That golden glow

A week or two ago I was asked to make a custom jewellery set of earrings and pendant necklace as a birthday present for a lady who had lost much of her own jewellery in floods, and the subsequent house moves while refurbishment took place.

I love (and I mean LOVE) making special one off pieces, and especially when you know a little about the background. However, in this case the customer particularly wanted a gold set, which I have to admit, did make me feel a little anxious.

As you probably know, I usually work in sterling silver, or copper. I do love the look of gold, and have been wondering about offering a gold option of certain items, but gold is just so costly! I mean, really expensive. I just can't afford to have it sitting in my stock cupboard at the moment.

Gold is similar to silver to work with, and so although I don't use gold as often as silver there was nothing particularly different in terms of work. But I was so nervous about wasting even a millimeter of the precious wire.

But oh my, isn't it pretty...

The gold is 9k and the stones are a delicate pale green amethyst. The gems are micro facetted, meaning it has many, many little surfaces to catch, reflect and bounce the light all around making them super sparkly.

I do love this combination of gold and green. What do you think?

You can see some other handmade green amethyst jewellery  in my becky pearce designs shop.

And whilst I can't offer 9k or 18k gold ready to go in the shops at the moment I do offer custom pieces on request. Just get in touch with me at becky@beckypearcedesigns.co.uk to discuss.

Ooooh and do keep an eye out for some gold alternatives popping up in the near future!

Happy Birthday to me!

It was my birthday on Friday, so to treat myself I spent the day at the Desire fair in Richmond.

Wow,  there was some truly amazing work there. It was great to see such a fantastic range of work in one room.

Things seemed to click into place for me about my jewellery style and where I'm going (and where I'm defintely not going!). People often ask me what type of jewellery I make, and now I think I could answer them a little better.

Ring by Sabine Konig

There were some stunning stalls, where I simply stood and stared at the goodies (possibly with my mouth slightly open, and  drooling a bit) and some where I had a chat with the artisan and got a real insight into the stories behind the pieces. So interesting.

The best thing for me from the day though, was that even looking at the most stunning works there, I felt inspired, and thought, "yep, one day if I work hard, I could do something as good as that". It probably sounds a bit silly, but in most other fields I seem to be the type of person who would think " oh dear, I'll never be that good, aren't they lucky to be able to do that"

A beautiful ring by Barbara Bertagnolli......

I wonder if it's just that I've found my path with jewellery.... or whether I'm just getting a bit more confident in my old age.

Speaking of which, I had a great weekend as well. We went up to London and had a Duck Tour - it's a tour on those amphibious vehicles - a drive around showing the girls all the sights, and then a splash down in the Thames. The kids loved it! After that we took the girls to see Stomp. Brilliant - sweeping up will never be the same again.

I got some fantastic pressies off my lovely family... I'll show you later in the week but I also made a little present for myself.

I've been looking into birthstones recently and thought it would be nice to have something in my own birthstone. As my birthday is March - that means Aquamarine. I have a little secret....don't tell anyone.... I don't really like it that much... (ssshhhhhh!). Don't get me wrong it's a really beautiful stone, but it just wouldn't look right on me with my pale skin and red hair.

The traditional stone for March is Bloodstone, which I admit would probably suit my colouring a little more, but I fancied something with a little more sparkle.

So what to do? I did what anyone should in my situation. Cheat.

I found a lovely moss aquamarine, wrapped it in sterling silver and voila! Happy birthday to me.
Let me know if you're a March birthday and would like to cheat too, I'll happily make you one!