I don't generally make bracelets, and it's not because I hate them or I hate making them or anything involving bad feelings... I don't wear them very often, so, quite simply, I never remember to make them. Whenever I put one on, it stays on my wrist for about an hour and then ends up on my workbench when the jangling and clanging against whatever I'm making that day drives me up the wall. But, I understand that many people enjoy bracelets and I get requests for them all the time. So today I'm going to be brave and operate outside of my comfort zone. It's bangle time.  

I like the size of this bangle, so I'm using it as a pattern to size mine. Also, I don't have a bracelet mandrel because, as I said, I don't ever think bracelet thoughts and buy the appropriate tools. 

So much monkeying around trying to hold this thing in the appropriate position so I could solder it. 

All pickled and cleaned up, but looking lumpy and bumpy. 

Shaped and hammered into an organic shape. 

Webbed with silver wire. 

Casting on some abaca paper pulp to fill in the web (in the
extremely poor lighting of my studio at night).

One coat of paper fiber is dry.

A thick coat of sealer and it's all done. So webby. So icy. 

Want to own it? It can be yours if you click HERE.

I use these little sterling silver and cast abaca paper fiber dewdrops to make my Morning Dew Necklace. On a whim one day, I'd dyed a few ice blue and they've been hanging around my studio for weeks. I want to make a pair earrings that use them somehow.

Starting a cluster of dewdrops at the bottom of a chain....

I learned something new today, figured out completely by accident...if you hold a bit of very thin sterling silver wire pointing up into a torch flame from the bottom, it rolls down like a little frond of maidenhair fern before it unrolls. I only learned this because I was trying to keep the paper bits I'd already attached to the chain out of the flame. The lazy way to achieve that is to let gravity do all the work, rather than hold them out of the way with my other hand.

​It turns out I love how these look. 

Finished earrings with ice blue clusters of paper dewdrops and lots of little sterling silver fronds. One of a kind and for sale HERE.

I liked these so much, I remade them right away with a few changes to the arrangement of dewdrops and fronds and added them to my line. I went back to the natural color for the dewdrops and spaced them further apart up the chain, increased the size of the roll on the silver fronds, and added some extra chain under the earwire. These are, officially, the Frond Earrings.