The theme for this week’s Self-Representing Artists in Jewelry Design blog challenge was “winter” or “December.” This was a theme chosen by popular vote among the members.

I didn’t have to do any research for this jewelry design challenge theme. And it wasn’t difficult to get inspired.

I love winter:  the kind where it gets freezing cold and snows big fluffy piles. I love wearing sweaters, scarves, boots, and layers. Winter makes me happy.

Earrings make me happy too. Especially the long dangly kind. I could make earrings all day. And for this challenge, I kinda did just that.  I started with some rustic snowflake beads I made earlier this month, with this theme in mind. I combined techniques from the Faux Glass Effects and Rustic Beads and Components tutorials from The Blue Bottle Tree. If you haven’t tried one of Ginger Davis-Allman’s tutorials, you are missing out.

I made these rustic snowflake beads based on a tutorial from The Blue Bottle Tree.

I made three pair, using three different colors of focals, all with monochromatic color schemes. I added some glass beads for accents and used silver-plated wires.

These wintergreen earrings have soft minty green glass beads capping the rustic snowflake components. And a little faceted glass dangle in a matching shade of green. Magically, I had exactly the right shades of glass beads in my stash.

This blush pink pair of earrings uses raspberry glass rondelles to cap the rustic snowflake beads. The smaller faceted glass dangles aren’t an exact match to the rondelles, but bring out the lighter highlights in the snowflakes.

This pair of earrings have what I like to call “dark wash denim” blue rustic snowflake beads. They’re capped with blue-gray glass rondelles and accented with satin blue Czech glass beaded dangles.

While I don’t normally repeat a design, these three pair of earrings are all variations on a theme. And yet each pair are a little different, because of the handmade components and also my choice of accents. I think I’m starting to see how I could come up with a cohesive looking line of jewelry. Just in time for next year’s Build a Line Design Challenge with B’sue Boutiques.

The final pair of earrings I made inspired by the winter theme challenge uses the adorable penguin chick charms I had originally planned to use for last week’s whimsical theme. If you were with me last week you know I damaged one of the little chicks and was waiting on replacements from the artist, Rejetta Sellers of Jetta Bug Jewelry. Her work is fabulous, and I have several more components from her shop awaiting design inspiration. And even more on my wish list.

These whimsical earrings feature hand sculpted and painted penguin chick charms. They’re made from polymer clay, by Jetta Bug Jewelry. I accented them with some “rustic snowball” beads, also made from polymer clay.

I couldn’t find the right size or color of beads in my stash to go with the little penguins, so I mixed up a batch of what I’m calling “rustic snowball” beads using scraps of polymer clay and a little acrylic paint.  I still feel like they need a little something else. Maybe a touch of ribbon knotted between the charms and the beads? Or maybe not. Don’t want to overshadow those adorable little penguins.

That’s it for my winter-themed jewelry designs. I hope you enjoyed the frosty whimsical rustic jewelry. And I hope you’ll stop by next week to see what I come up with for the “bubbles” theme. You can subscribe to my blog by email or using the feed servers in the right sidebar to be sure you don’t miss a thing.