Blogtober: Fall 2021 Jewellery Collection

Surprise! I have quietly been putting this collection together over the last few weeks in order to present it at the 2021 New Westminster Cultural Crawl.

The stones that inspired the whole collection were the red snowflake obsidians. I bought them awhile ago and have been waiting to use them for the right collection. I recently got some peach Indian moonstones that paired well with them and from there, the collection grew, stone by stone! From rubies to sapphires, and druzy’s to agates…I love how the stones are all so different but fit together!

Half of my profits from this collection will be donated to the BC Cancer Agency in honour of October being cancer awareness month.

I will be posting all of these items to my online shop after the Cultural Crawl! If you want first dibs, head down to see me tomorrow and Sunday from 12-5pm (I’ll be at Good Omen on 6th street in New Westminster).

Sunset 2020 is LIVE

This collection was inspired by the last few pink sunsets summer gifts us before our grey rainy West Coast fall arrives!

I love how this collection turned out and already miss working on it!

SUNSET 2020

I was hoping to have this collection finished earlier this year but as you can see, the running theme for this year is “better late than never!”

This collection was inspired by the last few pink sunsets summer gifts us before our grey rainy West Coast fall arrives!

Hoping to have this collection finished by labour day (September 7th, 2020)…but just in case, don’t hold your breath!

Metamorphosis 37: Redo - Charm Earrings

Gold hoops with interchangeable charms

Ella’s hematite ring was metamorphosis 17! Since then, styles have changed and it was time to turn that ring into something else!

She mentioned she wanted some earrings and this idea immediately popped into my head. I used the small hematites from her ring and the silver to make the settings. I decided to add some moonstone charms as well so she could change them for a day/night look! As for the gold earrings, I traded her silver for what the gold earrings cost me. I don’t make this style hoop in small sizes as they are a lot of work and much cheaper to buy pre-made (because they’re usually machine-made).

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the point of Metamorphosis Redo is to show people that I don’t mind melting down things I’ve made in the past. Sometimes people are nervous to ask me to melt things that are outdated. Please don’t ever be nervous! Styles change and I am always happy to melt things down!

Metamorphosis 36: Sterling silver and Moonstone Ring

Sterling silver and moonstone ring

Haven’t done a metamorphosis in awhile! I’ve been meaning to and have another two on the go, time has just gotten away from me!

For this metamorphosis, Tara wanted a new wide-band ring with a lighter stone. She had plenty of stones but they were darker than what she wanted, so she purchased this moonstone from me.

I tried repurposing some of the bands she had on other rings as the base for this ring but the bands were weak once they were cut down to the size I needed to make a new triple-band. So instead I used a set of three rings that I had lying around. I didn’t make them (these types of rings are machine-made - it’s not that they can’t be made by hand but it would take forever and be very expensive and they wouldn’t be “even'“ so you either buy the beaded wire and make rings or you buy the rings already made). I bought the trio once for a project but then never used them and I found them again while I was working on this ring so I think it was kind of meant to be!

I made the vessel for the moonstone, attached it to the ring trio, then set the stone and polished it. It’s simple and it wasn’t one of the most complex things I’ve made but I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Metamorphosis 35: White gold, moonstone, and mother of pearl ring

Kat came all the way from Seattle to be part of this project! She left me her old grad ring that she never wore and trusted me to turn it into something new!

Kat was super organized in regards to sending me information of what she liked and didn’t like. I always love when people have visual references of their preferences because sometimes things get lost in translation or my idea of something is different than theirs!'

To make Kat’s ring, I melted down her white gold ring (see photo of it below) and made a plain band. I picked moonstone and mother of pearl for her ring because they are alternate birthstones to hers (pearl/alexandrite). Her grad ring had an alexandrite but I didn’t want to repurpose it. I made the settings for the stone and then soldered them to the band. After the ring was cleaned up and polished, I set the stones with the middle piece still between the settings. Cutting it out before I set the stones would make the stones harder to set since the band would be weaker once cut. After the middle piece was cut out, I gave the ring one more polish and voila!

METAMORPHOSIS 23: REVEAL

Mini ear-climbers

As I mentioned in my intro, I knew what I wanted to make Alice from the very beginning. My biggest issue was picking stones. It took awhile to find small stones in a combination that worked. I originally wanted all of the stones to be the same colour but different shapes, but given the timeline, that wasn't going to work (I would have had to order stones online because my suppliers didn't have the shapes/stones I needed). It took me awhile to find a combination that worked size-wise. I ended up using round faceted hematites, round cabochon emeralds, and pear cabochon moonstones.

Once I had the stones, I bought the settings, soldered them together and voila! 

METAMORPHOSIS 19: REVEAL

Cloud Necklace

I knew I wanted to make Meghan something nature-oriented. To get some ideas, I scrolled through her Instagram where she has photos of the spectacular scenic landscapes she's visited on her travels. As you can see by the photos, a lot of them have water, mountains, and clouds. When I noticed all the clouds, I remembered one halloween when Meghan was Grumpy Care Bear. Grumpy Bear has a cloud on it's stomach that rains both water and hearts.

After reminiscing about our care bear halloween, I knew I wanted to make her something blue and white that resembled a cloud. And the best idea I came up with was this necklace!

The trickiest part of making this necklace was setting all the stones. When you solder a bunch of bezel settings together, there isn't a lot of wiggle room to set the stones. I definitely got my dads help for some of the setting (as you can see by the man-hands in the bottom right photo of the making of quartet).

I think this necklace represents Meghan and thankfully, she loves it!

*Note: the top left photo of the inspiration photo quartet is by our friend Alice. Meghan was on the same trip so I figured the photo counted and could be included!

METAMORPHOSIS: DECEMBER REVEAL

Tikka

There you have it: the last metamorphosis of 2015!

I knew Kendra wanted a tikka and I wanted to make one. It was my first tikka and I thought it would be great to end the year making something new! I hope I get to make another some time soon!

The final product is actually different than my original design. The original tikka had a sodalite as the third eye (the dangling stone). When I was polishing it, it slipped from my hand and the sodalite ricocheted off the buffing machine's wall and cracked. That was annoying. But then I found the quartz and loved it as part of the design so much more than the sodalite. I think it was meant to be!

In the photo (courtesy of Kendra), she is also wearing some hammered silver earrings I made her earlier this year.

METAMORPHOSIS: MAY REVEAL

Stackable rings

Tess said she would like some stackable rings and I wanted to make some. Perfect!

I knew I wanted to use parts of her old rings as the bands for the new rings and some of the stones she already had as well. But, I also had it in my head that I wanted to use birthstones and Tessa’s are diamond, ruby, and sapphire: a combination I wasn’t sure Tessa would be a fan of.

The issue with birthstones is that people don’t like them and/or the combination their family stones make. What most people don’t realize is that there are alternate birthstones for every month. For example, April’s traditional birthstone is diamond, but one alternative is opal, which Tessa conveniently had.

For July, instead of using a ruby, I used black onyx. For September, instead of sapphire, I used moonstone (which Tessa also already had).

As for the bangles (featured below), they were a last minute addition. I figured it would be better to give her a stack of bangles she might wear instead of giving her back a little bag with random items she wasn’t wearing at all (i.e. dolphin earrings, a soccer ball pendant….).