More Blue Topaz and Consider Custom!

 The Christmas Season is hard upon us and everyone is scurrying around to find presents. If you haven't done so yet, consider a custom piece of jewelry for someone special - in many cases, there is still time to make a bracelet, necklace, or earrings depending on what you want!
   Today, just three pieces of pretty blue topaz jewelry: a bracelet, and two pairs of earrings.
    The bracelet, above, is made with London Blue faceted rondelles and goldfilled accents. It's a small bracelet with great presence.
    Below are two pairs of blue topaz earrings; both are Swiss blue topaz; one pair is made with goldfilled fluted beads and goldfilled accents. The second pair is made with sterling silver and features Thai Karen Hill Tribes heart beads above the blue topazes. The blue topazes in both pairs are faceted cubes.

These will be available for sale in the next hour or so.

FREE SHIPPING WITH $50 PURCHASE; ONLY $1.95 FOR PURCHASES UNDER $50!!!!

The Gemstone of the Great White North: Labradorite

If there were such a thing as a "winter" gemstone, it would be labradorite. I cannot see the blue flash without thinking of the Northern lights, fjords, and thinking of lands I read about in fairy tales with Hans and Gerda and the Snow Queen. Labradorite is one of the most evocative gemstones I work with.
The bracelet is new, and it has some wonderful flash to it - even where it doesn't show up in the picture. Every single labradorite stone on the bracelet, no matter how small, I chose for its blue flash, and the large smooth oval is simply amazing! Both pairs of earrings also have major flash - some of the best labradorite I've ever had.
Although I love jewelry, I work with gemstones everyday, and tend to get a bit blase about some - which is good because I am able to part with the jewelry I make (otherwise I'd have to build a new room onto my house just to hold the jewelry). But labradorite still gives me pause, so that I find myself sliding stones across my desk and later making something for myself from them (something I rarely do otherwise). There is magic in labradorite, and I love wearing magic.Labradorite Jewelry can be found on these pages on our website: Labradorite Jewelry Labradorite Earrings and Labradorite Necklaces.


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Seeing Smoky? It's a Good Thing!

Yesterday when I was driving home from the studio at about 6:15 my extremely accurate car thermometer said that the temperature was 101 degrees Fahrenheit. This is jewelry-making weather because the only thing that makes sense is to stay inside under an air-conditioner. It's even too hot to lie around in the pool since the water there is as hot as any bathwater!
Dreaming of water, however, I made the first aquamarine bracelet with some great new aquamarine nuggets that I just got in from Thailand. They are a lovely mostly opaque shade of blue with very little green to them. In one of those rare cased of serendipity, I'd just received some lampwork beads from bead artist Lynn Nurge in the same colour, but with a bit of an opal look to them (but not iridiscent). I love Lynn Nurge's beads for bracelets since she handmakes tiny little beads that are as perfect as anything handcrafted can be.

I've also been working with smoky (smokey) quartz this week since the colour brown is big this Fall, and I've gotten in some great cuts of smoky quartz. I still have a tendency to want to call it smoky topaz since that it the way that people I knew referred to it when I was growing up, but what I'm using is quartz.

Smoky quartz is a very sparkling stone when faceted because it is usually transparent and it really almost sparkles like Swarovski does. It is a surprisingly versatile gemstone which blends well with other gemstones and is at home with many different colours in one's wardrobe. I especially like to wear it with lighter colours, white, cream, pale blue, pale peach and pink.
The necklace that you see here is almost all faceted topaz stones with the addition of some great lampwork beads (from a favourite artist of mine) in the colours of brown cream and silver. I especially like the large briolettes such as the one in the pendant here.
The bracelet below has matching lampwork beads which are by Tennessee lampworker Teresa Turner.
Found on the Smoky Quartz Jewelry page.
Finally, I read a review that I didn't know had been done about my blog yesterday, and while the jewelry received good reviews and the writing, the reviewer said that the black background of my blog didn't work, that it drove her crazy as did the green print (I guess she just read one entry since I do change colours). I'm taking her advice and using white print this time, but I'm wondering: how many of you find that you don't like the black background? Should I change to another, lighter colour? I'll publish your comments although because of the inordinately large amount of spam I get I do look at them first, and if the black background is bad, I'll change it!
Thanks - and everyone stay cool!

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In the Pink...Drusies, Too!

I"ve still been busy, but have stayed at the studio late to make a few things so that the website doesn't start to look bare! I forced myself to use the marvelous lampwork beads above, created by Lynn Nurge, although I was enjoying having them where I could look at them everyday. They are one of my favorite glass colours, a pink opal. The almost teal green center of the flower and swirl on the swirl beads is lovely, too. I mixed the lampwork with green apatite beads that have a touch of teal in them and with rose quartz. The bracelet is made so that the flower should be on top of the wrist, almost like a wrist corsage and can be seen on our lampwork bracelets page as can another new lampwork bracelet with soft shell-like opal lampwork, too. I've also been fortunate enough to find some good drusy beads, so I have been trying to use some of them, also. I love to mix them with dendrite opal as you can see here above and below in the earrings and bracelet. The translucent greyish-looking rondelles in the bracelet are actually ocean jasper. The huge focal is a drusy, of course, and so are the biggest beads near the toggle clasp. These can be seen on our Drusy Jewelry page.

The bracelet below is made of dark pink opals and lampwork beads mixed with sterling silver. The pink opals are really a bit darker in real life than the picture actually indicates, and the lampwork beads are luscious. I chose opals with dark inclusions because they were also those that were the darkest pink, and I wanted them to match the wonderful lampwork beads.

Finally, the bottom earrings are made with the "bumpy" lampwork beads that went with the set of lampwork from the first flower bracelet above. They are on our Lampwork Earrings page.

Meanwhile, the pool looks very inviting and I need to work on my tan (yes, I tan, but I don't burn), but it seems that there is always something else to do. In about 2 weeks, we are having a large part of our downstairs carpeting ripped up and wood floors put down; we're putting tile and a new shower in our bathroom and a Jacuzzi tub upstairs.
What a mess it will be! But at least it will give me an excuse to go early to the office/studio and come home late.


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