Bohemian Romance Jewelry

Each One A Little Different...

UncategorizedSamantha ExtanceComment

9-16-earrings-32 I love using upcycled materials. It keeps my designs fresh having different materials that present new challenges and inspiration. Sometimes, I have enough materials to make more than one of an item but where is the fun in that?

Thought I'd share with you 5 sets of earrings, each a little different than the next, all made with the same materials.

Materials:

  • Gray plastic watch plate part
  • Clock hand
  • Chain
  • Washer

Some have pearls and an extra clock gear.9-16-earrings-5

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Weekend in the Studio

UncategorizedSamantha ExtanceComment

Small business owners wear all the "hats"--we're designers, accountants, drivers, marketers, spokespeople, and more. One hat I dislike having to put on is photographer. Lucky for me, I married one. This weekend, I finally asked Rhys for his help with product photography. We looked at some example photos online, product photos I wanted to emulate. Mainly, I wanted to finally be able to showcase what I love about my jewelry--it's intricacy. For me, it's been near impossible to capture just how dainty or how many interesting, separate parts are in one piece. I'm happy to say, that I finally have photos that do just that!

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Rhys transformed our beloved built-in bookshelf into a jewelry studio. This part of the house gets plenty of natural light and is already kind of like a light box.

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We taped a sheet of paper behind the area in view and hung my earrings on a wire hanger. Simple yet effective. For those of you wearing multiple hats too--reach out to the people or photographers you know for their help. You'll be glad you asked...or in my case, asked & bribed.

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I baked Rhys some chocolate thumbprint cookies as a thank you.

The results were fantastic! 9-16-earrings-21

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After a successful photography shoot, I puttered around the house finishing up a couple of other handmade gifts. I whipped up this super cute pie-pincushion. I have been on a felt kick lately.

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It's in a little mason jar lid, which looks so much like a pie tin! This will make a nice stocking stuffer for all my crafty friends & family.

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I also got a little reading in this weekend. Today was the perfect day to read since it was wonderfully rainy. I've delved into this new book by Junk Gypsy! It's great for inspiration. I highly recommend it. It has a few cool DIYS inside, but mainly it's an inspiration style book for upcycled dwelling spaces and parties.

I'll be adding more new earrings to the shop soon too, now that I have oodles of new pictures! Hope you've all had a lovely, crafty weekend!

Custom Order Spotlight:Wedding Earrings

UncategorizedSamantha ExtanceComment

I love custom orders, especially custom orders for weddings. I am always so honored that someone trusts me to create jewelry for their special day. It's also a great excuse to sing sappy love songs in my studio at the top of my lungs and just have a good time making. Besides singing "Chapel of Love" and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," one of the other things I love about custom orders is the challenges they present. Fitting the jewelry to the person, their style and their personality and often keeping within certain parameters.

My latest custom wedding order came from one of my co-workers, Sarah. She had a jewelry set from her grandmother that she wanted to wear on her wedding day. The necklace and earrings were beautiful, but the earrings were posts and not the dangle-ly, long earrings that Sarah wanted for her wedding.

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So, my challenge was how to turn posts into long, dangle-ly earrings. That itself is not much of a challenge, but creating temporary dangles are a different matter.

In a lot of my pieces I try my best to respect the original object, and not create new holes or altering it, and thereby keeping the original piece in tact.

To create dangle-ly earrings out of posts the answer was to build on top of filigree and essentially fasten (as you would to your ear) the earring to the filigree--keeping the earring in its original state and not altering it. Especially since Sarah will want to wear these again.

What's fun about fastening earrings posts to filigree is that you have 2 pairs of earrings, 2 different styles, and 2 different looks that you can easily change up yourself.

Here's the "After":

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Sarah's wedding earrings are made with vintage brass filigree that my mom and I found at a Paris flea market (I used some of my private stash because the metals matched perfectly!), antique gold watch chain links, clock cogs, rhinestone rondeles, brass chain links (that matched the necklace's chain links), flat mother of pearl buttons,  pear shaped pearls, and Sarah's grandmother's crimson flower earrings.

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To match the earrings, I added pearls and a rhinestone rondele to the bottom of her grandmother's necklace.

I couldn't wait to go to work Monday morning and see Sarah's face. She is someone with such a big heart and I am so happy that she is getting married in September. She is going to be a beautiful bride. Congratulations Sarah!

For those of you who are interested in custom orders, email me at bohemianromancejewelry@gmail.com. I'm ready for the next fun challenge!

 

Alluring New Pieces

UncategorizedSamantha ExtanceComment

Sometimes there is a material I find that inspires a lot of new pieces. One such material is a recent find, a bunch of vintage brass fishing lures. Their shape and size were perfect for adding to earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. With them, I've made some "alluring" new pieces. (Forgive the pun, my husband is really rubbing off on me.) I wanted to share them with all of you!

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I made some fun pairs of earrings--all with that great shape of the fishing lure, especially for dangle-y, long earrings.

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The fishing lures were also perfect for layering dainty, hard to see clock parts.They provided a neutral backdrop.

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With the lures, I also made some pretty, yet simple necklaces. To me, they're very summery--gold and brilliant blue. The lures also resembled feathers to me too, so I've been making more multicultural style steampunk pieces with them as well.

Been having fun in the studio as you see. More new pieces to come soon.

All of these pieces and more, I've added to my online shop in the New Section!