A Tiger's Meow

This is a piece I made for someone who didn't end up wanting it in the end, it scarred me for a short while. Sometimes I am just too sensitive, but it was a great learning process for me. But anywho, this is a tiger eye cabochon that is domed on both sides from Chris, with two grossular garnets one on top and one on the bottom. Both of them have been faceted by Martin. These garnets are spectacular and the color on them is just gorgeous. They go great with the tiger eye. The setting I built out of soft wax and had cast in to 14ct yellow gold. I picked out two prong settings which I soldered onto the setting. I then set the stones, and then the tigers eye. My signature on my pieces is having the back cut out so the energy of the stone can come through while you are wearing it. Again I apologize for my camera it isn't the best for taking these kinds of pictures, but you can see what it looks like. This is definitely a power piece to wear, meeeow!

Papillon

This is a yellow gold butterfly necklace I made for my mom. It is on the larger side. I designed it out of soft wax. The body of the butterfly is a koroit opal, which I got from my friend Chris the wired artist. I love his work, and did I mention his love for opals! And the head is green glass, faceted by Martin. My mom really wanted a butterfly necklace, and honestly this piece took me a while, like years to do. I just started it one day, stuck it away and didn't finish it until earlier this year. Must have been the right time for her to get it and be able to wear, for she is getting ready to fly. Again my camera isn't the greatest in this kind of shot, but you get the idea! I wanted to try and show you all the color in the opal!

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.