Tourmalinated Quartz Earrings

I was trying to think of something a little bit different to do with briolettes for earrings than the standard wrap. I wanted these quartz briolettes with black toumaline needles to be fancied up a bit. These are somewhat inspired by Erin Patton's Vintage Briolette Cap but on a smaller scale. I used 24 gauge square half hard wire, 2mm beads and tiny daisy spacers for decoration. I don't know that I will try these again- the PITA factor was high.

Week 2-Aqua and Lemon Quartz Necklace and Earrings Set

The theme for this week is Eclipse so these don't really fit the theme, or I'm not up to the stretch needed to get them to fit the theme. The song Blue Moon? Nah, never mind. These earrings are not for the faint of heart. They measure 2 3/4" long and 1 1/4" wide. They're composed of aqua hydro quartz, lemon quartz, apatite, moss aquamarine and keishi pearls. The stone in the pendant is slightly larger and the pendant is about 2 1/4" long

Earrings for Donna

Last month I had a little open house at my home and Donna, one of my best customers, picked out this necklace and wanted earrings made to go with it echoing the center motif. So after much messing around this is what I ended up with. The orange beads are mystic quartz and the blue ones are iolite with little tiny pearls. I'm going to drop them off this afternoon and hope she likes them.

Week 1 2011-Etched Copper Necklace

Happy New Year! I'm excited that we have a new platform for the Creative Wire Jewelry Year of Jewelry. Thanks to Micki Bleily and Dianne Karg Baron for setting it up. Everyone is welcome to participate but, if not, bookmark the link and check in regularly to see the new posts.

So here is my first submission. This was a new beginning for an old etched copper rectangle that's been hanging around the house and was pretty blah on its own. So I added lots of spirals and scrolls and paraiba quartz beads in a beautiful seafoam color. Then I created a complementary spiral link chain. Like it or not, at least it's not blah any more. :D

Holiday Gifts

I hope everyone had a great holiday, whichever one you happen to celebrate. For the last couple of years, I've done a Christmas gift exchange with Deb and Sue, my two best friends from the Creative Wire Jewelry forum. I always look forward to opening those small packages on Christmas morning because I know it's going to be something special. Now that the holidays are over, I can finally post what I was working on for them. Sue's necklace and earrings use whiskey quartz gemstones. I forgot to get a picture of the necklace for Deb but hers was the same only with a turquoise briolette. Since she lives in Albuquerque (I can now spell that by heart!) I know she's a fan of turquoise. Today I'll try and get some pictures of what they made and get them posted.

Earrings for Kim

At the trunk show I did the other night, a gentleman and his daughter wanted me to make something for his other daughter, Kim. Her house was recently broken into and all of her jewelry was stolen so they wanted something special. The only direction I was given was to make them silver with pink in the middle, and feminine. I emailed a picture but I haven't heard back so I don't know if this is what they had in mind or not. When I look at them I keep wishing the bottom element was a tad smaller. What do you think?

A Couple of New Artfire Listings

I've actually gotten a number of new pieces made in the last couple of weeks but I can't post them yet because they're all Christmas presents. So I'll have to settle for posting a couple of things I'm listing in my Artfire shop. I've been saying that when silver hit $30.00 I was going to go through my jewelry boxes and turn some old stuff in for scrap. Sure enough, silver went over $30.00 the other day so I started rummaging. In addition to coming up with over a pound of old jewelry, I also ended up with lots of sterling beads, clasps and some other fun components. One of the things I ran across was an old ankle bracelet that had sections of the coolest chain. It looks like a tiny foxtail with little sections of coil inside the links. I've never seen anything like it in my internet travels. There was enough to make two simple pairs of earrings. The pendant is a rainbow moonstone from Magpie Gemstones wrapped in a loopy, beaded setting.