Recycling good memories.

I'm not exactly a hoarder but I do have several boxes of keepsakes (the ones that survived the unfortunate flooding incident in college anyway) including jewelry that I no longer wear for whatever reason. I recently went through those boxes in order to consolidate and move them out of cardboard into more easily toted plastic boxes. I found some great memories in those boxes including a pair of simple earrings made from a single flat malachite bead on each side.

I remember having these earrings made at a booth at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival when I was in my early twenties so likely over fifteen years ago, way before I was making jewelry or had any interest in making it even. I do remember being amazed at the ease in which the artisan made the earrings and I wore them every day for a long time.

My favorite assistant professor in college commented on the earrings, telling me that malachite was known for absorbing bad energy and that you should have them cleansed from time to time. Those earrings did their job well I think over the years but I eventually stopped wearing them and they went into a box to be rediscovered.

I think the earwires must have been base metal of some sort but they were completely blacked over, well sort of a greenish black...a color you didn't want to put into your ear that's for sure. The style wasn't really appealing any longer but as a lone bead they didn't really make for good earrings.

I had the idea of making a ring version of the wire-wrapped cuffs I had recently made but was going to use a recycled glass bead from Ghana. I told hubby about the idea and he said, "a round bead might irritate your finger, do you have any flat beads?" I immediately thought about the flat malachite beads and I'm thrilled with the way it fit into the design.

I made this ring for myself as an experiment to see how it would turn out and also because I wanted to recycle that good memory now that I found it again. The ring was fun to make (as were the cuffs) and I have one more of those flat malachite beads. Perhaps I'll share that memory with another ring in my shop soon!