The excitement is mounting…

Sally is coming over tomorrow to try out all the new jewellery making stuff she had for her birthday, so I got some fiddly little jobs done today so that I can give her my undivided attention. I’ve accumulated some gorgeous stones in the last year, and being a bit of a magpie by nature, I love to just gaze at them and play with them. Sometimes I have a design in mind and buy the stone to fit, but more often than not I just buy what I love and let ideas come. Sometimes it’s instant: more often it’ll take a while.

Amethyst has always been a favourite of mine, but labradorite and opals vie for the top spot. So today I made mounts for a few stones, so they’re all one step closer to becoming something stunning to wear… Mostly in silver, as it sets the stones off perfectly, but I think the blue adventurine unicorn I have will contrast beatifully against copper. I also made a copper bezel mount for a gorgeous little ammonite that has flashes of rainbow opalescence running across it, the warm metal tones beatifully with the muted browns of the stone. No pictures today, but I’ll be showcasing the finished pieces here first!

The Claws are Out

In amongst all the post that awaited me when I got home from my mum’s was a book on stone setting I had completely forgotten I had ordered.

So I put on my “how hard can it be?” head, and as usual, realised that the answer is “very”… No change there then.

There was an 8mm labradorite cabochon knocking about, so I thought I’d have a go at a claw setting, as up until now I’ve just done rubover settings.  I didn’t want to risk wasting any silver, and copper goes nicely with labradorite, so I used that.  The results aren’t perfect, but for a first attempt at a totally new technique, I’m quite pleased!