While I have certainly NOT been busy blogging, I HAVE been busy creating.  In my little apartment in Boston, I have set up a studio and expanded my repertoire of tools, supplies and skills.
I decided to get posting again because of some of my charitable projects. Today, I wrapped up five sets of jewelry to be donated to a fundraiser for Kevin Cellucci, the young father of three who was critically injured when some students flipped their SUV over the median onto Kevin's truck.  Having lived through a serious head-injury crisis in my own family, I want to do some small part for Kevin and Tina and their boys. I will be adding photos of my donations to this post after I get them in the mail and do a few errands.  Please add Kevin to your prayer lists, readers. His wife started a Facebook page to update us on his progress.

Here's a link, and a shout-out to Tina to stay strong.

https://www.facebook.com/KeepingUpWithKevin?hc_location=stream

Photos below
Keep the faith!

This set is autumn jasper nuggets embellished with autumn jasper leaves, rounds, and gold-plated pewter caps & spacers & clasp.  The earrings are gold-coloured brass, 20 gauge, beaten and strung with unakite and jasper rounds, gold-plated rounds and autumn jasper rounds.  I am obviously enjoying my new steel block and hammer.

This set is matte-finished black agate rounds set with polished black and white agates and embellished with pewter rounds, spacers & clasp.

Just look at the beautiful striations in that agate!

This set is dyed shell, strung with aventurine nuggets & larger faux turquoise (probably magnesite)

nuggets, wood squares, & pewter spacers.The earrings are round shell strung on a pewter  ring.

This set is a handmade lampwork focal, strung with cobalt seed beads, separated by hand-made lampwork ovals and pewter findings. I made a number of them in assorted colours; I kept the other blue necklace.

I made the earrings of foiled lampwork also.

But my absolute favourite of the group is this one:

Hand made Venetian glass rounds complemented with garnets, quartz, & Czech crystals, silver-plated filigree rounds & stardust rounds, and seed & bugle beads.  It's definitely feminine and dainty.

I am hoping there are a lot of bids and that these net a good price for the Celucci family!

Using Gemstones for Healing

So I got this book that explains the metaphysical properties of gemstones. Pretty much everyone knows their birthstone and what that stone represents.  In other culture, gemstones represent healing and chakra alignment. Crystal healing is a huge industry.
I am not sure how much I buy into that, but hey, it can't hurt. Planning jewelry for people with an eye to "boosting" systems they want boosted is apparently a new talent of mine.
I made jewelry for everyone I work with. I included quartz, which is supposedly good for people who work on computers a lot, in each one. I didn't take photos of all the stuff I made unfortunately.  I also made a bracelet for each neighbor.

This one is ocean jasper rounds (sacral & solar plexus chakras, stress reduction, adrenal function), pearls (hormone balance, harmonizes emotion, balances fluids in body), peridot (heart chakra, cell regeneration, neutralizes toxicities) and pewter.

This one is tree agate (stress reduction, recovery, increases optimism) & jasper squares (sacral & solar plexus chakras, stress reduction, adrenal function), tiny coral beads (good fortune), moonstone spears (hormonal balance, emotional stress), black agate and pewter.

This set is for a friend & is one of my personal favourites. It has fluorite rounds in green (heart chakra, heals emotional stress) and purple (heals bony structure of body, helps with physical trauma, mental focus) , fluorite purple chunks, moonstone spears, peridot, quartz rounds (cleansing & refocusing) and pewter spacer beads.

Because I tend to be really symmetrical, I got some fluorite large nuggets at the last show.  Unable to just mix them up, I separated them by color. This necklace I made for a friend who loves blue. It's ice blue fluorite, chunky potato pearls, pewter beads & clasp. Because I didn't like the way the bead wire showed between the irregular chunks, I separated each chunk with a tiny seed bead from Japan that is lined with silver.  The silver shines through and not only separates each chunk, it helps the light pass through and brightens the piece. I use this technique all the time now, but most often when I am working with irregular beads.
I liked the blue so much I made a second set.

This time I added pewter beads that make me think of waves. The fluorite is two colors of blue. The earrings were an experiment in seed beads paired with irregular chunks.  I ended up taking them apart because they did not please me, but the friends I showed them to seemed to like them.