Blue and turquoise anodized aluminum earrings wire wrapped with silver and aquamarine square crystals

This is the first time I've worked with my anodized aluminum. I had fun making these colorful abstract earrings and am pleased with the way that they turned out.

I wanted to practice cutting simple shapes so I sawed out rectangular strips -- and to my pleasant surprise, 24 gauge anodized aluminum is very easy to cut through. I made the blue strips longer than the turquoise so that when I layered them, it would look as if the colors were fading into one another.

Because anodized aluminum can't be soldered, I had to come up with a way to attach the strips and decide to go with a silver wire wrapped design. I have these square aquamarine crystals that work really well with the blues so I attached them to the wire wrapped design using very thin 28 gauge silver wire.

I had a great time making these and can't wait to experiment with more anodized aluminum designs!

To purchase my jewelry, head to Naomi's Designs on Etsy.

Wire wrapped copper chandelier triangle earrings with blue Swarovski crystals

As I said in a previous post, I've been trying to design more challenging pieces of jewelry. This weekend I finished these wire wrapped copper triangle earrings.

These earrings weren't technically hard to make, but were very labor intensive. Altogether, I had to make 42 little triangles -- 21 on each earring -- so that took a few days to complete. I think they look really cool, though, almost like a waterfall. My original plan was to weave the blue Swarovski crystals throughout, but I think that would have been overkill. I like how they turned out with just the little pop of blue at the top of the triangle cascade.

These chandelier earrings are pretty long at about 3 1/2 inches, but are surprisingly light-weight. I test drove them today while I was cleaning and almost forgot I had them on.

To purchase my jewelry, head to Naomi's Studio or Naomi's Designs.

Silver wire wrapped chandelier earrings with sapphire blue teardrop crystals, spirals and filigree design

Wow, that's a looong title, but there's a lot going on with these wire wrapped chandelier earrings. These statement earrings were a true labor of love, but I like ho they turned out.

First, I made the filigree pattern - and that was the easy part. I then had to make every spiral, altogether 28. And then I had to made the links with the sapphire blue crystals. Sidenote: these crystals are not Swarovski; they're Celestial Crystals, which are available at Fire Mountain Gems. I love Swarovski, but they can get pricey. Celestial Crystals are also really pretty, but cost a lot less. They also have some different colors and shapes from Swarovski so I like to mix and match.

Anyway, once I had all of the parts, I put together the earrings. I then had to get all of the spirals to hang evenly, which took a lot of cutting and tightening and adjusting.

It took me a couple of weeks to finish these, but it was worth the work. I'm trying to make more complex, challenging pieces and I'm proud of these.

To purchase my jewelry, head to Naomi's Studio or Naomi's Designs.

Earrings wire wrapped copper filigree chandelier with sapphire blue Swarovski crystal hearts

Yeesh, thats a long title for earrings that were made with two materials: 20 gauge copper wire and sapphire Swarovski crystal hearts. But these simple earrings are a lot of things at once.

I love, love, love the combination of copper and sapphire blue. I just purchased a bunch of Swarovski hearts in different shades of blue and debated over which color went best with the copper. Turquoise was too bright, denim just didn't quite work for me -- but the sapphire is perfect. It mkes the copper look even more shiny and the copper brings out the blue. They were just made to go together.

Unofficially, I'm calling these "Grandma Anna's earrings." My husband's grandmother died this weekend and we had her funeral this afternoon. She didn't wear a lot of jewelry, but she had these amazing blue eyes -- and the blue of the crystals reminds me of it. On the way home, my dad commented that no one had mentioned her eyes today, so I'm doing it now.

To see more of my jewelry, head to Naomi's Designs on Etsy.

Brass Mondrian Earrings With Swarovski Crystals

I have to admit, I'm getting a little impatient because I still haven't made a lot of sales on Etsy. I realize that it'll take time, but it's frustrating to get many views and "hearts" on items -- and then not make any money from it. I'm trying to do everything that I've been advised to do to get buyers' attention, but I guess I still need to do more work.

Hopefully, I'll do better with craft fairs. I'm excited because I ordered new business cards today with my shop name on it! They look really nice, at least on screen, and I can't wait to get them. I also ordered Naomi's Designs stickers and magnets. I considered getting T-shirts, but felt that that was going a little overboard. But I can give the stickers and magnets out to customers as a cute way for them to remember me. As soon as the cards arrive, I'll include a photo of one.

As for my item du jour, these are what I call my Mondrian earrings. I'm a big fan of modern art, especially artists like Picasso, Dali, Pollock and Mondrian. If you're not familiar with his work, he's known for painting squares with splashes of primary colors:

I love how his paintings look so simple at first, but as you look at them, you realize how complex they are. I'm no Mondrian, but I decided to make earrings based on his designs. I used brass wire to create a series of squares and rectangles and then wove in red, yellow and blue Swarovski crystal bicones. I don't know how many people will recognize that they were inspired by Mondrian, but they look really cool, anyway. They have a unique shape and would look great with a simple black top. I don't know if they'd go so well with a dressy outfit, but they work as statement earrings.

I'd love to do Picasso-inspired earrings, but I don't know how well I can represent Cubism with wire. Might be a fun challenge, though!

To purchase my jewelry (and you know you want to), head to Naomi's Designs or Naomi's Studio.

Silver bracelet with crystals and spirals

First up, good news! I made my first sale online! Now I hope the purchaser likes my item and wears it well. While it's nice to make money from online ventures, honestly, I'm not planning to be a millionaire (though that would be nice). It's more about the idea of people willing to pay me for my art. It's flattering when people want to buy your work and then show it off.

And now on to today's featured item ... my silver geometric bracelet with crystals and spirals. I'm not sure where I got the idea for this, but I wanted to make something unique and funky. At the time, I was playing around with different shapes and wanted to see how they could be combined. I twisted wire into a spiral and triangle design and liked how it looked, so I made some more links, added some crystals and voila! This bracelet was born.

One of the things about jewelry that can be so overwhelming is that there are SO many possibilities. Whenever I see beads I like, I get a million ideas about what to do with them. This is why I'm always challenging myself to make unusual designs and use odd color combos. I want to push the envelope a bit with my jewelry and I think I succeeded with this bracelet.

To buy my jewelry, head to Naomi's Designs or Naomi's Studio.

Silver wire bracelet with blue crystals

By now, I think it's pretty obvious that blue is my favorite color. I especially like when different shades of blue are combined.

When making this bracelet, I wanted the blues to be front and center. That's why I used three different shades of blue and put all of the blue beads in the middle of the design.

This was one of the first bracelets I made in this particular style. Let me tell you, making a bangle bracelet is hard! You have to get the strands of wire to be the same length and then make sure they don't get tangled. Then you have to wrap them to keep them together and form the bracelet -- only the wraps have to look artistic, too. It took a lot of trial and error, but I'm happy with how it came out. And I own a lot of blue tops, so this matches them all!

For more of my jewelry, check out Naomi's Designs.

Silver geometric earrings with blue Swarovski crystals

I made these earrings while my friend Lani was visiting. I asked her what I should make and she suggested that I make something that had crystals in it. So after playing around with 16 gauge sterling silver wire, I came up with this random, but cool design. I then strung different color blue Swarovski crystals across it using 28 gauge silver wire.

I tend to use a lot of blue beads and crystals because that's my favorite color. I especially love when different shades of blue are combined. For me, blue is very relaxing; it reminds me of the sky or the ocean on a bright, sunny day. It's also a color that I look nice in so I own a lot of blue clothing. Not surprisingly my high school crush had piercing blue eyes!

Anyway, silver is a great color to contrast with blue as you can see with these earrings. The earrings are not exactly identical, but I think that this only adds to their uniqueness.

For more of my jewelry, head to Naomi's Designs.

Wire lattice earrings with blue crystals

One of my favorite patterns to make is the nine-loop lattice design. It's not only fun to twist the loops, but it's a very beautiful and useful pattern. You can link the squares together to form a larger pattern, turn the square sideways to make a diamond, hang gems from the lattice ... the possibilities are endless.

I've always liked the combination of brown and blue so when I got this antiqued-looking brown gunmetal wire, I immediately decided to combine it with ble crystals. I wanted to do something different from just dangling one gemstone so I decided to weave the crystals throughout. I love the way the blue sparkles against the brown. I haven't seen too many earrings like this so I'm proud of the work.

Eventually, I plan to make a matching gunmetal lattice necklace. That'll be way more work, though because I'll have to make the entire chain by hand. It'll be worth it, though, especially if these pieces are worn as a set.

For more of my work, head to Naomi's Designs.