The Jewelry Blog: labradorite jewelry

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Are We There Yet?

Have you ever had the feeling that you will never get "caught up"(whatever that means)? I'm having one of those episodes now, as I go to the office each day and try to finish what I was trying to finish yesterday! I haven't really had time to post a lot of new Fall jewelry since getting "caught up" means getting orders out, doing paperwork, and organizing new gemstones and components as they are coming in. So today, I don't have many pictures to put on the blog. I'll be glad to get some more help for the paperwork and organizing as soon as I can find someone. I love to travel and have a short Hilton Head trip coming up, but lately getting away hasn't meant getting away at all, but rather working furiously before I go, taking work with me, and being met with a deluge of things to do on coming home. Of course, it doesn't help that I have to work hard to mollify kitties Cluny and Cuervo who feel that forgiveness for my travel is a lengthy process that requires a lot of treats and petting and brushing on my part (although I do have two different people come over every day while I am gone to make sure that they are fed, and one who stays to play with them for an hour or more!)
The jewelry today is (above) a labradorite bracelet featuring sterling silver and pretty borosilicalte lampwork beads, (below) an opal bracelet made with blue Peruvian opals, smoky quartz, and sterling silver. The second strand is a chain of sterling with charms hanging at intervals.

The last bracelet today is made with yellow turquoise - a stone I don't use that often. A customer wanted a bracelet and some other pieces made from yellow turquoise and I started getting interested in the patterns and shades of colour in these oval stones especially. With Suzette Celestin's lampwork beads and Karen Hill Tribes chain, this is one of my favorites although I'd never been very keen on yellow turquoise before. It's not on the turquoise page, but on a new page on the website that features gemstone bracelets that contain gemstones that we don't really have a category for otherwise, such as charoite, sodalite, rhodochrosite, unakite, and yes, yellow turquoise!

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Back to My Bracelets!!

Serendipity strikes once again! A set of lampwork beads, oddly coloured with tones of brown, beige, olive and purple, carelessly placed on a desk next to some new strands of beads, and voila, a combination I may not have otherwise come up with. This matching bracelet and necklace (earrings will be posted soon) contains ametrine, moss opal, amethyst, and tiger-eye beads as well as those pretty, but oddly coloured lampwork beads. This necklace is very versatile (yes, despite the purple) because it looks great with neutrals such as khaki, black, browns, camels, and tans. I'm not selling them as a set, but I did make them together using all the same elements in each piece.

I've been making some bracelets this week (well, among other things); the unique bracelet above is one of my favorite combinations with the last of some of my favorite lampwork beads by Robin Weber. Fire agate and aqua Peruvian chalcedony may not sound like the perfect match, but with these lampwork beads - I'm in love! This is only the second time I've used this combination, but I think it's going to become one of my classics. Below is another classic: the labradorite bracelet with two strands - two strands so that there is always some blue flash showing! I choose my labradorite pieces carefully when I make a piece of labradorite jewelry so that each piece has "flash" and the stronger, the better. But even so, labradorite flashes with movement (the reason it's so great for dangling earrings and bracelets).

Below is a rainbow moonstone bracelet - also double-stranded for the same reasons as the labradorite bracelet. This one also has great lampwork beads in white and clear with a slight iridescent quality. I'll be making more moonstone jewelry since the modern birthstone for June is the moonstone (the traditional birthstone is the pearl).