Celestial Sphere Earrings

Circles are popular these days. Earrings with circles are really popular. Earrings with sterling silver circles are really truly popular. So how to make yours stand out, I asked myself. Never one to spend much advance time plotting how to corner the market on sterling silver circle earrings, I just picked up some wire and began.

First, I made two large circles of 20 gauge sterling silver wire. I formed them with a pole I had that seemed about right for truly popular earring size, then soldered them. Next, I took a sharpie pen, which was lying close to hand, and seemed just the thing for the second circle, formed two more circles -- this time out of 18 gauge wire, and soldered them. Finally, after a quick reconnoiter of nearby rooms, I found a flagpole from a toy flag in my son's room, and made two more circles out of heavier 16 gauge wire, then soldered them.

Then, everything went in the pickle solution, while I pondered how I was going to join them all together. Hanging them all from an earwire, even if it was handmade, seemed a bit obvious and certainly wasn't going to help in my bid to corner the really most truly popular sterling silver circle earring market. So, I began playing around with some 16 gauge wire, which I hammered flat. I liked how its long, rectangular shape looked, and thought it would provide a nice contrast with the circle theme I had going. But I felt it needed a jumpring to which it could tether the circles I had made. So I made two jumprings using a pencil.

So, out of the pickle, and under my hammer. Hammering is really one of the most fun parts of silversmithing, and don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Unless you are a carpenter, how often can you just bang away at something and transform it into something, well, a little different. When you are hammering circles, though, or anything else for that matter, you just have to be careful not to bang them out of shape. These were very well-behaved little circles, clearly eager to be part of this great takeover of the world of circular earrings.

Then, I laid the circles down, bent the flattened, heavy gauge wire (with some difficulty, I admit, and even a teeny tiny bit of breakage) so that it linked the circles while keeping them flat and in their order of largest to smallest. I soldered the joint of the flattened wire, pickled everything again, then put the earrings and the earwires in the tumbler for a good long time. Once they were all bright and shiny, I carefully filed the smallest and largest circles to create some difference in texture.

While they may not win the title of really, truly, most incredibly popular sterling silver circle earrings on the planet, I'm very proud of them and, when I have time, I'm going to make a pair for myself. But probably a little bit different:... I'll oxidize the middle circle, and maybe the tether for contrast, and then.....well, the possibilities are endless!