behind the scenes: my mom's xmas gift

over the years, my mom has built up quite a collection of my jewelry. every mother's day, birthday, and christmas she gets a new piece that I create for her. sometimes its a piece that is from one of my existing collections that she fell in love with, and other times I will custom make a piece for her. this year I decided to custom make her a necklace and bracelet. she loved my hillary bracelet so I decided to tweak the design a bit for her christmas jewelry. check out my design and construction process, and the final product!

the before shot

determining the labradorite and chrysoprase pattern

stringing the necklace

almost done

ta da!

lapis and chrysoprase stones

stringing the bracelet

ta da!

the creative process: part 2

as I mention in this post, I have been working on a necklace to wear to a friend's wedding next week. I decided to go bold and colorful, with lots of sparkle. I finalized my color combination and then the construction process began! check it out:

I went with colorful chalcedony, spinel, carnelian, labradorite, and amethyst

to make construction easier, I separated the gemstones into piles. it also just looks prettier on my desk :)

started stringing! that's my bead stopper at the end to make sure things don't go flying, although they still tend to anyway

first strand complete!

close up shot of completed necklace

ta da! final necklace. all set for pauline's wedding :)