I often decorate my jewellery with hand worked silver. It can be incorporated into the design with careful use of texture. Some of my favourite work features silver which has been hand textured to echo the texture or pattern of the surrounding gem stones.
Green is a dominant theme this season - from zingy lime shades to fresh apple tones and even traditional dark green. Tourmaline can be found in violet, pink, green, or brown. One of my favourite gems is bowenite. It is limey green in colour and is often mistaken for jade, but has a delicate colour and is slightly translucent.
While bowanite has a relatively soft nature, the japer family, despite varying wildly in colour, are common in their toughness.
In the past, and particularly in Scotland, pearls were very much revered. Seen as magical dew-drops or known as "mermaids' tears" they were strongly associated with myth and romance. With their fantastic lustre it is perhaps easy to see why, so I like to include pearls of many shapes and sizes in my designs.
Pearls remain something very precious to own.
Real scottish pearls are rare, so our pearls are sourced from around the world, and Japan in particular. I especially like to use unusually shaped pearls to create interesting pieces.
A large industy has grown around the farming of pearls; cultured pearls are natural, but their growth was seeded by farmers using freshwater mussles and a seed of mother-of-pearl. This process allows the pearl farmer to influence the shape the pearl will become.
I hope that you find that my designs feature interesting and fun combinations of shape and colour.