I have jewelry dysmorphia...

You know, a bit like body dysmorphia - when you're a regular looking gal and you look in the mirror and see yourself 100 pounds heavier, toothless, boobs dropping to your knees and a moustache like Groucho Marx? (BTW, I always hate making references to any famous people in my blog - doesn't it always show your age?...)

Except that happens to me sometimes with jewelry - I have this image in my brain of what something will look like, I think I have all the tools, supplies and the ability - and when it's done, it has nothing to do with what the coggs in my brain are showing me. hmmmm....
Mind you, this time, it was not my fault. I hate you, colored aluminum tubes!

I wanted to make metal earrings with either negative space holes, or resin-filled holes, and I wanted a dangling bead matched by tubular rivets in the same color as the bead and the resin! I bought the colored aluminum tubing for my rivets, waiting the longest time as usual for them to arrive (if they did at all - thank you mail system for keeping things surprising for me) and then proceeded to make my earrings - beads and all had already been selected.

So here they are:

 

 

I knew you were going to ask about the matching tube rivets! well, it turns out they are only colored on the outside, so when I rivet the pink and the green aluminum tubing rivets, the color is actually on the inside and what you see is the white inside of the tubing, baaahhhhh...... (caption: this is me crying).

To  make myself feel better, made a bunch of my favorite earrings:

 



You know, these earrings are cut and sanded, the inside edge formed to accomodate the resin, the metal is colored, images glued and then resin poured, dangle beads wire-wrapped. It bugs me sometimes that:
1) my clients sometimes have no idea how much work goes into the process, or how long it can take - but maybe it's my responsibility to be better at talking about my work;
2) that while I make one pair of these, someone makes 3 necklaces stringing handmade beads from other artists in an artistic way and selling them.

But then again, that's not my path, and I always wanted to see my blood, sweat and tears in my work - the more the merrier. So I guess that's ok.

Disclaimer: I have a bunch of gold-filled earwires I bought at the very beginning and I'm trying to save a penny of two, so I used them in these earrings instead of making my own as usual. So sue me.