Sales!

Hurray! All three of these pieces sold in the past week! I can make duplicates of some of them, so if you're interested, please just let me know!

I just listed another ring on Etsy. You can see it here - purple quartzite and sterling silver wire.

Twilight - Amethyst and Sterling Silver Asymmetrical Necklace

Luxurious faceted amethyst pillow beads drape dramatically from delicate sterling silver wire. The asymmetrical design is bold and sophisticated. The necklace measures 16.5 inches, including the full length of the top section of amethysts, and is finished with a sterling silver hook clasp.

You can buy the necklace here.

Abundance

This is my most recently listed item on Etsy and on my website. It's a pretty simple necklace, but I really like it. The stunning green stones are actually green (grossular) garnet! It also has little faceted flat squares of labradorite (one of my favorite stones), tiny faceted amethyst rondelles, and tourmaline heishe beads, all on sterling silver. The chain is also sterling. You can see it here or here on Etsy.

Soooon, I will have more pictures! Stephen's still working on doing the photoediting for items that he photographed a while ago. Several of the items have recently been sent to galleries, so that's kind of annoying - there's no point in listing the items now, although we have good photos for them!

I'm working on several new things now. One is a design for reading glasses holder / brooch. I'd like to have it be at least semi-easy to replicate, since one of the galleries thinks that they can sell quite a few. But first I have to come up with an idea that works and is open to quite a bit of decoration, since apparently the ladies who are interested in them do NOT want something boring and cheap! If I can find a design that works, this could be really helpful.

More updates to come...

ShyViolet.net

Week 30 - All in the Details

Freshwater pearls dyed a lovely cranberry color, sterling silver beads, and a pendant I made of sterling and fine silver wire with more small sterling beads. I really like making these pendants - they look really dressy with just a simple strand of something to accent them, and they're relatively quick gratification, too! All comments welcome as usual.

Shy Violet

Deepwood Art Challenge Entry

Here's my entry in the Deepwood Art Challenge, using lampwork beads and hand dyed cord by glass artist Fran Lizardi of Deepwood Art. The frame is handformed sterling silver coiled with hairthin fine silver wire. The glass beads are accented by handmade sterling silver faceted beads. The clasp, not pictured, is an s-clasp that I handforged from sterling silver. You can see the other entries here as well as vote for the one you like best. My entry will be available on my website in the next few days. If it's not up and you're interested, just email me.

FSOJ - Week 19 - Off Theme

Well, it's not on theme, but I like it anyway! The blue ovals are gorgeous blue kyanite, with freshwater pearls and handmade sterling silver beads. The links are of course handmade, which for some reason took longer than usual on this necklace. The kyanite is a bit funny to work with, it scratches easily, so you have to pay attention where the ends of the wires are waving. The clasp in the back that you can't see is a sterling s-hook.

Shy Violet

FSOJ - Week 18 - Oriental Express

The theme this week was Oriental Express. This necklace is large white freshwater pearls and black barrel-shaped cloisonne beads. Simple, but dramatic... I think so, anyway! All comments welcome.

Shy Violet

FSOJ - Week 17 - Leaves

It's a bit late, but better than never. Here's my take on the Leaves theme. The pendant is Thai hilltribe silver, accented by freshwater pearls dyed green and gold. It also has matching earrings, not pictured because the bust/neck seems to not work with French hooks. The holes for the earrings are photoshopped out because I thought it looked silly for there to be holes with no earrings in them! All comments welcome, as usual.

Shy Violet

FSOJ - Week 15 - Shadow

The theme this week was Art Nouveau. This obviously is not Art Nouveau - It's a pretty simple strung necklace: sardonyx, black onyx, and sterling accent beads. It has matching earrings that are not pictured because the neck/bust doesn't seem to like french wires very well at all.

Shy Violet

FSOJ - Week 14 - Saisons

The theme this week was Hint of Winter - This necklace is actually the original piece in my Seasons Collection, so it's a little bit of every season! Freshwater pearls (potato and rice), garnets (faceted rondelles and diamonds), citrine (buttons and chips), and peridot (chips). It doesn't look quite as lopsided in real life as it does in the picture - the color changes are asymmetrical, but the pearl section doesn't really look so thin in comparison to the peridot section.

Shy Violet

FSOJ - Week 13 - Willow

The theme this time was Second Thoughts - The pendant is an 18 gauge sterling wire frame coiled with 28 gauge fine silver and sterling beads. Then I made the necklace to go with it - african jade and golden jade (both probably really serpentine - those are trade names, but I don't know what they really are, serpentine is a guess). Now I'm not sure if the pendant and the necklace even look okay together at all!

Shy Violet

FSOJ - Week 12 - Regal

The theme was Simple Yet Elegant - This lariat is faceted rhodolite garnets, faceted onyx, faceted sterling silver beads, and a handmade sterling drop accented with two little rhodolite garnet cabs. The closeup shows the faceting much better.

FSOJ - Week 7 - Upstream

Once again not on theme. :-) The fish is Thai Hilltribe silver, the rest is liquid silver and lapis. The necklace is exactly how I envisioned it. However....

I actually completed this necklace a while ago (I am in grad school, and with school-craziness, I can't take pictures every week. I make something every week, but it might be a while before you see it.). In the meantime, the necklace has gotten tarnished, mostly the liquid silver bits. How can it be cleaned? I have tried the baking soda / aluminum foil thing, and it did nothing. I used silver cleaner (which you are specifically not supposed to use on lapis, I know, I know... but I had nothing else, and with lapis I didn't know of any other options). The silver cleaner worked GREAT, and showed no immediate ill effects. I put it in a bag and sealed it up, hoping to prevent future tarnishing. Now (less than a month later) the silver is all blue and purple. It doesn't appear corroded, but heavily tarnished and distinctly blue/purple. Any ideas on what to do? The silver cleaner would work again, but I don't want to sell it if I can't tell the person how to clean it (and have it stay clean for at least some length of time).

Thanks in advance. This is one of my favorite necklaces so far and I'd hate to just chalk it up to an impossible design.

Shy Violet

FSOJ - Week 3 - Eastern Spice

Well, it's not exactly spicy, but this necklace does have a vaguely Asian feel to me. The necklace is Burmese jade, smoky quartz, and sterling silver. The pendant is handmade Thai silver stamped with a vine motif. The clasp, which you can't see, is a sterling tab-style clasp with the Chinese symbol for "joy."

This is a really simple necklace, but I think it's one of my favorite simple necklace designs ever - the colors just really matched my mood when I made it.

On another note, I finally went back and added the pictures for my week 2 entry in the FSOJ blog, so if you're interested, I would love comments on it as well. Thanks!

ShyViolet