A little re-make for a custom order

Here is one of the custom order rings I've been working on this week. The stone is a wonderful little blue Amazonite. It started out as a pendant that I had made about a year ago with a similar setting (double layer back plate), then a customer saw it and wanted it made into a ring. So I re-made the setting for the stone and attached it to a new ring shank. I think it makes a darling ring. I hope she likes it!

I love being able to custom create jewelry for clients so the piece suites them perfectly!

I'm back and creating new something new!

I've been off having some summer fun outside of my workshop for a few weeks. I went home to MN to visit some family and friends. While I was there, a couple of friends hosted impromptu jewelry parties for their friends and it was so nice to see several of my bigger, favorite pieces go to their new owners. I love getting together with people and seeing their reactions to my jewelry. It's always so interesting to see which ones appeal to each person. I don't have that advantage when someone purchases my work on-line, but I'm not really complaining. I often get emails or messages from past buyers telling me how much they love the jewelry they purchased from me.

A while back, I wrote a Mother's Day series of blogs, featuring items from my mother's jewelry box. One of the items, a Danish pendant by Bent Larsen, I found particularly inspiring. It was a gift to my Grandmother from my Mother. In my research, I've found Bent Larsen designs to be modern, minimalist, bold designs with interesting, clean cut textures. Here is a photo of my Grandmother's pendant:

This week, I made a new piece with a bit of influence from this pendant. In my Grandmother's pendant, I love how the heavy bezel wire is textured and adds a wonderful outline for the focal center. I wanted to create a similar effect using my own labradorite stone. My new piece is pictured at the top of this blog and here below. It is titled "Love Triangle" and is listed in my etsy shop here:

I've also been working on orders for 3 custom rings and will show you those in the next few days. As summer quickly draws to a close, I hope all of you have enjoyed your summer and are looking forward to a beautiful autumn.

Windswept Amber Earrings - YOJ 2011 - Week 9

I honor of the arrival of March and the promise of spring, the theme for this week's Year of Jewelry Project is "Windswept". I've created these amber earrings, aptly named "Windswept Amber".

Several years ago, while vacationing in Denmark, I learned that amber is formed from pre-historic tree sap that the wind swept into the Baltic Sea. There, it hardened in the cold water and sank to the bottom of the sea. Waves and storms continually wash the amber to shore, where it is now collected, shaped and polished, giving us this wonderful transparent "stone" to use in jewelry! Amber often has small inclusions of air bubbles, dirt and can even have bugs and bits of foliage embedded in it.

While I'm personally not a big fan of giant pieces of amber with embedded bugs worn as jewelry, I do love smaller, richly hued pieces of amber incorporated into beautiful jewelry. When in Denmark, I purchased a unique trapezoid shaped amber pendant with a contemporary brushed sterling silver setting. Ten years later, it still remains one of my favorite necklaces. Here's a photo of that necklace:

The "Windswept" earrings (top photo) are currently for sale in my etsy store here. Next time you see a piece of amber, take a close look at it and imagine how old that bit of tree sap really is. Millions of years!