Ladies in the Rain Earrings

I have just finished making a pair of earrings that were a special order for a lovely lady in the US. She had seen some of my mudlarking finds, and requested that I reserve some pieces for her, which I was happy to do. Then she requested a pair of earrings...

Victorian Ladies Pottery Shards found on the Thames foreshore

As shards with people on are quite hard to find, I was a bit nervous of cutting them or shaping them in any way, in case I spoiled them (yes, it does happen - they are very old shards after all and some of them are quite brittle). There was also the challenge of making two unrelated shards of slightly different scale into a unified pair. So I kept them on my bench for quite a long time, looking at them, until - an idea popped into my head. I knew one would eventually...

I decided that what would have been in common to both those ladies, busy doing leisurely activities it seems, is that in London, they most probably would have been doing them... in the rain.

So here are the finished earrings:

Ladies in the Rain pottery shard earrings

Minimal cutting (I had to make the lady on the left slightly smaller to fit the frame but no vitals were removed). The rain was etched into the silver, then the background oxidised and the raindrops individually  polished, to make them stand out. 

There were many stages to making these, but I love the result and I hope the recipient will too!

An appropriate song, as it's raining again....