The Jewelry Blog

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The Sparkle of Swarovski

For the longest time, I wouldn't use Swarovski crystals in my jewelry. I wanted the jewelry to be pure gemstone jewelry with only sterling or gold - I didn't use lampwork beads either. I soon learned what I was missing! Now my only quandary is how much mixing to do with Swarovski. Do I want to add lampwork beads? Pure Swarovski? Should I add some gemstones? And with the addition of the new Graphic, Helix, Cosmic, and other special beads in the very large sizes, Swarovski is more fun to work with than ever.
The first bracelet is one of my favourites: aquamarine, golden shadow, light amethyst, and alexandrite reflect the colours in the two small lampwork beads by Lynn Nurge. These beads have all the colours of an Austrian opal and a certain iridescence also. The Swarovski bracelet is assymetrical as are many of the bracelets I make from a variety of materials.
I stuck with the large Graphic and Cosmic crystals in the bracelet below. The Indicolite Swarovski crystals are accented only by sterling silver Bali beads. The bracelet is nice and chunky and sparkling, and those are good things! Plus, the colour of Indicolite is one of the most mysterious dark turquoise blues I've ever seen.
The last bracelet below is made of Caribbean Blue Opal Swarovski crystals (AB); once again I've only added sterling silver - delicious large filigree beads from the Thai Karen Hill Tribes as well as the neatest ring beads, about 8mm in diameter, that are also wide with some imprinting on them.
You'll be able to find these bracelets and others on the Cluny Grey Jewelry site on the Swarovski Crystal Bracelets page.

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Friday, August 31, 2007

Lariat Necklaces

I like to wear lariat necklaces myself, so it's a bit odd that I don't make them that often or make that many. I got started on these simply because I happened to catch a glimpse of one of the new Swarovski crystal rings as I was looking for some other beads. The ring was in one of my favorite colours - Copper - so I couldn't resist seeing what I could do with it. I decided not to do that much. I used 14 karat goldfilled chain and wire and attached the Swarovski crystal ring to one end, and a large copper bicone to the other with a few little bead accents. I put a Swarovski butterfly in copper to one side of the ring - and I'm in love with this lariat necklace.

Another of my favorite Swarovski colours is blue Montana and since to me it seems to be much more the colour of a real sapphire than Swarovski's actual sapphire colour, I used the Montana crystals to make a lariat that would also work as a birthstone necklace for September. This necklace is outstanding because of the wonderful Karen Hill Tribes chain with little links holding together huge hammered rounds and large flower shaped sterling. This is a rather long lariat necklace; one thing I like about it is that you can wear the back of it facing front during the day when you're at the office, then when you're ready to go out, you just turn it around and you have tons of sparkle! The large Swarovski crystals fit through the hoop, but I also added an almost indiscernible little ring clasp for those who may wear it out dancing.

Finally, a green aventurine lariat necklace made of aventurine disks, faceted olives, and carved flower beads. Here the loop that the other side goes through is made of the faceted olives, and because of the size of the loop, the other side can be looped through more than once to shorten the remainder.
All of these lariat necklaces can be found on the Lariat Necklaces page of the Cluny Grey website.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The Swirls of Abalone

I am very fond of natural beads that have flash, iridiscence, sparkle, glitter, so moonstone and labradorite are favourites as are lepidolite, some mother of pearl, and abalone. When I am able to combine these into one piece of jewelry that is aesthetically pleasing, that makes me really happy. So I like the abalone and labradorite bracelet that you see above very much. Besides pretty swirling abalone ovals and the nuggets and coins of labradorite that have tons of good blue flash, I used some of Robin Weber's best (I think) silver lentil lampwork beads that do a great deal of glistening on their own. Karen Hill Tribe silver from Thailand and a Bali sterling toggle clasp complete the bracelet. This bracelet and the other abalone jewelry can be found on the Cluny Grey site on the Abalone Jewelry page.

I made two sets of simple earrings: the first resemble chandeliers with the difference being that only one oval of abalone hangs from each chandelier. The earrings below have some of the same abalone ovals, only this time they hang from very thick and large chain links of imprinted Karen Hill Tribes' chain which in turn hang from sterling earwires with a large swirled disk on the front and wires that fasten in the back.
Abalone jewelry goes with many different styles and colours of clothing. A lot of abalone that you see in jewelry is actually a veneer of the mother of pearl glued to a some sort of backing. True natural abalone is a plain brown on one side with the beautiful iridiscent mother of pearl on the other. Abalone is really a hard substance, so natural abalone is great for jewelry.