Wedding bling

Okay, I promise this is the last of my wedding kit posts (before the actual wedding dress post that is). Sorry to overload you, but I'm getting them out before Danielle posts about my wedding (she is super fast!). So sit back, I'm about to get all sparkly on your... ears.

I'll get to my jewellery in a bit, but first I'll show you the earrings I made as a thank you gift for Aged P, the DC's mom (aka MOG hee), my Aunt R, and my Best Lady/cousin J. I sent them a bunch of pictures and said "Tell me what style and what colours you want or what colours you're wearing." Three of them chose the same style, which made it very easy for me! All the earrings are made with 18 gauge sterling silver wire.


R, J, and MOG all chose these Byzantine weave drop earrings. I really like chain maille, and at first I thought this would be really simple to figure out, but alas, I had to turn to the internet. I didn't even know the name of the weave, so it took a little while before I found a tutorial on Byzantine weave. Then I discovered that to get this particular pattern the big hoop and bead need to be the starting point. In other words, you basically make them backwards and put the hook on last.

Aunt R got turquoise beads, while J got amethyst. Unfortunately, one of her big hoops fell out as she was putting them on. I really need to get a soldering iron. She just took the hoop out of the other one out and was good to go.


Because MOG's wood beads were a lot bigger than the other ones, I had to make her hoops really large, which meant a high likely hood of them coming out (bigger hoop = greater flexibility = harder to keep closed). I warned her about them, so it was okay. I think. She'd tell me, right?

Because the holes in the wood beads were too big for the pin, I added silver balls on top and below.

Once I figured it out, making these earrings was quite fun and I've been busy pinning ideas for other chain maille earrings. It'll give me more jump ring practice, right?

Because Aged P was busy moving, she didn't get back to me about earring styles, which meant I got to choose for her. I really liked the inspiration pair for these ones, but they are a lot trickier to make nicely, even using a jig. There was a bit too much freehanding with pliers afterwards. And then I had to make the second one in the mirror image! I mostly managed, I think. I hammered them flat after shaping.

They were a bit long; they touched Aged P's shoulders, but she seemed quite pleased with them, and the pink agate matched her outfit perfectly.

But enough of this making things for other people. Let's talk about me for a change.

A few years ago, Aged P gave me this necklace.

Her mother wore it when she married my granddad, and Aged P wore it at her wedding. At the time she gave it to me, it wasn't clear that I would ever get married, but when I started planning my dress, this necklace was nearly the first thing I thought of.

I pinned a whole bunch of earrings to consider, but finally settled on two styles. I decided to make both of them and decide afterwards which one I would wear.

The style I settled on as the "wedding earrings" because they looked better with the necklace and had more of a daytime feel are made with ten Swarovski crystals and two lengths of an intricate chain cut from a necklace. They were a bit fiddly to make because I had to make part of the bail, thread it through the tiny space in the chain, and then wrap the wire, but that just made them the most secure pair of earrings. Which is nothing to sneeze at when it comes to my handmade jewellery as you may have noticed.


I decided to wear the second pair, which the DC liked better, to Dovercourt that evening. They're a lot more glittery because they're made with Swarovski AB crystals, which have a coating that give a prism effect. As with Aged P's swirls, it was really hard to get these to turn out properly and symmetrically.


I have to practice a bit more with the jig to get these nifty shapes. I think the trick is to put the jig posts more to the left or right of where I'm curling the wire. Time to practice!

I have a ridiculously detailed post planned for the dress itself. Stay tuned!