Back in 2012 I made a mostly white spot and streak design for our guild's annual xmas bead exchange; evidently I had to substitute something else, but I did incorporate the design into my second guild xmas bracelet; I also made up earrings to give away to friends and family members, making one pair for myself as well. At the time I couldn't decide upon two slightly different designs, so I simply made up one earring of each:

holiday earrings, 2012 (I assume) Note the reversal of the top and bottom beads of the dangle. lampwork, with transparent thompson enamel, trailing, czech prssed beads, sterling silver, niobium findings.

When I photographed them, I noticed the difference in the bottom part of the design right away, and concluded I preferred the all silver finish (on the right.) Also, the fancy crushed diamond cut sterling beads were probably a mistake; should've left those out. I don't care enough to take ’em apart, however.

silver, assorted lampwork beads; the small red ones with white frit were made by Frances. Manufactured sometime after 2012, and, I believe by 2018; photographed 05jan2021

I expect I made these because I wanted something as visually intricate as my xmas bracelets; also, one year for the exchange I made chili peppers on sterling wires, that is, fancy headpins: I made pairs, for earrings, but had plenty of them left over. —Unfortunately , the effetre/CiM I used wasn't terrifically compatible with the sterling—overall I've had better luck making copper headpins with lampwork ends—and when I dropped on earring one of the headpins broke.

this is actually the earlier shot, and it has some distortions, but I like the lighting better, and it certainly benefits from not having the hanger show along the bottom edge!

So what's shown here is actually v2.0, because the the original broke. Also, you can see that I didn't do a perfect job of weighting the various dangles, so the spacerbars, which aren't stabilized by being paired with beads inbetween, hang sort of cock-eyed.

But the colours are nice, and for such large earrings they're pretty lightweight. Despite some clunkinesses in the design and engineering, I quite like them.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.