Monday, September 19, 2005

Lampwork and Gemstones



I have been finding a lot of beautiful lampwork beads lately, and it's very hard to resist buying them. The charm bracelet to the left is an example; these wonderful lampwork beads by Flameworks are deep transparent blue and have deep pink roses on them. For someone who is going through a pink and blue phase, I couldn't pass them up. The rhodonite you see here, especially the ovals, rondelles, and long tubes are a beautiful pink - not the mauve you so often see in rhodonite. They were made for these beads - and how better to show them off than in a charm bracelet with a lot of bright sterling silver, both Turkish and Karen Hill Tribe, and vintage lucite flowers in the same deep transparent blue. I doubled the sterling silver chain because this bracelet is heavy!
I kept with the pink and blue theme, only this time I used the more delicate end of the colour spectrum inspirted by the "Jewels" lampwork beads of Burt and Scott Gumeson of Gumeson Designs. Mixed with blue lace agate nugget and rounds, rainbow moonstone that flashes blue, and a blue chalcedony nugget and a sterling silver bead embedded with 2 blue chalcedony cabochons, this is a very feminine bracelet. The second strand has more wire-wrapped rainbow moonstone faceted rondelles, some dangling, and a link chain that has an engraved pattern on it. The little "S" clasp is sterling silver with a rainbow moonstone cabochon bezel set in its middle.
The necklace to the left features Peruvian pink opals, pale pink Biwa stick pearls and more lampwork beads ("Jewels") by the Gumesons and floral beads by Laffingull beads. All the metal components are sterling silver.
Finally, just to prove that I am not totally fixated on pink and blue, my 2 strand fluorite bracelet also makes use of an artist's lampwork beads. These are by Alyson Straley and are the perfect colours to mix with fluorite.





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am very interested in jewelry
designing but have no expereince
as of yet.Do you know of any good books that would help?I love your work.