Caged Cage Earrings

The February issue of Bead and Button was there in the magazine section at work yesterday and I bought it! Inside was a beautiful necklace designed by Nealay Patel and there was one part of the necklace that I thought would make pretty earrings. He uses seed and filigree beads to create a cage.

I tweaked the design a little and added metal cages inside the seed bead cage. The little cage dangles instead of being attached to the bottom filigree bead. My "cage" is less cage-like than Nealay's because I was having trouble getting the wire through the holes in the filigree bead, but I still like how it came out. There is a dark blue glass pearl for some contrast in color. The cage is made of 11º seed beads in silver lined lavender.

These earrings might go to work with me today... I wonder if the top I have that matches is clean or in the laundry bag... hmm. Does anyone else do that, sometimes? Choose to wear an outfit because it matches this piece of jewelry you want to wear? Instead of vice versa? I find myself doing that a lot these days :)