Tarantella Butterfly Earrings by Jean Yates

For Artbeads "Summer Fun"

I love summer! It leaves my senses drunk with sounds of the outdoors, the warmth of the sun, the way that nature opens up and offers her endless beauties to us once more.

I love summer nights too...the pretty, lightweight clothes; the beautiful jewelry which glows in the candlelight under the stars.

When I was offered the opportunity to blog about summer fun by Artbeads.com as one of their blogging designers, I was delighted to design these earrings for them!

This time we were to choose between the vast treasure chest of charms, pendants,and glass beads. What an amazing store!

I knew just what I wanted to do!

I wanted to create some huge "gypsy style" hoops to celebrate the endless nights of abandon, dancing, and fun.

I call these "Tarantella Butterfly Earrings" because the Tarantella, a Sicilian folk dance, is a wild and very old folk dance which is danced in 6/8 time: really fast.

That is just the way the butterflies I see on our Butterfly bushes flutter: in a dizzying manner. Off they go, from branch to branch, flower to flower, flying so fast they are almost zooming with joy. It's Tarantella time for Butterflies!

When I designed these earrings, I chose my beautiful butterfly CZ charms first.

They are stunning!!! and can be found here, at Artbeads:

Charms

--specifically, here:CZ Butterfly charm

I wanted to use some crystals in the tanzanite color which is on the bottom of the sterling silver butterfly charms. I love Swarovski Crystal Elements, so I went to Artbead's Glass Beads and chose their lovely tiny 4mm roundelles.

They look just like real amethyst or actual tanzanite to me!

They are located here: 4mm roundelles

Pulling this together was a snap. I had some beads from Kim Miles in a swirled raspberry color which went really well with the swirling feeling I wanted, and also matched the CZ butterfly charms' inlaid tops to a T.

Then I raced over to Miss Ficklemedia's etsy store and got swirly antiqued earring tops, swirled head pins for Kim's glass beads, and hammered rounds to hook or wire everything onto. I would like to say this only took me an hour or so to make these earrings but I would be lying. It took me all afternoon but it was worth it. Besides, I was actually finalizing the design as I made them. That takes some thought. I should mention I used some great sterling, lightweight 24 gauge head pins with ball tips from Artbeads for the tiny tanzanite roundelles. They are found here:sterling head pins I wrapped them down and then back up (they are 2" long)for a folkloric, hand made effect.

I also want to say that I decided to cut the little top sterling loop off of the CZ butterfly charms in each case, and threaded a 10 mm gunmetal jump ring through instead. I wanted a darker look to go with the oxidized, antiqued components, so every time I used jump rings ( I used 10 mm, 6 mm and 4 mm) I chose the same gunmetal color. Thanks, Artbeads !!! for this opportunity to use my designing creativity to combine your stunning beads with some of my favorite friends' things. I got the rhythm and I can't stop dancing now!

The Tarantella on guitar, above

Disclosure: Designer was provided with beads by Artbeads. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.