camwyn | Jewelry work 2 (Reply)

A silver wire necklace with a central bronze oval stone. The wires form an arc like an Egyptian breastplate necklace. There are turquoise colored beads and a tiny red crystal on either side of the bronze stone, and red beads below the entire arc. There is a fringe of turquoise and red stone dangles hanging from the bottom. The chain is links of angular silver wire.

Closeup of the previous necklace, from the left side.

I did this one almost entirely because I'd bought those turquoise and bronzite dangles thinking they looked awesome and I wanted to work with them. turquoise practically cries out for silver, unless you plan on pulling out all the stops and going gold or bronze to a degree I didn't think I wanted to do. The round beads are dyed magnesite. The central stone is bronzite. The beads on either side of the central stone are crystal, but the slightly larger red beads in the lower arc are garnet, as are the red beads in the dangles (although the ones in the dangles are dyed to make sure they have even, saturated color, because like many stones garnet comes in grades from 'no srsly this is a gemstone, honest, we swear' to 'OMG CALL THE AUCTIONHOUSE', and I do not have the money for the good end of that spectrum). The wire is sterling silver fill, which is ten percent silver and the rest is copper; it lasts way longer than silver plated. This whole thing was done as a gift for an old friend from high school, who I haven't been able to meet up with in a while. I kind of owe her something like two or three special occasion gifts, so I confirmed that she likes turquoise as a color and used her as an excuse to do something with those dangles.