Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A Love Affair

My love affair with stones began as a child.  I would collect random rocks with no intention of ever doing anything with them. I just thought it was cool that they were old and that something so interesting could come out of the dirt (plus it was a good excuse to play in the dirt).  Then when I started making jewelry I found out I could actually put them to use. 

I started off with beads because bezel setting stones scared the crap out of me.  One of my first pieces using stones was this pair of earrings.  I used rivets to attach peridot stones to sterling silver Jewish Stars. 











 
Eventually, I began to get jealous of my Aspiring Metalsmith teamies and their stone addiction.  I wanted to buy stones too dammit!!  I just didn't know what I was going to do with them once I got them.  It didn't matter, I wanted stones and I was going to have them! 
These were my first two cabochon stone purchases...

 









After much encouragement from my AM teammates I took the plunge and set these bad boys.  This is what they became.












Since I had relative success with my first two stones I decided it was safe to move forward.  I asked Laura of CabbingRough to cut something dark and horn shaped for me.  She made this amazing Apache Gold cab just for me :)


I'm so excited to get it and pet it and and hang out with it.  Then when it's ready it will tell me what it wants to be. 


For more stone licking goodness check out my teamies posts...