Moss agate illusion necklace

And last but not least this evening is another older illusion necklace, done about the same time as my tiger's eye one.  I love moss agate for its delicate color patterns that make each piece different.  The first piece I owned was a triangular tumbled stone Charlie, a man who helped instruct a lapidary class I took at an old school in West Lafayette while Mom did pottery down the hall, gave me out of his supply box.  I never made it into anything, but it's still in my tumbled stone bowl on my shelf here at home.  Charlie was a wonderful man, and always had something for me to work with he "didn't want" anymore, as I was the extreme youngster of the group.  I think he and his wife adopted me during those weeks.  I still have several pieces of things I never got to work with--including a piece of stone with tiny emeralds in it, a beautiful slice of green goldstone, a piece of red obsidian, and the remains of a spectacular piece of gold tiger's eye with which he taught me how to tell tiger eye quality, and from which I made my first soldered necklace.  I wish the pendant of this piece could have been made from the piece of moss agate Charlie gave me, but the classes were cut due to few new members and budget costs.  I had to content myself with finding this beautiful pendant at Von's in West Lafayette, just around the block from Morton Center where I learned silverwork and cutting stones and spent wonderful evenings with Charlie, his wife Ruth, and good ol' storyteller Cliff.  I used seed beads and hematite rice along with the pendant.  I believe, actually, this might have ben tagged "seaweed agate" or "seaweed quartz," though I'm pretty sure I looked through the entire bin of moss agate looking for one with a lot of color and unique pattern personality.  I could be wrong, but then it wouldn't fit my story very well...

Name:  Forest Memories


Price:  $15 (personal collection)


Length:  17"

Dual-strand black necklace

I house-sit from time to time for my sister and brother-in-law.  One weekend I was staying there and realize I'd forgotten to pack something to wear for church on Sunday, so I rushed out to Wal-mart, which was just down the street, and bought a nice new pair of black jeans, a new shirt, and a shawl to wear.  I'd remembered to bring my beading supplies, since I was working on Christmas presents for my sister at the time, and decided I needed a new necklace, set of earrings, and a bracelet as well.  To go with the color of my outfit I used black and silver seed beads and hematite rice.  Ironic thing is, I wore the set a lot and the bracelet, which was a little big, slid off my wrist while I was having lunch at Noodles with friends after church another week.  When I went back to look for it that evening and asked if it had been turned in, I learned no one had; apparently whoever found it liked it enough to keep it.  I was (and still am) irked that it wasn't turned in like it should've been, but I guess I should content myself with the fact someone liked it enough to keep it.  Again, pictures aren't very good.

Name:  N/A


Price:  $15 (personal collection)


Length:  16" and 17"

Tiger's Eye illusion necklace

Since it's been raining the last few days and I've been too busy to work on new pieces or get pictures in decent light, I decided to post another of my personal collection pieces.  The lighting in the photo stinks, apologies.  I love tiger's eye and hematite.  They're possibly my very favoritest stones...except for seraphanite.  Up there, too, are watermelon tourmaline, ruby (my birthstone), opal, mystic topaz and tanzanite.  I have other favorites, but not gonna list everything (list isn't that long, though).  This necklace was done a long time ago.  I used gold tiger's eye rounds, hematite, and blackstone.  The pendant is actually twisted, which is hard to tell in the photo.

Name:  N/A


Price:  $15 (personal collection)


Length:  17"

Black Iris Memory Wire Bracelet

This was a particularly fun bracelet to do...I was having strange effects from my cold medicine this week (it was playing with my sense of balance and my vision rather than clearing out my cold-fogged head), so this was a particularly challenging piece with all the deep, vivid colors.  I love how it turned out though!  I used rainbow iris seed beads and one of my favorite natural stones, hematite, which always seem to work beautifully hand-in-hand.  Hematite is surprisingly heavy and has a cool, slick quality to it that I love in jewelry.  Hopefully the picture can speak for itself.

 

Name:  Black Iris

Price:  $12  (reason: hematite; personal collection)

Length:  8 loops

Desert Sunset Necklace

The reverse of my Cheery Cherry Choker, Desert Sun is one I made for my Etsy shop two years ago and liked so much I made myself one with leftover materials.  I love the rich colors of the sun rock jasper pendant, copper potato pearls, hematite rice, and black seed beads.  It was this necklace that got me playing around with marketing photos for my jewelry--not just using a plain white or black background, but adding extra visual interest to show potential buyers what it looked like with fabric or more "artsy" displays.  Granted, the lighting wasn't all that good, but I think the point came across okay.  It's hard to keep light glare off the pendant because it's so shiny! Note: the teardrop down toward the bottom between the two copper pearls became the pendant for my own necklace, while the two little teardrops became a pair of earrings.  I believe the last larger pendant at the very bottom became the focus for a necklace for my sister.

 

Name:  Desert Sun


Price:  $12 (originally $15 to $17 on Etsy)


Length:  14.75"

Night Pearl Illusion Necklace

For my first jewelry post, I wanted to feature an older necklace.  Night Pearl had another name originally (when I first made it almost two years ago), and I've kept it around instead of cannibalizing it into something else because of its pure simplicity.  Unlike most illusion necklaces I've done, Night Pearl has just one strand.  I used 6mm dark purple pearls, silver-lined dark purple seed beads, and 4mm hematite rounds.  The necklace is only about 15.75" long, which makes it a nice choker for most people, while on me it hangs fairly loose.  It was one of the pieces I had listed on Etsy.com back when I had a store there.

Name: Night Pearl

Price:  $10 (originally priced on Etsy for $12 to $15, I think)


Length:  15.75"