Mesopotamia Earrings

Do you like making wire jewelry? Me, too. Yesterday, I was in the mood to make some earrings, and remembered seeing several things that I thought were really unusual in Margot Potter’s newest book, New Dimensions in Bead and Wire Jewelry. The thing that’s great about the projects in this book is that Margot uses both hard wire and soft (coated) wire, and sometimes she puts them together in one project which I think is super cool. I had a bit of a hard time deciding what to make yesterday, but settled on a design that I really love, called Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia, New Dimensions in Bead and Wire Jewelry, page 112

These earrings come from the chapter named The Fifth Dimension because all of the designs in the chapter combine these two types of wire-shaping (hard) and beading (soft/coated).

My version of Margot's Mesopotamia Earrings

Margot is all about encouraging her readers to adapt designs to suit their own taste and creative urges, so I figured she’d be proud of me for mixing thing up just a bit. I used steel wire instead of the gunmetal Artistic Wire she used (primarily because I didn’t have any on hand, but I did have steel), and I like a bit of silver in my jewelry, so I swapped in silver crimp beads and silver 26-gauge wire for what she used in gunmetal. Oh, and also I made silver ear wires, added a steel wire/glass bead headpin and added a dangle at the top of the square shape instead of her wrapped Czech bead.

This was really a fun project to make and I’m happy with how the earrings came out. I love how the glass bead headpin (which I actually made to be a dangle) and the soft wire fringe remind me of a feather.
Margot has plenty of other beautiful and creative designs in this book, many of which are highly textured, highly dimensional or both. Next time you’re looking for something really different to help you express your unique style, check out New Dimensions in Bead and Wire Jewelry and see what you can come up with.