Earrings: Neglected But Necessary

There are a couple of things that I will not leave my house without; one of them is lipstick, and the other is a pair of earrings. However, while I am always wearing a bracelet, I feel totally naked without earrings. When it comes to making jewelry though, I have to force myself to remember to make earrings! Funny, when I love to wear them so much!
I love to design and make bracelets as much as I love to wear them; I also like to do necklaces although I do not make as many as I do bracelets. But when it comes to earrings. . . maybe it's because I see them as necessary rather than something "special". I've been working on them lately though!
The first pair of earrings are made with genuine rubies and 14 karat goldfilled accents. I really like these ruby earrings quite a bit. The next pair are amethyst earrings made with Karen Hill Tribes sterling silver and the neatest posts with a cabochon amethyst bezel-set in the middle. The faceted nuggets make these earrings special because they have a lush and lavish look. They are a pretty dark purple colour, but not so purple that they look black. The amethyst earrings below feature the circle look that is so in style. The gemstones here are amethysts also, and the earwires have a cabochon amethyst set in them.
The last earrings are amazonite earrings created with some great amazonite that I recently received. It is the lovely light teal blue colour that very good amazonite is and fairly even throughout. I can't wait to make a bracelet with some of it!


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Emeralds: The May Birthstone

Emeralds are the May birthstone - which means that the emerald is my birthstone. I really love emeralds, and I would create with them all the time if they weren't so expensive. Emeralds are quite difficult to get in bead form (ones that are affordable and still look good that is), but sometimes I get lucky. My dream is to have huge emeralds to create with, but I don't know that it will come true anytime soon.Emerald is considered to be one of the "Big Four" gemstones (the others are diamond, sapphire, and ruby). It has a hardness of 7.5 to 8 on the Moh's scale. Today the best emeralds come from Columbia although emeralds are found in Australia, the United States, and Africa (Zimbabwe, most are small emeralds but of high quality). At one time, emeralds were mined in Austria and also Russia. There are emeralds in India that have been found recently (Rajasthan) but most are lower quality and made in to beads. However, the emerald has been popular in India since ancient times although no one is really sure where they came from.

The emerald is a beryl, that is, it belongs to a group of gemstones, including aquamarine, that are known as beryls.
All the bracelets shown here can be found on our Emerald Bracelets page on the Cluny Grey Jewelry website.

The earrings above can be found at Cluny Grey's Emerald Earrings page.

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Swarovski, Charoite, and Coral Earrings

Once again, I'm behind in the blog. But I do have excuses such as a very long week-end in Philadelphia (thank goodness, it was nice there!), and many commissions keeping me busy. I have made a few pairs of earrings though, mostly of coral, just to get in that summer mood that I can't wait to have every year.
The top pair are dangling coral earrings in a very pretty pink colour. I personally prefer the beaded studs with drops although I know that earwires are much more popular lately. Although coral was widely used in the Victorian era for all seasons, today most coral jewelry is worn more in the Spring and Summer than any other time.
The earrings above are made of simple coral ovals mixed with sterling silver and hung from some of my favorite Karen Hill Tribes earwires. These earwires are so dramatic! So young and modern! I love this look. The coral earrings below feature blue sponge coral and cool dapped sterling silver disks with circle cutouts of different sizes. The gemstones around the blue coral rondelles are ocean jasper that I picked out of a long strand in order to get these particular colours.

The earrings below are made with huge Swarovski Helix crystals with an Aurora Borealis finish, sterling silver rings, then hung from small sterling hoops. They have loads of sparkle to have just one bead apiece!
Finally, these earrings are made of some very good Russian charoite (all charoite that is real is Russian) ovals and amethysts. They hang from some of my favorite earwires with amethyst cabochons bezel-set into the front of the earwires. Because of the charoite, these earrings are listed on my Unique Gemstone Jewelry page.
I hope everyone is getting ready to enjoy the summer, and of course, as everyone knows, summer is much more enjoyable with the right jewelry - wherever you get it!
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