I created these pendants for a customer, one each for him and his girlfriend.
She is going overseas, and he wanted something to symbolise their love.
I created them so that when the domes are placed together, a complete sphere is formed. Each dome has a larger and a smaller solid silver sphere inside, to represent each of them.
What a beautiful and romantic gesture!
I bought the most divine wooden tree puzzle from my lovely friend, Kylie, and it lives in my study where it brings me joy each day! I was inspired so much by it, that I asked Kylie how she would feel if I were to borrow her beautiful tree design for the ‘Earth’ symbol in my new Elementals range. She kindly agreed to let me! I feel honoured both that she was happy for me to use her gorgeous tree shape, and that she liked the pendant I created so much that she bought it! Below is a blog post that she wrote about it. You can read it in full over at Kylie’s Raw Toys website!
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I received a request to make a pendant with an Australian theme for a wee Irish girl. I designed this little gumleaf pendant for her.
I didn’t want to be too typically Australian, and liked the subtlety of the gumleaves and gumnuts.
The initial idea for the leaf construction came from a good friend and ex-classmate. Thanks, Fiona!
I made one of these silver sphere pendants for my mother-in-law for Christmas. In the rush, I didn’t have time to photograph it.
Providentially, it was accidentally lost, and she asked if I could make another one!
It is hollow inside. I love the soft finish.
I’m thinking of adding these to the shop – let me know if you’re interested!
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!
My son commissioned me to make a pendant for his lovely girlfriend for Christmas.
He chose the stone from my collection – what great taste he has!
I love green!
The term “drusy” comes from the word “druse”, which refers to a rock surface (usually a cavity) covered with tiny individual crystals, such as are found inside geodes or in larger pockets of mineral deposits.
Drusy crystals take hundreds or even thousands of years to form. They form as molten rock begins to cool with trapped gases inside. The gases cause gaps in the rock. As ground water carrying dissolved silica is forced into a porous area of the rock for century after century, tiny crystals form on the surfaces or in cavities of the rock, forming a blanket of crystals.
These rocks are split open to reveal the crystals within. Cabochons are then cut from the surface of the rock capturing the drusy elements.
The most commonly found drusy is quartz (agate or chalcedony), but many other species can exist in this form.
Naturally colored quartz drusy is found almost exclusively in muted colors such as white, grey, tan and cream. Many quartz pieces, though, are dyed black or other vivid colors such as purple, red, green and blue, and some are coated with titanium or other metallic vapor which creates various iridescent finishes. You can read more about gemstone treatments here.
I love working with drusy, because as well as being incredibly beautiful, no piece is ever the same!
Some of the pieces shown here are available for sale in my online shop. I am currently only working with natural stones, which I am happy to custom-make into rings or pendants similar to the ones shown here if you would like one. Do contact me for a quote, won’t you!!
My dear friend Sophie chose this piece of drusy agate and I made it into a pendant for her.
It’s the first pendant I’ve made with drusy, and I’m really happy with the way it turned out!
Soph was really pleased with it, and I plan to create some more soon!! 🙂
The brief for our seventh project for the course I’m doing this year was to create a piece using chenier hinge as a feature rather than a function. (Chenier is hollow tubing, in case you weren’t sure!)
I designed this pendant so that it could be worn both horizontally and vertically. The six plates rotate around a centre rod. There were a few challenging moments to my usual sadly limited patience during the construction of this piece. Titanium is an interesting but hard metal to work with.. physically hard rather than mentally! It’s a dull grey colour, and very hard to cut, file and especially drill. The gorgeous colour is achieved by heating very carefully, so it has to be riveted on rather than soldered. I added the titanium mainly because I fell in love with the blue quartz bullet stones!!
Once in a while, my fellow students and I agree, you make something that has many challenging stages in it, and many learning experiences. By the end of the process you are pretty over it – so you pop the piece away for a while, and when eventually you bring it out once more, it usually is much more pleasing than you remember! This is one of these pieces! 🙂