Thursday, December 31, 2009

Hand Forged Earrings

Lately I'm obsessed with hammering.  I did some prototype earrings for my new "green" line.  They're green because upcycled parts are used.  In this case, the large rings started out as aluminum spacers in computer hard drives.  I textured them with my hammer. The aluminum makes the earrings ultra lightweight and easy to wear. 

hammered rings

They debuted at Red River Revel and sold well.  I'm going to keep making them as long as I can get the spacers. 

Next I moved on to some sterling silver wire.  These feature hand forged earwires, along with the hand forged earring drop.

hand forged earrings with crystals

I played around and made several different styles of drops as well as several styles of earwires.  Some were antiqued with liver of sulphur and some I left shiny.  These debuted at the Friends and Family show at the Calico Cat and happily sold well.

earring findings


Above are some of the new forged wire earrings and findings.  The leverbacks and headpins at 1-2 o'clock are commercial.  Everything else was made by me.  These have been antiqued but not yet polished.

Here's a group of the earrings at the Friends and Family show at the Calico Cat.

new hand-forged earrings

These aren't hand forged but they do have some wire wrap.  I love making the wrapped donut earrings.  It's hard to find the small earring sized donuts that match, and so far the colors and type of stone I've been able to find is very limited.  The pea pod earrings were wrapped by me using a Hilltribe silver leaf as the pod.  I had to bend the leaf a little and file some notches in it to keep the wire from slipping. 

new earring designs

I'm working on my goals/resolutions post for 2010.  What are your goals?

It's almost time to turn on the TV and watch the ball drop.  Happy New Year everyone!

2 comments:

Szarka's said...

Oh hammering is adictive and you seem to weild that hammer well! Nice work.

Leslie Todd said...

Thanks Szarka!