Wire wrapped pink coral earrings

I first saw coral in its natural state when I was in Australia. Up until then, I'd seen it in aquariums, but it was a whole different experience when I went swimming in the Great Barrier Reef. It was amazing! The coral came in so many colors that it looked as if there were a garden beneath the sea.

That said, I was very excited to get my shipment of coral nuggets and had visions of creating "Enchanment Under The Sea" necklaces and whatnot. Unfortunately, the nuggets turned out to be not the most attractive things. They were, well, nuggets ... that happened to be made out of coral.

First, I tried to make a bracelet out of them, but they were so bulky that my piece looked like something that Wilma Flinstone would wear. I then decided to experiment with some wire wrapping. I figued that brass would look good against the pink and you know what? After I did some work, the coral actually looked pretty cool. I twisted the wire into a spiral design because I wanted to make it look a little like a conch shell. I then finished them off with brass wire hooks.

In making jewelry, I've collected a lot of failed experiments. Sometimes, though, it's worth it to try a new technique!

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

Brass and lattice garnet wire earrings

I originally designed these brass and lattice garnet wire earrings for a princess. That's not a figurative princess, either; we know a young woman who is royalty is Nigeria. I made her a pair of these earrings for Christmas and chose these colors because she looks amazing in jewel tones, like deep red. She loved them and has actually asked me to design a matching necklace.

I don't usually design for royalty, but when making jewelry for friends, I do try to think about what colors look best of them. What surprised me about these earrings is that the garnet and gold combo looks great on almost anyone who has dark hair. I have brown hair and eyes and pale skin, but I liked how they looked on me.

It took me many hours of practicing to get the nine-loop lattice design down, but now that I know how it, I use it often in my jewelry. One of the things I love about the lattice is that it's perfect for hanging gemstones on the bottom loop. I just love the shape of these, as well as the colors.

I've unofficially named these my "princess earrings" in honor of my friend.

To buy my jewelry, check out Naomi's Designs. or http://www.artfire.com/users/NaomisDesigns.

Funky spiral silver earrings

These earrings were fun to make and look really cool. There's just something very relaxing about bending wire into spirals and squiggles, and it feels really good when I've made a finished product.

The challenge with making earrings is to get them somewhat uniform, which can be difficult with wire work. But I did my best to keep the spirals the same size and to match the turns in each squiggle. Together, they look evenly matched, though, and when they're worn as a set, you can hardly notice the differences.

Even though these earrings are long and wide, they're very lightweight. When you wear them, you hardly feel as if anything is in your ear. I love dangling earrings, though, because they just make ears look so pretty. That'sprobably a strange thing to say, but I feel a lot more dressed up with longer earrings than I do with shorter ones.

By the way, I got some good news this week: I've been invited to participate in a local craft fair this spring! I'm very excited about getting out there and showing my jewelry to to world ( or at least the neighbothood). More information to follow...

To buy any of my jewelry, head to 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.