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?

Fossilized Gastropod with Crystal Druzy

Fossils are fascinating. Whether they are dinosaur bones, ammonites, or some other extinct creature, they fill our imaginations and connect us to an ancient world. A Gastropod is fancy talk for a snail, slug, or mollusk! In fact there are over 15,000 species of gastropod fossils, as old as 500 million years. Fossilized gastropod sounds so much more appealing than fossilized slug... Nonetheless, the fossilized gastropod that I came across was also covered in crystal druzy. It blew my mind that something as icky as a slug could become something as exquisitely beautiful as this druzy fossil that I had come across.

Here is an amazingly informative article all about gastropods. http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Extension/fossils/gastropod.html

So when I first bought this fossil it wasn't drilled. It took me awhile to figure out how I was going to drill it (I'm not much for wire wrapping). Well, I finally figured it out and so I was able to make this pendant necklace.

I kept it simple with 14k gold filled chain and components, a faceted round ruby, and an asymmetrically placed ruby on the chain. I hope you like it!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/199905024/druzy-gastropod-ruby-14k-gold-filled?ref=listing-0