Starfish reminds us of the ocean, and the ocean tells us about vacation time.
My Starfish earrings beadwork design idea is about vacation days near the ocean. Even though the ocean is just 1.5 hours away from me, I don’t get to go there often enough.
Small starfish featured in this earring design is part of my Starfish Pattern Tutorial. It is 1” in diameter, which is perfect for earring detailed beaded elements.
The very first and simplest idea for starfish earrings I had was an earring with one starfish attached to the ear-wire, or a post. Of course, I wanted to add more beads to the design and show you more ways, how to use this starfish element.
Beads
When I was selecting the beads for this design, I already kept in mind a whole jewelry set: a necklace and earrings. Therefore, every set of beads I found, I counted the beads and divided them between both projects. Here I used
- Freshwater pearls
- Faceted glass crystals
- Handcrafted glass beads
- Fire-polished Czech beads
- Seed beads
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Findings and Supplies
The most important among all the metal elements in this design was the small chain with a chain link measuring 2mm. Without any bigger chain, these earrings would look heavier.
I wanted to use 20 gauge gold plated wire for the wirework, but it didn’t fit the tiny hole in the pearl. So I used 24 gauge headpins I found in my stash.
I also used 5 mm open rings to connect all the elements together.
The only earring posts of a golden color I had in my stash were almost the same diameter as pearl accents. Therefore, I thought they balanced each other rather well.
Variations
As a variation of this pair of earrings, you can try beading two small starfish elements for each earring, and hang them on a different length of a chain.
Also, you can make earrings with only one starfish element on a long chain without other decorations. These earrings will still look lovely in summer, especially with an open-shoulder dress, or top.
Have you come up with any other variations for this design? Let me know! We all want to see it and get inspired!
