Keith contacted me via my website as there are two very special girls who have a birthday coming up – soon to be one year old twins. Keith wanted two butterfly pendants made for them.
Keith plans to have their names engraved on one of the butterfly wings.
What a lovely idea for a present!
Thanks Keith!
A lovely customer contacted me from Florida recently. She was about to purchase a pendant from The Silver Forge shop, and wanted to make sure she was getting the right one. I was happy to help!
Agate was apparently one of the stones in the breastplate of decision constructed at the God of Israel’s instruction for the priest to wear (Exodus 28:15 – the Holy Bible). It is felt that the agate in the breastplate was likely a sky blue variety.
My customer said of an agate pendant she already has “I wear the pendant to remind me of being grounded in my faith in my Lord and as a symbol of Him as my rock. It is my symbol of a shield guarding my heart.”
I offered some options which I felt might be right for her, and she decided to go with this lovely electric blue stone, which I custom made into this pendant. I was glad to be able to give my support in her quest for spiritual strength and peace!
I came across this divine piece of Cherry Creek Jasper a while ago, and just finished making it into a ring for myself.
The design was partly inspired by my dear friend and classmate, Jane. She makes beautiful rings, and her shanks are often very squared off at the ends.
I love the very organic nature of the stone. Jasper is so hugely versatile!
Rusty, the artisan behind the beautiful ‘Vance’ guitars, commissioned me to create a ring for his daughter’s birthday.
He chose the stone from my collection, then sent me a copy of a chart on which he’d measured the size of a ring from her ‘little gripper’. (Hehe, ‘little gripper’ made me laugh when Rusty send that to me!)
It was such a pleasure to set this beautiful stone for someone lovely to wear.
This is one of Rusty’s guitars: exquisite workmanship, and (apparently, from all who tell me) totally awesome to play. If you’re interested in owning one of these beauties, let me know, and I’ll put you in touch with him!
Vance Custom Guitars
Thanks so much for the honour, Rusty. I really appreciate it!
I was very excited yesterday to discover that a treasury I curated had made it to the front page of Etsy Australia! For those who might not know, Etsy is an online handmade marketplace, where thousands of individual sellers host their own shops, and millions of fabulous handcrafted or vintage items can be drooled over (and bought). (My shop can be found here, if you haven’t been already!)
Etsy members can curate online collections of sixteen items each, called a treasury. Selected treasuries are displayed on the front page of Etsy each day. Recently I’ve been making lots of them, in part because a couple of Etsy teams I belong to curate as a means of promotion, but mainly because it’s a great way to window shop and come across marvellous things you would never otherwise have seen! Each of my treasuries has a theme, be it a particular item that the treasury is built around, or something I love, or a colour scheme. It’s very zen and quite addictive!! I find myself thinking in curator mode as I walk around IRL. 🙂
Anyway, enough background, on with the tale! I belatedly discovered that one of my treasuries was chosen to appear on the front page! Very exciting, and quite an accolade! The only sad moment was that I wasn’t online while it was on display, so missed seeing it. 🙁
Never mind, I was very happy, and hope that the lovely sellers whom I chose to feature in it were happy too. I’m hoping another of my curated collections is selected to appear on the front page soon! Now, off to Etsy to do some more dreaming and drooling. 🙂
I bought two divine lodolite bullet shaped cabs a while ago, and I spent some time contemplating how to do them justice. I was waiting for inspiration to strike me, and it eventually did!
Lodolite is commonly known as Garden Quartz.
It is clear quartz with inclusions, which look like a landscape scene – garden or underwater garden!
I feel the organic vine-like nature of the ring complements the beautiful stone.
I’m looking forward to making another ring with my second gorgeous piece of Lodolite!
For a while now, I’ve had a design for a ring in my head. In part inspired by the power station we drive past a few times a week; and in part inspired by castles and towers, minarets and mosques, factories and smokestacks – I seem to have quite an industrial/architectural theme running through my head lately.
The stones are Peruvian Blue Chalcedony Briolettes, which I turned on their ends. Divine colour, don’t you think?
I learned how to flange chenier, which was fun! The briolettes remind me of puffs of smoke.
I have some little pear shaped free-form orange carnelians in my gemstone stash, and I think there may be another ring in this style coming along in the future! What do you think?
I made these domed earrings for Gracie for her 18th birthday last month.
Happy birthday, sweetheart!
The very last piece that I made in my training course last year was this sterling silver and garnet crown set ring. It’s a bit of a departure from my normal style, but I like it!
I specifically chose a garnet because my lovely sister who lives on the other side of the world has just turned 50, and she likes garnets.
Happiest of birthdays, dearest Christina! xxx
As I mentioned in my previous post on Flipside Circus, I was happy to donate a custom made handcrafted sterling silver and drusy agate ring for the recent Flipside Fiesta fundraising raffle.
John was the lucky winner, and he unveiled the prize for his wife Robby at Christmas time. I recently visited them both in their lovely home, and Robby chose her favourite gemstone from my collection – it wasn’t drusy after all, but I didn’t mind a bit!
This gorgeous stone is Unakite – I’ll do an in-depth post about that later. For now, it’s a natural stone, and isn’t it pretty!!!
Congratulations, John and Robby, well done on supporting such a great and worthy cause; and Robby, I hope you enjoy wearing your ring!!