you will get extra 5 entries .

Open to US and Canada only. Winner will be chosen by online random generator. Winner will be notified by e-mail on Thursday, October 14, 2010 and will have 3 days to reply or another winner will be chosen.

Good luck!:)

Green Grapes Earrings Antique Glass

We have a small back yard and grow some herbs and grapes there. It's a perfect place to spend a weekend afternoon with friends and family and to take pictures of my jewelry. I handmade these earrings of beautiful Czech antique glass in shades of green, emerald, milk and silver plated wire. An elongated kidney ear wires add elegance and style to these unique and vivid earrings.
Grapes in my backyard serve as an excellent background and match my grapes earrings in form and color! It's a perfect summer match!:)

Candy earrings in amber gold

I like sunny bright colors and items! Golden, amber, yellow and orange are my favorites at the moment! I created these earrings of high quality amber colored Czech glass and silver plated wire. Large beads look like candy that shines and glistens in the sun making earrings very pretty. Their simple and minimalist design will go well with bright and vivid summer dresses and will add color to any business casual outfit.

Minimalist blue aquamarine fish earrings

I created this minimalist and elegant fish shape earrings of beautiful blue aquamarine glass cubes. These Czech beads are made of high quality glass and shine and sparkle under the sun. Earrings are very easy to put on and take off. They will match almost any summer dress and will add style and color to business outfits as well.

Blue ZigZag earrings

I like to work with wire. It's so nice to be able to twist and bend it the way you want. When I add bright and shiny glass beads and stones to my twisted creations they turn into either blue zigzag, red fish or red apple earrings! It's amazing how much room for creativity a simple wire can offer!