Four New Pieces, Two of Which Are Shop-Bound!

I promised pictures, and here they are! More, even, than you expected! Weeks 21-25 of my Year of Jewelry Project, as well. Feel free to take a look there, but here will have pretty much the same stuff, because I can't resist an opportunity to gush about my work when handed such a convenient way to do it.

Off we go:

First of all, two of these are at least partially video-game-inspired, so yes, now that we're past learning how much of a geek I am, we can get on to how AWESOME these things are.

The first one is just a big globe of tiger-eye which I bought because it reminds me of the planes of Oblivion from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion...a dark and shifting and mysterious black lava-rock landscape perforated with veins of gleaming, glowing lava. This dark blue tiger-eye, with its veins of red and yellow and its mysterious chatoyance, reminds me of the menacing, thrilling feeling of navigating through a magical and dangerous and hostile environment alone...

It's BIG, 21mm, and it's just a huge globe with no way to configure it any particular way...I, wisely, I think, realized that the best way to use it in a piece would just be to let it show off, turn as it would, and just be the spectacular stone that it is. Any bigger of a setting and the stone would be too big to wear...I just put enough copper on it to set it off and to keep it held secure. I've already worn it - it goes well with dark clothes, lends subtle interest, especially with a low-cut neckline. Personally, I love it. Subtle and dark and mysterious is a streak I definitely should bring out in myself more often.

These beauties are rough, unpolished nuggets of green tourmaline. Tourmaline naturally grows in a spiky shape, so "nugget" doesn't really work to describe it, but that's pretty much what they are. They're dark, dark green and when you look at them deeply, they shine with a glitteriness that is almost impossible-looking. As long as I can remember, I've loved things like that - again, the mysteriousness. You have to look deep into them to see their true nature, and that nature changes as soon as they move. I don't know why, but something fascinates me about things like that...and these are perfect in that way. Hand-formed chain means that depending on the angle you see them from, the chains themselves look completely different - they're either made up of s-links or a graduated series of rings. I think that that change, that ability to shift appearances depending on a gust of wind, is perfect for these stones, which change depending on the angle you see them from, how close you are, the light conditions, their vector and velocity...these are mutable as the wind, and I love it! And I hope someone gets that and loves them as much as I do, because I can't afford to keep anything silver these days. I may have to make some similar thing to keep, though, because Boyfriend of Mine loves these! It's nice to have a guy who notices your earrings, but man, does it ever make it hard to sell them.

Here's a view that shows off the two different views of the chain:

And here's a view that shows off the glittery shine of the stones:

This necklace was unexpected...I knew I wanted to do something with that awesome stone, and I was going to go ultra-simple with it, but somehow accents materialized, and then a bird swooped down to make a toggle when I tried to clasp it with a simple hook. So the egg is bigger than the bird - poetic license, okay? It's best this way - If I wasn't going ultra-simple and just putting the stone on a wire and hooking it up, then I need to have the balance that that toggle brings when it pulls everything together (literally). Otherwise it would be very unbalanced with the stone on the one hand, the open ring on the other, and nothing to finish the look. It wasn't intended at all to be a bird-themed necklace, and yet, that stone makes a good robin's egg, and the whole is like a cave painting of a serene spring scene; highly stylized, primitive-looking, rough, but pure in intent.



And....finally. This. Science Fiction, right here.

I don't actually know what this stone is, because the little card on the table I bought it from said "fossil jasper" - but no fossil jasper I've ever seen looks anything like it. I intended to go ultra-simple with this one too, but look what my hands did when I wasn't paying attention! It ended up being WAY more awesome. It gives me a really science-fiction-y vibe, and two of my friends told me that it looked like "Welkynd Stones" (a sort of magical relic) from the same game as I mentioned earlier, which we all play - and so I'm thinking of it as a Welkynd Stone, and it's my magic charm.
This is another thing I'm keeping for myself, not because I bought the stone for that purpose, but because now that it's made, I cannot sell it. At least, not yet. It's perfectly my style. It's happened before that for a week or four days I was completely in love with a piece and then all of a sudden I was fine to give it up, so maybe that will happen again, but for now, this is staying in my personal stash and that's that. The way the frame goes down only so far and no farther and no less far, it's perfect! The way it looks like it's floating in the frame is perfect! The contrast between the widths of all those gauges of wires, the wrap, the spirals, the binding wires - all perfect and exactly what I want and I love this piece. So much. If it goes up on the market, you know what a fickle heart my heart is...right now, it's MINE.

It's worth noting, though, that I have another stone just like this one, and I'd be fine with making another pendant like it. You know, if anyone wants one. Hehe.



So, that's my I-Made-Things post for this week! If you think things, let me know what they are!