Russian Leaf Earrings - Matte Blue Grey

RUSSIAN LEAF EARRINGS

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Metallic Dark Copper Gold Luster" (DB1002)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Matte Blue Grey" (DB301)

As I mentioned in my post on Monday, HERE, I learned to make these by watching Jill Wiseman's YouTube video tutorial which you can watch HERE. Jill also has a free PDF tutorial that goes along with the video that you can download HERE. Although I did show you a sample of this colorway on Monday, this is the first complete pair that I've made. I made them with seven rows which makes the smallest size earrings. As I mentioned before, the smaller you make them, the better they hold their shape.

EARRING TIP

Here is a tip for making the earrings a little stiffer and it also helps to give them more of a 3-dimensional shape. After completing an earring, I weave around the inside and outside perimeter going as close as I can to the edge (but not through the accent beads). As I'm running my thread through the beads, I keep gently tugging on my thread to pull the beads closer together like a drawstring. If you try it, you'll see that doing this also pulls the earring into that pretty mounded shape. Don't pull too hard though or you'll warp the earring. If your earrings are super soft, go around twice. Using this technique, I was even able to firm up the larger sample earring below. It's still a little soft, but you should have seen how it looked before I did this. It was originally so soft that I could have folded it up.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Metallic Light Bronze" (DB22L)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Opaque Antique Rose aka Opaque Wine" (DB1376)

I made a sample of a nine-row earring as directed by Jill's tutorial so that you can see all three sizes next to each other. Note the difference in the size of the center holes. The bottom part of all three earrings is the same size. Only the top changes when you make fewer rows.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Metallic Bronze" (DB22)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Opaque Antique Rose aka Opaque Wine" (DB1376)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Opaque Mulberry aka Opaque Dyed Dark Purple" (DB662)

I've finally worked out how to embellish the earrings with contrasting beads. Once you know how to add the "V" shaped outline, it's pretty easy to fill the bottom point with another color as you see in the photo above. When I have some time, I will type up the instructions for adding the accent "V" and will post it here.

While taking apart my samples, I noticed something interesting that I wanted to show you. The differences between the three earring sizes isn't all that apparent when you're looking at the finished earrings. However, take a look at the photo below and you can start to see why the shape changes so much each time you omit a row. The original size earring on the far left has all straight rows without any curves. The other two examples show that as you omit rows, the shape starts to curve on the sides. Oddly enough, when I reduced it to seven rows,  the top of the earring starts to spread open wider again. The medium size sample is actually the most curvy of the three.

You can buy Delica beads at Red Panda, Aura Crystals, Supply Emporium and Baubles & Beads.