I love a bit of colour in my jewellery – do you? You’ll find I use quite a few beads and stones just to bring out a detail or to allude to a natural element associated with the design. For earrings I use semi-precious beads. For example: lapis lazuli for sky blues and azurite for deep ocean blues and greens, carnelian and red jasper for the reds of flowers and autumnal leaves, and rainbow haematite which remind me starlings’ summer plumage.
However, for setting into pendants in the way that I like, I can’t use most of those stones as they won’t withstand being fired in the kiln. For that reason, I often use lab-created stones such as cubic zirconium. This can give the colour of the real gemstones, but will survive the high temperatures inside my kiln. My favourites are the lab-created peridots and amethysts and you’ll see these in many of my leaf and heart pieces.
I can set larger semi-precious stones and have used them in one-off designs in commissions and in personal pieces. I have also now got some lovely semi-precious stones that I’ll be designing pendants around in the future, but I think my favourites will always be the glittering clear lab-created stones that nestle so well into the real leaf pieces, saving the natural stones for earrings. Once I have new designs in these new stones, I’ll share them with you. In the meantime, if you love a little splash of colour, take a look at the earrings and pendants to see the different ways it can work withing nature-inspired silver jewellery. Collections vary through the year, so do look out for new ones - or be notified early by subscribing to my newsletter below
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