Lariat Necklaces

I like to wear lariat necklaces myself, so it's a bit odd that I don't make them that often or make that many. I got started on these simply because I happened to catch a glimpse of one of the new Swarovski crystal rings as I was looking for some other beads. The ring was in one of my favorite colours - Copper - so I couldn't resist seeing what I could do with it. I decided not to do that much. I used 14 karat goldfilled chain and wire and attached the Swarovski crystal ring to one end, and a large copper bicone to the other with a few little bead accents. I put a Swarovski butterfly in copper to one side of the ring - and I'm in love with this lariat necklace.
Another of my favorite Swarovski colours is blue Montana and since to me it seems to be much more the colour of a real sapphire than Swarovski's actual sapphire colour, I used the Montana crystals to make a lariat that would also work as a birthstone necklace for September. This necklace is outstanding because of the wonderful Karen Hill Tribes chain with little links holding together huge hammered rounds and large flower shaped sterling. This is a rather long lariat necklace; one thing I like about it is that you can wear the back of it facing front during the day when you're at the office, then when you're ready to go out, you just turn it around and you have tons of sparkle! The large Swarovski crystals fit through the hoop, but I also added an almost indiscernible little ring clasp for those who may wear it out dancing.
Finally, a green aventurine lariat necklace made of aventurine disks, faceted olives, and carved flower beads. Here the loop that the other side goes through is made of the faceted olives, and because of the size of the loop, the other side can be looped through more than once to shorten the remainder.
All of these lariat necklaces can be found on the Lariat Necklaces page of the Cluny Grey website.

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Fuchsia earrings

If you're curious what is the second chainmail weave I was talking about that can be downloaded for free (see the bottom of my previous post), here is the end result.
Finished this pair of earrings this afternoon, took me no longer than 20 minutes. Very easy and fun to make.

Nearly There!

Well the inventory for tomorrows party is all up and done - printed and sitting on my dhs desk - lets hope he remebers it!! Hopefully stock is good and there will be something for everyone - sad thing is with me I already have spent my predicted takings (well in my head!) so fingers crossed I can order the new gemstones and lampwork soon ....



The above bracelet Contemporary Pearl is one of my latest pieces got a little stuck when it came to the clasp and luckily I have a very talented friend who not only makes my little tags but also makes toggle clasps and other things - her site kutuu.com is launched today so you better go see how clever and talented she is! (She also makes fabulous jewellery ;) )

I also have made some extra earrings and pendants for tomorrow so if I get around to posting I will show you - I may not be back until Sunday though - party days can be manic - tomorrows is just up the road in my hairdressers XL so I haven't got far to travel!

© Gemheaven 2007

Chainmail again

I found somewhere mentioned a website (culturejewelry.com) where they sell some chainmail patterns for download and got curious to see what they have available. For registering for their newsletter you get to download a free pdf of the spiral weave. Here is below the result. I was pleasantly surprised as it's very easily and nicely explained in the pdf file. Made this small chain last night while watching tv. I think this even surpases the boxchain or the byzantine in how easy it is.
These rings gotta be the smallest I've ever worked with! The chain is really thin on my wrist, even though the camera magnified it enough to show all the non-perfectly closed rings, lol!

Btw, if you register to their forum (members.culturejewelry.com), you get to download a second free tutorial. You can see the tutorial on this link only after you're registered there.

Jewelry Blog Cruising

I love visiting various blogs, besides looking at the beautiful jewelry, I also click on some of their links and get to some other goodies. Sometimes I completely forget where I started from and I'm just amazed at the wonderful pages my clicking on various links brought me to.

Some blogs and pages randomly selected, in no particular order, from my latest blog cruising...

Something Sublime
Nomadic Creations
Textures Online
Sherry's Jewels
Paradigm Jewelry

The Swirls of Abalone

I am very fond of natural beads that have flash, iridiscence, sparkle, glitter, so moonstone and labradorite are favourites as are lepidolite, some mother of pearl, and abalone. When I am able to combine these into one piece of jewelry that is aesthetically pleasing, that makes me really happy. So I like the abalone and labradorite bracelet that you see above very much. Besides pretty swirling abalone ovals and the nuggets and coins of labradorite that have tons of good blue flash, I used some of Robin Weber's best (I think) silver lentil lampwork beads that do a great deal of glistening on their own. Karen Hill Tribe silver from Thailand and a Bali sterling toggle clasp complete the bracelet. This bracelet and the other abalone jewelry can be found on the Cluny Grey site on the Abalone Jewelry page.




I made two sets of simple earrings: the first resemble chandeliers with the difference being that only one oval of abalone hangs from each chandelier. The earrings below have some of the same abalone ovals, only this time they hang from very thick and large chain links of imprinted Karen Hill Tribes' chain which in turn hang from sterling earwires with a large swirled disk on the front and wires that fasten in the back.
Abalone jewelry goes with many different styles and colours of clothing. A lot of abalone that you see in jewelry is actually a veneer of the mother of pearl glued to a some sort of backing. True natural abalone is a plain brown on one side with the beautiful iridiscent mother of pearl on the other. Abalone is really a hard substance, so natural abalone is great for jewelry.


I'm still busy putting more of our Fall jewelry on the website. Meanwhile, we had a great thunder shower today which finally cooled things off a bit.


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