From The Rubble A Vision Arises

Photo above...New project made from a past "failed" project.  A pair of classic black & white earrings.

Not long ago I was struggling with a project, just couldn't seem to get things to come together, well more like couldn't get them to "stay" together. 

Photo above...The Mess !!  My pile of inspiration and a dream that wouldn't go from vision to reality.

The project was supposed to be a necklace and I was using some handcrafted jumprings that I fabricated from copper filled, silver coated wire however the rings kept opening up.  Twenty gauge wire should have been strong enough but I overlooked the fact that it was a copper core wire, which takes a bit more effort to harden.  Pounding the wire with a hammer worked but it also created a flat jumpring, not the look I was going for.

Anyway, following the advice of a number of my blogging friends, I decided to put the project on hiatus...but!  Yes there's always that "but" isn't there?  But I found myself drawn to those black and white drops that had already been crafted and I hated to bury them in my "to get back to at a later date" drawer.  I have projects in that drawer that date back to 1999 !!!

Photo above...Black and white Czech glass disc beads that I had made wire wrapped bails for.

Sooo I used those drops along with some new, hardier 18 gauge, ready-made jumprings and fashioned a pair of swinging earrings with them.  The earring hooks are 20 gauge sterling silver and are handmade by me. I like to craft my own ear wires as I can embellish them to suit the design.  Here I've added a small 4mm black glass bead to each wire.

Photos above and below...Finished earrings.  I call them "Day & Night".  They salvaged those neat little disc beads that I had spent so much time crafting bails for and make me feel like that time and effort  was not totally lost.

These have a lot of movement to them and even though there seems to be a number of beads and wire on the earring, they are not at all heavy.