Holiday jewellery making

Hello! I have been away for a few days staying with my daughter in Essex. It's been a busy week after my 3 day metal clay course but such fun and beats working. Today we went to Mersea, renowned for its oysters. I have taken some photos and will write a post re that, hopefully next week, as it was such a great place and their oysters are out of this world.The sun shone and we even walked on the beach collecting shells...bliss!

Today though I am finally getting round to telling you about my holiday jewellery makes. First of all I know you wanted to see what I made with my alabaster beads in this post which I bought in Volterra. I bought 5 beads, 4 for 2 pairs of earring and one to make a new charm for my holiday bracelet.

So here are the earrings.




 I used pretty silver plated bead caps, together with some Swarovski bicones, sterling silver daisy spacer beads and finished them off with some sterling silver ear wires. They are a great neutral colour to wear and look good during the day or for an evening outfit.











I also have a holiday charm bracelet I made a few years back using bronze links I bought and put together. I like using bronze and copper in my jewellery making, bronze also looks good on summer skin.
Here is my existing bracelet.

There are charms on here I bought in Sicily, Italy and Rhodes and also a couple of summery beads I added bead caps to and wire wrapped.

Here is one of the alabaster beads. I added copper bead caps and wired it up with bronze wire.

I also bought a fun enameled lucky chili pepper in San Gimignano and a silver charm from the Cathedral in Sienna.








I added all these to my bracelet...

And this is how my bracelet looks now, it's filling up isn't it?

So I can now hear you asking what happened to the other 2 alabaster beads. Well, when I  made up the 2nd pair of earrings, which I was going to sell in my Etsy shop I was disappointed to find after making them that one of the beads has a very slightly misaligned hole. I know a lot of people would not even mention or notice it, but my quality control is very strict and I do not feel I could sell it. Instead I have made up a very different pair of earrings for my shop, take a peep here. I have been working on a commission and made up these at the same time with some lovely one of a kind floral glass lampwork beads.

Now there is a happy ending to this as I decided I will instead offer these earrings as a giveaway  for my 1st Bloggerversary which is coming up on 26th July. I will be in Paris at the time but I will schedule it to post that day.
Anyone who enters a comment on that post will be put into my draw. So put the date in your diary.
I am sure you now want to see them.....

They are almost identical to mine but these have 3 sterling silver daisy spacers if you look closely!

 In the meantime I will be back with hopefully a couple of posts before I go to Paris, yes I must definitely share my metal clay work too. Must dash, off to dancing now...it's the quick step and boy is it quick!
Have a lovely weekend everyone and thanks as always for visiting me here. It's always lovely to have your visits and read your kind comments.

Bye for now,

Jane x