Raven Feather Earrings (SJ Honey Do List)

Each month, Sarajo of SJ Designs Jewelry shares the photo inspiration her husband, Eric, has given her. She calls it the Honey Do List. This month's inspiration was perfectly timed with Halloween as it's a picture of a raven in the Tower of London. Eric was clear that if we didn't have any raven-ish supplies, something creepy-cool would work as well. However, I was dead-set on using the bird as my inspiration. 

I searched through my stash for birds, but only found cute ones; nothing that had that creep factor. As I pondered my supplies, I remembered that I had a few large feather charms. 

They were silver-tone and definitely required altering. However, I wasn't sure what method would work best. So, I began experimenting. I was lucky there were four feathers in the pack. (Two of them had more pointed ends that I wasn't fond of, so those are the ones I started with for my trials.)

I wanted the feathers to have a base of black but then have that beautiful blue-green color shift that you often see in raven's feathers. So, the front and back of the charms were painted with two coats of Vintaj Patina in Onyx. While the Patina was still slightly wet, I added shades of Pearl-Ex powders for that gleam. These were topped with alcohol ink and a matte sealer to ensure that the wings weren't too shiny. 

I think they came together beautifully. 

I didn't like the original holes for the feathers. They were in little tabs at the top of the feathers. Those were cut off before I began working with the metal. I then punched my own holes once everything was painted and sealed. 

To complete the earrings, I simply used darkened steel wire and a black faceted glass bead to connect the charms to gunmetal lever back ear wires. 

While pondering the inspiration, I knew that a friend's birthday was coming up and that whatever I made would be something she'd love. As such, I used her style to guide me through the process of making these earrings. And, I gifted her with them the other day. She loved them and put them on right then and there!

Thanks as always to Sarajo and Eric for the inspiration. Make sure to head over to SJ Designs Jewelry for her reveal and for the reveals of any other artists that played along too.