Blue Pearl

 

 

Happy New Year!!!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday. We had a quiet one. Since my last post I’ve had a birthday, I won’t admit which one but I like to call it π x 11.141 – you can do the Math. We also had an immigration hearing which we just found out was ruled in our favor. So we’re pretty stoked!

But after the past few weeks of chaos I need to get back in creativity mode. Fortunately for me, while sorting all the earrings I realized I had a few designs that I never published. These earrings are two of the firsts I made when I started in the late summer.

I bought two jars full of necklaces and bracelets made of retro beads. I dismantled the strands and started making earrings from the beads. Right away I made this pair. It’s a simple design, classic even.

 

The second design I wanted to have some customer interaction to finish. I was letting my creative juices flow when I realized I only had enough of the beads to make one pair. Unfortunately I had two designs in mind. So my idea was to put it to my audience to help me finish. Whoever purchases this pair can chose how the pair will be. Talk about one of a kind jewelry! [Will be sold with large bead on the bottom]

  

 

 

£3.95 or $8.18

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All prices include shipping. Shipping available to US and UK.
For purchase leave a comment  or send an email payments are made through PayPal. Items will be shipped once payment is confirmed. 

The Holly and The Ivy

Holly!!!

 

 

I never saw live Holly until I moved here, we have some growing in the front yard. It’s a nice looking plant, a bit prickly. I grew up with the plastic stuff; we had wreaths of it, and candle holders and even a transparent bowl with holly inside of it.

 

So while trying to come up with figures of Christmas holly was definitely a contender. But actually holly isn’t Christmasy at all. Holly, ivy and mistletoe were used by pagans to celebrate the winter solstice before Christianity existed. When Christians adopted the winter solstice in the form of Christmas, they also adopted these symbols.

 

 I tried using new methods for holly but none of them worked as well as I wanted, so I stuck with my tried and true source. I hope you enjoy these leaves made of recycled plastic and repurposed wooden beads. Pick up these prickly plants before they’re all gone.

 

 

 Holly - £3.95 or $8.18

All prices include shipping. Shipping available to US and UK.
For purchase leave a comment  or send an email I'll respond with Paypal info. Items will be shipped once payment is confirmed.

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Genisys

 

Bead Mazes

 

 

 

This is one of the designs I was talking about last week when I said the swirls inspired two new designs. I really like these, possibly more than the swirls. 

 

 

 

 

Again these earrings are made of recycled materials so you can be proud when you wear them. If left in the hands of anyone else these materials may have ended up in a landfill somewhere. But instead they were used to create a lovely piece of jewelry which you could be lucky enough to own.

 

 

 

 

And all my jewelry is handmade and can be made to order, so you don’t have to worry about showing up to an event and someone else wearing the same earrings. Your earrings (like you) are one of a kind!

Genisys - £3.95 or $8.18

All prices include shipping. Shipping available to US and UK.
For purchase leave a comment  or send an email I'll respond with Paypal info. Items will be shipped once payment is confirmed.
Now you can find us on Twitter @DanglingJourney
 

 

Remember, Remember the 5th of November!

Swirls

 

Yesterday was Neil’s birthday, I’d been busy over the past week making sure all my plans were falling into place. Plus last week was Halloween, although I didn’t have any parties to go to or costumes to coordinate I was in a festive mood and wanted to focus on the holiday. That doesn’t mean that I wasn’t busy though! I’m always thinking, dreaming and planning new designs or new materials to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A while ago I made these swirls. I’ve adapted them since then which has led to two new designs altogether, but I’ll save them for another week. The first set of swirls are wider, but these newer swirls are thinner.

 

 

Also since then I’ve done the swirls in colored plastic.

Again all of these are made of recycled materials including repurposed beads. The finings of course are new, either silver or gold plated.

 

 

Swirls - £3.95 for UK shipping or $8.18

All prices include shipping. Shipping available to US and UK.
For purchase leave a comment  or send an email I'll respond with Paypal info. Items will be shipped once payment is confirmed.

Curling Ribbons

SOLD OUT!

This is another design I’ve been dreaming about. I wanted something that looked like curling ribbon on a beautifully wrapped present. I must say I am happy with the result of this project. I tried with different widths of materials and different colors. Besides these four colors I have dark green, black and white available. I can also make pairs in combinations of these colors. Please specify the color(s) and width (small or large) and tightness (Orange is the tightest, blue is the loosest) upon ordering.



 

I think I may start using only recycled materials, I like using things that would otherwise just end up in a landfill. The technique I use to refashion the material gives it a nice texture. The only problem with this source of materials is I am limited in the colors available. I am trying to figure out a way to color the material since I have a lot of white and clear but not many other colors. What I've tried so far looks okay but the color fades when touched, which won't work for jewelry.

 

 

I wore the Blue ones out last week and my cousin loved them. They are very light despite the size of the curls.

Pink & Purple
 

So I took a big step the other day, I opened an Etsy store. So far I only have one style of earrings listed in the store but I will add more. I wanted to see if it's worth it first. So you can make your purchases from the Etsy store or from this blog. But I have to warn you the Etsy prices are higher to cover the costs of the store so if I were you I'd buy directly from the blog.
 

 
Blue & Orange Curling Ribbon - Sold

Pink & Purple only £3.95 for UK Shipping, $6.75 for US shipping

Each pair is slightly different.  Prices do not include shipping. Shipping available to US and UK.
For purchase leave a comment  or send an email I'll respond with Paypal info. Items will be shipped once payment is confirmed

Eco chic Circles

We’ve been busy

 

Over the past two weeks Neil and I have been really busy. We’ve gone to a few places and done quite a lot not even including doctors’ appointments and things like that. So I haven’t had much of a chance to make things. But the past few days have been rainy so I spent these days designing new earrings.

These are eco-chic again. I’ve been dreaming about these earrings, I hope everyone likes them as much as I do. It took some time to figure out how to get the plastic to take the shape I wanted, but once I got the design right I was set.

I tried with different colors of plastic. I tried using different color beads to top the circles and even inside the circles.  That inspired me to try another design which I will save for another week.

 

£3.95 for UK shipping, $6.85 for US shipping

 

Each pair is slightly different. Only one of each in stock . All prices include shipping. Shipping available to US and UK.
For purchase leave a comment  or send an email I'll respond with Paypal info. Items will be shipped once payment is confirmed

Eco-chic!

 

So I haven’t been out much lately, mainly because of the weather, then Neil got a cold and now I have it. So we haven’t really had any journeys, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been busy.

See, I’ a recycling fanatic. Really! My grandfather got me into recycling when I was very young, back in the day when you got paid for taking cans to a recycling center before it was collected with your trash. When my best friend’s neighborhood in Pennsylvania didn’t recycle every time I went to visit (almost every week) I’d fill my car with plastic and glass bottles, and aluminum cans to take home and recycle.

So last week I had an idea and I’ve been working on it ever since. I’m making earrings out of recyclable materials.  Right now I'm using plastic store shopping bags. These bags are often not accepted in local/municipal collections. You know the kind of bags you can turn in at Walmart, but that means you have to collect them and keep them handy so you can take them on your next trip. I used to do that and I’d forget. Once a month I'd end up going to Walmart (or Wawa) and recycling 5 bags full of bags. Sometimes the receptacles would already be full. 

By the end of the year in the UK all stores will begin charging for plastic shopping bags as a way of deterring people from using them. All the stores have starting selling their own reusable bags. They can be pretty fashionable too. But, I'm a bag lady.

Circles

So here’s what I have so far. I’m working on a few other designs and styles. The plastic bags give a very nice texture and appearance to the earrings, also it is easily manipulated while hot.  Plus I’m looking at using other types of plastic as well. The only big thing is I don’t really have control over the colors. Also a lot of stores add printing to their bags which isn’t as nice to work with.

 

Dotty!

 



So here’s something for my eco chic ladies. Helping the environment while looking fabulous.

 


Rectangles



I’ll continue to work on this for a while but I have lots of other materials in the meantime. Hopefully it won’t be so long before my next post.

 

Circles and Rectangles £4.50 or $8.65

Dotty £3.50 or $6.85

Only one of each in stock . All prices include shipping. Shipping available to US and UK.
For purchase leave a comment  or send an email I'll respond with Paypal info. Items will be shipped once payment is confirmed.