Turquoise Teardrop Earrings

Have you ever had a design stuck in your head - for a long, long, long time - with no explanation as to why you haven't made it?  This pair of earrings is one of those things.

  I first saw a pair of earrings like this about 20 years ago (I'm cringing as I write that number!). The earrings
were made of beautiful turquoise heishi with bright red branch coral.  And they were long and flexible and teardrop shaped - so exotic and beautiful.  Not really something that looked good on me back then - but they still stuck in my head.

I'm sure I bought the supplies for these earrings a long time ago too.  But for whatever
reason, I never made them - until this weekend that is!  Once these earrings popped into my head this weekend, I decided I wasn't making anything else until they were done.

Making these earrings should have been straight forward enough, but I actually ended up making about 4 different styles before I decided I like the pair on the right.  First I tried using a cone on the top - but I didn't really have the 'right' cone.  I tried to make a cone with wire, but it wasn't the right shape.  There was a pair that I tried to double crimp - and it looked awkward.  Finally, I made the pair on the left and it was 'eh' - just ok.  But I was getting close.

Then I made the pair on the right, and I felt like I had fulfilled my mission.  The design was no longer haunting me.  I made a pair of earrings similar to the vision in my head - and I like them!  But... they still don't look great on me.  Which was a little sad after all this time.  I decided I wasn't ready to pack it in just yet - and made one more pair - just choosing some beads that were loose on my work table.

This last pair of earrings I made has pearls and labradorite in place of the coral.  They are a little more understated, but still long and swingy.  They look good with a t-shirt and jeans.

They are about 3 inches long including the earwires.  I used Soft Flex Original .014 beading cord to string the turquoise heishi beads and added small glass beads near the ear wire to make the teardrop shape come together without showing the beading wire.  One of the things I really like about these earrings is one of the simplest things - the earwires!  I didn't want the earwires to detract at all from the earrings, so I turned to loop under so it wasn't as visible.  You'd be surprised how much of a difference that one little change made! 

Crimping was a little tricky too - but I just brought the two strands together and fed them through the crimp, looped them over my round nose pliers to make the loop to hang from and fed the ends back through the crimp.  I made sure the earrings would hang the way I wanted and SMASHed the crimp flat.  That was that!


I have to admit I have a few other designs in my head for almost nearly as long as these.  I'm probably going to be happy to have checked these off my list for a few more days before I start stressing about those though!