It's been awhile since I updated my blog! I'm not great at this but I'm going to keep working at it!

I have been honing and practicing my silversmithing skills recently! Here is what I've made:

Sterling Silver with New Lander Chalcosiderite stone (sister of turquoise)

Sterling Silver with Native Silver Ore from Canada and Holly Chalcedony from Oregon

Sterling with Fox Turquoise and handmade feathers

Fox Turquoise with Sterling Silver and handmade flowers.

I've got other stuff in the works right now and I haven't lost my love for diamonds. I'm currently working on combining silversmithing with pave diamond beads and components to bring all the jewelry up another level.

Each time I make something I can see that I am improving which is very encouraging. I should take a picture of my throw away pile though. It's quite large! Lol!

My favorite thing to make was the feather pendant with the turquoise. I want to keep working on designs like this but incorporating all different stones.

What do you think I should try?

Covellite - a new copper mineral that I recently learned about and am officially obsessed with! It is an iridescent midnight blue color with flashes of purple and green, it is truly amazing!

First discovered at Mount Vesuvius by Nicola Covelli (according to Wikipedia). It truly looks like a stone that would come from a volcano.

The cut of this stone is very interesting, a kind of tapered rectangle.

What do you guys think?

Bezel Setting a Corner Tutorial

Here is the link to the best tutorial for bezel setting a corner. It shows a square cab, but I used this exact same technique on the corner edge of a teardrop shaped cabochon and it came out great (see post below this one).

http://gemstone.smfforfree4.com/index.php/topic,1738.0.html

Also another online wealth of knowledge is all of the youtube tutorial videos by Soham Harrison. If you haven't seen these, this is the best kind of help. The only thing is he has every tool known to mankind for jewelry making and those of us who are still operating on "bare minimum" in the tool department just have to accommodate for those differences.

Check it out!! You will learn so much.

https://www.youtube.com/user/1soham1

Last night I watched a tutorial on adding granulation details to pendant, rings, etc. I am going to try it later this week. I'll let you see my progress this time! : ) Here is an example of a ring with granulation but I did not make this.