More Fall Bracelets and Earrings

It's the busy season; fall is here, winter is on its way, and that means that Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner.  Sometimes it's hard to get a moment to take a breath much less write a blog post, but I am quite overdue and here are a few new pieces I've got to get on the site.

The aquamarine bracelet, above, gets a kick from saucy lampwork beads that echo the colours of the aquamarines and black chalcedony and add a soupcon of hot pink for fun.  Of course, three colours means that the bracelet can also be worn with more outfits. The bracelet that you see below is what I call a "one-note" bracelet: it has three rows of pretty faceted prehnite rondelles that comprise most of the bracelet, but a large lampwork glass bead adds special interest.  This exquisite lampwork bead is one of our best made by a master lampworker; it introduces the only other colour (besides the sterling silver) in the bracelet.  A special Israeli clasp features a tulip on the ring part of the toggle; a largish sterling flower charm hangs between the prehnite and the lampwork.  This bracelet looks prettier in person since for some reason the prehnite is really hard to photograph so that I get its real colour; it seems to wash out in the photos, but this one is finally close to the original.

The Salvation Bracelet below is one that I've made a series of; it's called Magdalene, and it's made with precious as well as semi-precious gemstones.  This bracelet has black chalcedony, a large faceted ruby nugget, a smooth sapphire nugget, gorgeous rock crystal, a large faceted emerald nugget, and a large faceted citrine nugget.  Two beads on either side  have a relief cross on both sides.  A scalloped toggle clasp is the closure; a small prayer box hangs beside it.  Although the prayer box is small, it still opens and allows you to put a prayer on a small piece of paper into it.

The bracelet above is made with yellow opal (opal is the October birthstone) rondelles and for a dash of colour has a large slab-like aquamarine nugget.  The turquoise bracelet below mixes pretty blue turquoise with sterling silver and clear Swarovski crystals for a dressier look than you might expect from turquoise.

Finally, two pairs of earrings both feature aquamarine: the first earringscombine the aquamarine with yellow opal (a perfect match for the bracelet above) and the second pair are aquamarine with sterling silver. These aquamarine earrings are made with some of the prettiest aquamarine faceted briolettes I've ever had; they are an intense blue colour. For a special touch, they hang from sterling posts that have a freshwater pearl cabochon in the middle.

Enjoy the crisp fall weather and I'll try to be back with more soon!

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Opal: One of the October Birthstones

October is one of those months that has two modern birthstones: the opal and the pink tourmaline. Opal jewelry seems to be more popular today, perhaps because jewelry made with pink tourmalines is harder to find. (We do have jewelry on the Cluny Grey site with pink tourmalines on our Tourmaline Bracelets page.) Today I have a few of the new opal bracelets and opal earrings I'm about to put on the site. I will also have a couple of pieces made with Australian opals, the opals that many people first think of when they think of opals. Australian opals with their pink or bluish fire are very difficult to get in bead form, probably because of the difficulty of drilling them. Most of our opals are pink Peruvian opals, blue Peruvian opals, and yellow opals.
Peruvian opals are quite versatile. The opal bracelet above has pink opals mingling with beautiful lampwork beads (some of our favorites) and green chalcedony. The opals here are highly polished, light pink nuggets. Below, the pink Peruvian opals are faceted ovals that are very pink with very few inclusions. These pink opals give a dressier look to the bracelet as does the tiny beaded second chain with three floating heart charms.The faceted nuggets in the opal bracelet (shown in pictures above and below) have many inclusions in both black and brown; the black inclusions in particular give them a distinctive look making them perfect for pairing with faceted black chalcedony nuggets. The inclusions also give the bracelet a more casual look that would be great with jeans as well as office attire.
I am an ardent admirer of gold which I paired with the very nice faceted ovals below for a classic, dressy looking bracelet. All the metal is 14k gf; two charms give it a fun touch. And below this bracelet is an opal bracelet made with Peruvian blue opals. Here are blue opals with inclusions that look great with black chalcedony. I do have some very blue, almost inclusion-free blue Peruvian opals, but I often like to use these that have a translucent look with black inclusions. Although many gemstones are truly flawed by inclusions, opals are often enhanced and more interesting with them.

The opal earrings above would look great with our opal bracelets.
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Gemstones and Abalone with a Necklace or Two

March is almost over, and it's cherry blossom time. For me, this means several different things: my darling grand-daughter will be one year old, Washington will be inundated with tourists (and traffic) hoping to find the perfect confluence of blossoms, warm weather and sunlight to view what is truly one of Nature's lovely sights, and I am a month closer to a trip to Africa.
For jewelry, it means that I'll be working on items for Mother's Day, graduation, prom, June weddings, and summer beaches. Meanwhile, I have an odd assortment of jewelry pieces today!
First, above is a chrysoprase bracelet featuring really lovely chunky faceted chrysoprase nuggets that are a bit different from others that I've seen because of the brown that has been deliberately saved and made a part of the green chrysoprase nugget. Dynamite with the right outfit! And the star of the bracelet is a vintage sterling silver clasp with an inset flower cabochon (glass). A pretty lampwork bead with a shot of soft pink and perfect small green nuggets of chrysoprase finish the bracelet.
Below are two abalone bracelets that both get a kick from added gemstones; the first bracelet features faceted turquoise rectangles (some of my best) in a pretty blue; the second bracelet has faceted thick ovals of aqua chalcedony. Both have charms and toggle clasp closures in sterling.
Sometimes I seem to neglect using a certain gemstone and my supply of jewelry pieces gets low; I know it's because I'll often start using a certain gemstone and won't want to put it down, so that I don't rotate my time with different gemstones. I've neglected using jade lately, and will be making up for it, starting with the bracelet that you see above. Jade doesn't just come in green, but in a slew of beautiful colours. Here the bracelet has the traditional jade green along with a pink that picks up the pink in the gorgeous lampwork beads. A carved flower in pink jade repeats the flower theme of one of the lampwork beads. Two strands mean that this bracelet makes a definite statement.
Another two-strand bracelet below features calcite and jasper as well as another of those vintage clasps made of sterling silver. Such a beautiful clasp means that no matter which way the bracelet turns, there is something lovely to see. This bracelet has a generous helping of sterling silver beads from Bali as well.

I am making more necklaces than I did in the past (I am such a bracelet person!). I love the agate necklace above made with white agate, Swaraovski crystals, and a fantastic geode druzy agate pendant (very in style today). A special lily bead with a string of Swarovski bicones adds a touch of the unusual to this necklace.
Prayer box necklaces have been a staple on the Cluny Grey Jewelry site, but the one you see here is different because the prayer box is cylindrical instead of square. Sterling crosses from different regions hang on either side; a crystal clear Swarovski cross represents purity and virtue. Because coral was an ancient Christian symbol for protection, I added a coral charm to one side of the prayer box. The closure is a sterling lobster clasp.
Another staple on the website is Austrian Crystal Earrings, but I'm especially fond of these silver shadow Swarovski earrings made with Graphic beads, pretty Bali flower beads, and some of my favorite sterling earwires that have intricate roses on the front.
The chrysoprase earrings below are a perfect match for the bracelet at the top of this post.For a lot of fun, upload a picture of yourself with your hair pulled back to ivillage.com's makeover (http://www.ivillage.com/makeover) beauty page and try on different hairstyles and makeup.

Getting Ready for Fall

Women's Wear Daily is already showing the Spring 2010 fashions, but luckily here at Cluny Grey we don't have to get that far ahead! We are working feverishly on the Fall Collection which we will be posting soon. Meanwhile, custom orders are keeping us busy (as well as my new grand-daughter). And, as usual, it is just a challenge to keep our site pages filled with fresh jewelry as other jewelry sells. Today I have a few "odds and ends" - no special theme here!
First I have a couple of copper bracelets. Copper has been in fashion for a couple of seasons now and it is getting better and better! No more thinking that copper belongs to those medicinal bracelets; it is a chic accessory colour and copper jewelry looks great when you're wearing copper-coloured shoes and/or carrying a copper-coloured bag. An added plus is that it looks great on all skin types. And copper looks great with many of the new Fall colours. Above, a classic turquoise bracelet gets its extra punch from copper in the form of accents and a large linked copper chain. The copper bracelet below is a combination I love: copper Swarovski crystals and copper accents.

I'm very fond of blue Peruvian opal; here you see two opal bracelets, one with sterling silver and one with borosilicate lampwork beads and sterling silver. I'm especially fond of blue Peruvian opal when it has a whitish tint and black inclusions as in the bracelet below.

I can never keep enough ankle bracelets, whether gold or silver, on the site pages. The one above is made with sterling silver and abalone, a great summer combination. Finally, below a pair of dangle earrings made from pretty dark blue lampwork beads.
COMING IN SEPTEMBER, RIGHT AFTER LABOR DAY, THE CLUNY GREY FALL COLLECTION!!!!

Mother of Pearl, Labradorite, and Lampwork

It's a miracle I have any new pictures to post: besides doing custom work and packing like crazy, we have been remodeling our home (new floors in 3 downstairs rooms, a new upstairs bathroom, and downstairs bathroom as well as some cosmetic changes and painting the den). The workers are finally finished and my work has just begun. All the furniture in the rooms we changed had to be moved and while the workers moved the furniture back (my whole closet had to be emptied - shelving and all!) this is a wonderful opportunity to clean, clear out old clothes and all the junk we seem to have collected over the years. Of course, we still have to get a lot of decorating done. Fun, but whew! time-consuming and tiring!
A couple of nights I stayed very late at the studio, and the result is what you see on this post today.
When I started out, I didn't mean to work with mother-of-pearl, but like so many times, these funny silver mother of pearl pieces were on the workbench where I kept looking at them until I had to pick them up and play with them. The result: earrings and a bracelet made with silver mother-of-pearl with an Aurora Borealis coating added and Swarovski crystals in Silver Shadow.
Of course, I love labradorite and work with it any chance I get, so the natural thing to do when I realized I needed to replenish the abalone jewelry stock was to mix abalone and labradorite together with sterling silver and some of my favorite lampwork beads from Robin Weber. It's a combination that I've used before, but one I don't think that I will tire of anytime soon.
The last lampwork bracelet is one of the prettiest bracelets I've ever made. Unfortunately, the picture is one of the worst that I've ever taken. I think that the soft almost opalescent pink on the beads is so subtle that it just doesn't show up well. The lampwork beads are made by Lynn Nurge of Laffingull (she's the beadmaker who makes smaller scale beads that are perfect for bracelets). I've mixed the lampwork with good gem quality peridot and sterling silver. The second strand of the bracelet is a very large linked sterling chain with the tiniest little sterling daisy charms hanging from the links (these don't show up very well either).
To my readers in the Scandinavia and Estonia, I'm sure that you're beginning to snuggle in and get cozy while to those of you in Hawaii (you know who you are), once again, I am so jealous of your climate. Meanwhile, I can see that a fire in our fireplace is in the near future.


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