Sold!

Yesterday, a long-time customer came in to the shop, frantically searching for earrings to wear to a wedding this weekend (today!) The wedding is in Tennessee (so it's a destination wedding for her); she's had the dress for weeks, but couldn't find earrings anywhere (except HERE, but more about that later!)

She tried searching for the earrings without bringing in the dress, but didn't see anything she thought was right. I told her I could make some earrings for her, if I could see the dress so we could find some matching beads. The dress was in her car; she brought it in, and the search was on - she wanted something dressy and sparkly.

None of the Czech glass OR Swarovski crystals matched the gorgeous cobalt blue of the dress. I had some enameled beads that matched perfectly, but she felt they were too casual. I found some beautiful 8mm lapis rounds (leftover from this project:)

The lapis matched perfectly, too, but she felt it wasn't dressy enough - so I asked her to just give me a few minutes -

And this is what I designed:

I know the pictures aren't the greatest - and I would LOVE to hear any tips you guys have on photographing Swarovski AB crystals - they look terrible against colored backgrounds - because they pick up and transmit whatever color you are photographing them against (I've tried blue, black, and red) and they disappear against a white background. HELP! If you have tips, please leave them in the comments! Thanks!

Anyway, I hung the lapis round underneath a 6mm Swarovski AB crystal, with some small Bali daisy spacers - all from a short length of sterling cable chain. Then I made some dangles using 4mm crystal AB Swarovskis, and hung them from the cable chain links, to give a staggered cluster effect.

The customer loved them, and mentally kicked herself for spending several weeks looking elsewhere for earrings, reminding me that she always finds exactly what she wants when she comes here - so nice to hear!

On her way out of the shop, she spied this right angle weave bracelet that I made several years ago:

I know you can't tell in the photo, but it really does match the earrings perfectly. I even took a shot of them together, but the match is lost in these photos -

She was delighted to find the bracelet, because it gave just the right amount of sparkle to her wrist. Yay!