Focus Pieces-Turquoise

 So, early this summer my friend and I went to a gem show. It was pretty huge and I had a pretty good time. One interesting thing I found was a string with about seven or nine focal point pieces of all assorted kinds. I thought to myself what a great idea- there's an easy start to a necklace and I can just build components I have around the focal.  I think I got four or five strings.

I had a great sunny afternoon putting them all into groups by color, and then adding strands of filler beads, stone, glass and pearl that looked good.  I have to do it on a sunny day because the true light lets me make color combinations that just don't work when I do it by artificial light at night-the next day I

Then I got busy.

My first bunch of necklaces were based on turquoise. Yeah, I am pretty sure it's what Willis the Beadmeister calls "Faque Turquoise"; dyed magnesite.   Maybe if I had a shop I was selling this stuff in I'd spring for the real thing but not right now.

 This one was a gift for a friend. I loved the pendant. I paired it with some big pewter beads, and blue beads and some turquoise colored large seed beads. I made her some earrings as well.

This one was also a gift set, using the same blue beads. I shook it up by using these different pewter beads. I liked the markings on them-they make me think of waves.

 

For this one I used chips, separated by Miyuki seed beads, chalcedony faceted beads accented with pewter bead caps, gold-dyed pearls, and gold-dyed mother-of-pearl coins. The gold-colored striations in the focal stones made the gold accents a perfect foil for the gold-colored accents used in this series.

Closeup.

 For the next one, I used rectangular turquoise-colored magnesite and rounds, and bronze-colored pearls to go with the darker striations in the focal piece.

 Close-up.

 For this piece, I used chunks of magnesite, rounds, and bronze small and large pearls, pewter accent beads.

 Close-up.

At this point, I was getting a little tired or turquoise, so I put a few draft pieces aside and went on to some other colors that I will showcase next.

I set up combinations, put them in a baggie, and piled the baggies in a box.  When I had a few minutes, I would take one out and start playing around.  That made it much easier to keep going and keep myself entertained.

The Wedding Jewelry

When I planned my vacation time for the year, I talked my son and his lovely wife into going to Australia with me.  They had been before their wedding to visit their best friends who are living there.  We booked for a week in May, which was all the time the kids could get off.  And then their friends announced- they decided to get married while we were there!

Next thing we know, there is a party of us traveling and a great deal of excitement. 

I asked the bride what she was doing for wedding jewelry, and she replied she didn't know. So I offered to make it for her-and she said yes!

This is a project of incredible magnitude, and great excitement for me.

She emailed me pictures of a few things she liked, and told me the color scheme.

I emailed her photos of all the beads I have (quite overwhelming, I have a lot).

She liked the Venetian glass best.

Around Easter, I had the kids over for dinner with the express idea of picking my daughter-in-law's brain for design- after all, she is close friends with the bride.  And she fell in love with a blue crystal I had hanging around.  We used that as the focus, and slowly build a design from glass bugle beads, sterling beads and Venetian glass.  This is the prototype.

It has silver foil beads, bugle beads, Swarovski crystals, pearls & the center crystal; Meredith designed it. We used the pale blue Venetian glass above.

We Skyped, and she liked it; the design was official.

Next, we designed bracelets for the bridesmaids.

Afterward, I did a few prototype designs for earrings.

I just can't make it not be sideways. Sorry about that.

Anyhow, my only worry was the two blues in the necklace, so I sent her a closeup.

She decided to go with the white Venetian glass instead of the blue.

You can really see the detail- the tiny square silver beads, the large foil silver beads, the Swarovsky AB bicones and the little white pearls. That crystal pendant is real bling.

So I finished the set with a really neat, modern sterling clasp.

 So it ended up looking like this:

I made earrings to go with the bridesmaids' bracelets.  Meredith especially loved the sterling wave clasps.

 My daughter-in-law Meredith loves color, so she designed her bracelet with brighter Venetian beads, and added in some blue glass beads as well.

 

I also decided to make a bracelet for the bride and groom's mothers, who were also attending.  I wanted them to have a keepsake and I thought having somethings with the same design might add to the sentimental value of it.  I knew the bride's mom was wearing teal, so I made hers with teal Venetian glass.  I guessed on the groom's mom and used blue.  It was a good guess- she wore a lot of blue and wrote me a lovely thank you note when we got home.

This is not the best bridal photo- I have hundreds-but it shows the jewelry off really well, so forgive me, Amanda.  I think that at 2:30 am the bride still looked like she was having a great time.

Earrings

So this post shows my forays into earring-making, and how that has developed.
I have given away so many earrings that I didn't document by photographing and now I wish I had.
It all started with the pearls, remember?

These are coin pearls in a copper tone, with seed pearls.

The upper left are a maroon oval pearl-somehow I found other pearl rounds that matched.
Upper right is the complement to my own Wilma coral necklace. I can't remember if the findings are pewter or sterling. I think pewter, but am not sure.
Lower left is an early effort- white potato pearls. I used to wear these a lot.
Lower right; I got these semi-frosted glass beads at Vintage Vogue & really liked them. They are paired with Japanese seed beads on the largish size, also from VV, and silver beads.  I made two pairs- my friend Ros and her friend Lynda were staying over here and Lynda loved the purple so much I gave them to her.  She sent me some Celtic knot earrings from Wales as a thank you- and I wear those a lot as well.

Top left is Lapis Lazuli-these go with my Celtic lapis necklace.
Top right is turquoise and chrysocolla to go with my other Celtic necklace.
Bottom right is aventurine, silver, pewter & Czech glass-it goes with my leafy glass necklace & bracelet.
Bottom right is a close up of my carnelian set's earrings.  I just love the striations in that carnelian.

As I got more confident with wire work I started branching out from just a single dangling head pin...

These are aventurine cylindrically-shaped beads paired with cobalt glass beads from VV. I made these to go with an aventurine & cobalt necklace Kate had given me a few years ago.

This is Czech crystal paired with gold-toned beads & Miyuki seed beads lined with gold, strung on gold-tone wire. Sparkly!

You'll see the necklace this goes to later on. It's Prehnite, peridot & black agate with Miyuki seed beads lined in silver.  Look, Ma, no head pins!

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.