My first

This is my first major necklace I finished. Most of my jewelry that I make has an organic feel to it. It doesn't look like you bought it at Tiffany's for sure, that just isn't my style. This necklace is a very special piece to me. To start, it has a 10 carat untreated aquamarine on top with a prong setting I built for it. I like to work with untreated stones, the energy is just different than those of treated for color intensity. It seems that you can hardly get ahold of stones that are not heat treated for color. They are treating them as they pull them out of the mines. And don't get me started on all the diamond controversy, makes me sick to think what they are doing. Anyways getting back to my lotus pendant. Then I built the lotus flower out of soft wax, and had it cast into gold. With the untreated citrine at the bottom, I got to facet that myself with my dear friend Martin. (who is no longer with us, had a massive heart attack and died at the age of 36) I picked it out from a batch of rough citrine, and I faceted that into a brilliant round. I didn't get to facet anymore stones with Martin, this citrine was the only one, hence the specialness. So I built the stage for it all with wax wires and once I got the lotus back I metal smithed, it to the necklace, and then set the two stones. The necklace is yellow gold and white gold. My camera isn't the greatest for taking these kind of pictures, but you can see what it looks like.