a crystals & jewelry adventure

Several people have asked recently if I could tell them how to make jewelry with crystals like I do, or recommend a good book about it, or do I teach classes. Unfortunately, I really can’t tell anyone exactly. I’d have to write a book myself, since I’ve never seen one about making jewelry with crystals and natural stones.  And at this time, I don’t teach classes or write tutorials because there aren’t enough hours in the day for me as it is. :)  I can give you some information on how I learned to do what I do, and how you can learn it too.

I’ve spent the last several years making wire and crystal or gemstone jewelry virtually every day.  I also have earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in jewelry making, where I studied casting, fabrication, and many other jewelry techniques. I’m fairly sure that it’s not necessary to get a degree of any sort because I’ve seen work far better than mine made by people who didn’t have a degree, but the time spent learning about making jewelry, and actually practicing making it, probably is an absolute requirement. I’m quite sure anyone can learn to make jewelry as well as I do or better, if they’re willing to put forth the effort to learn and practice.

Here are some of the  online tutorials and resources I used to learn more about making wire jewelry in general, and I applied the principles learned first to regular shaped stones like cabochons, then to crystals and natural stones.

• Eni Oken’s Jewelry Lessons - ranging from beginner to advanced, great, inexpensive tutorials and lessons. and I’ve incorporated many of Eni’s techniques into my own work
• Studio Heath - also ranging from beginner to advanced, inexpensive lessons that are well worth the small cost, again, many techniques I’ve incoporated many of DK Heath’s techniques into my work
• Wire Sculpture.com - many DVD’s and online videos for sale, much more expensive than either Eni Oken’s or DK Heath’s tutorials, but if you prefer demonstrations and can’t get to a class, this would probably work well for you 

And here are a couple of of the books I’ve used to learn techniques I use for making jewelry with crystals and natural stones.

The ultimate key is to keep learning and to practice. Practice until your fingers know instinctively how to make the wire behave the way you want it to. Learn different ways to shape the wire so that it will hold the crystals or stones firmly. Practice until you no longer have to think about it step by step. Then learn and practice some more. If you’re not sure what I mean by the difference pratice makes, check the pendant to the left, which I made in 2002 and the one to the right which I made in 2007.

Good luck in your learning and practice! 

Tumbled Black Tourmaline, Black Onyx and Black Obsidian: Here’s how I tell the three apart if I have 3 of the same size in my hand. Black obsidian will be the lightest in weight of all three,  because obsidian is a natural volcanic glass. Black tourmaline will feel the heaviest, although that can be marginal compared to Black Onyx. Black tourmaline will tend to have striations or crevices that tend to run in one direction because of the patterning of the natural crystal. Black onyx may have striations or crevices, but they will be more random in pattern than black tourmaline. Black onyx may also have patterns of other color in it, most often then tan of plain onyx. And if it’s translucent at all, when held to the light it’s almost always Black Obsidian.

… of a Great Soul’s tale.

I’ve been watching the movie Gandhi the last few days. I saw it for the first time late last week. As with most movies, I’ve watched it several times, getting more from it each time. Often I get more in the way of symbolism or cinematography. This time, I got more thought. I don’t really know why I’d never seen the movie Gandhi until now. I’ve read about Mahatma Gandhi, and studied his quotations and some of his words before. It’s been almost 25 years since the movie came out. Perhaps, as with all things, it just waited to come along at the right time, when I was ready for it.

 I’ve been striving over the last few months to give up my anger and frustration. They neither do me any good, nor give anything positive to the world in general. I’ve come forward, but frustratingly (haha!), not as far as I’d like. Until I saw this movie, though, it didn’t occur to me that cleaning up my language might be a sensible and powerful step in that direction. It finally did occur to me, though.

So I took a vow today, privately, personally, to clean up my words within and without, in private and as well as in public, to remove violence from my language and thereby bring myself more inner peace.  Of course, that includes saying things like, "Oh that ass…" etc. But it also includes removing the acceptance of  mental foulness, mental violence, angry mentality.

Frankly, removing the cursing is simple. That’s been a "luxury" I’ve allowed myself only around my closest friends who know me well enough to know it’s just blowing off steam. I don’t do it in public anyway.

Removing violence of thought is another thing. I don’t mean violent as in  thinking I’d like to strangle someone. Yeah, I’ve thought that before, he old "I’m so mad I could strangle that so-and-so." even though I’ve certainly never even had a moments thought I’d do such a think.  And that type of thing has to go. But violence of righteous (seeming) anger is harder to get rid of. Whether it’s pointed at me or at someone else, angry thoughts don’t get me anywhere I want to go. So working on my internal language looks like it may be a little more challenging, especially when I "know" I’m right. Maybe I am right, but lacking mental compassion still doesn’t bring anything good into the world.  Wish me luck on this journey.  Somehow I’m sure I’ll make it, at least a long way down that road, though I don’t expect I’ll ever be perfect by a long shot. I’m also equally sure it will be a challenge sometimes.  I think it will be easier, though, if I recall these words of Gandhi’s: "Hate the sin and love the sinner." Even if that sinner is me.

I was writing up the page to put up this Morganite pendant up when I got to thinking about morganite and its other beautiful beryl relatives. Did you know that Morganite is a type of beryl? And for that matter, that aquamarine and emerald are too?

Beryl is a gorgeous family of stones, but we know most of them by their individual names. If I said to most people, "Wow, that was a gorgeous green beryl!" they’d probably just look at me kind of funny and have no idea what I meant. But if I said, "Wow, that was a gorgeous emerald!" I bet they’d have a clue. Some of the types of beryl are:

• Emerald - green
• Aquamarine - aqua
• Heliodor - yellow
• Morganite - pink
• Goshenite - clear
• Bixbite / Bixbyite / Red Beryl - red

You can learn more about beryl as a mineral here and here. (And there’s always "The Oracle" aka Google.) I also have metaphysical properties lore for the different types of beryl in my metaphysical & healing lore section under the various individual stone names we usually know them by.

I got a very thought-provoking email from a lady who was asking for my opinion on using Rose Quartz. She had been avoiding it for years because she was afraid of it making her fertile, and she had all the children she wanted in this lifetime. She continued to be very attracted to it for its Mother energy and love energies, and didn’t want to give up using Rose Quartz because of her fears and wondered if I had any thoughts on it, or cautions. Here are my thoughts on it that I sent her. Do you have any thoughts on it? If so, please add them in the comments!

The first thing that came to my mind was, “But fertility doesn’t necessarily mean childbearing. It can mean so many other things!” The first thing that may generally come to mind may be actually being physically fertile, fertility can also be fertility of the mind, of blooming caring and love, of creativity from the heart. So fertility, in these other senses, could be a good thing, in addition to the other energies of rose quartz.

I wouldn’t stay away from rose quartz because of its fertility energies. If it were me, I would “program” or ask the Spirit of all rose quartz I worked with to steer any fertility energies into those channels I wanted to enhance, and away from actual childbearing.

Then, of course, use whatever sort of protection against pregnancy that you’re comfortable with that you find reliable. That’s just plain pragmatic, and as long as it’s not dangerous to you in itself, I don’t know of any reason not to do it. Crystals are wonderful beings and can be great help as tools, but they’re not the only ones in the Universe, so there’s no reason not to use others too.

To use protection against pregnancy doesn’t even necessarily fight the energies of the rose quartz, particularly if you’ve asked its Spirit to direct those energies into other channels than that specific one. I’ve found that crystals are usually quite happy to work with us in the way we ask, as long as we align our personal energy in the same direction as what we ask them for help with. It’s when we say one thing and then do another that we run into all sorts of energetic chaos.

How do you tell the difference between Nebula Stone (left) and Kambaba Jasper (right)?

Nebula Stone and Kambaba Jasper, if you hold the two together are almost like negatives of each other, visually. Kambaba Jasper usually has a green background with dark spots that may have a green center. Nebula Stone has a dark background with green spots that may have a dark center. Of course, this is a generalization, because smaller items of one may have a background cut from an “eye” out of the larger material that would make it appear it’s the other stone. Also, to me, in mystical terms, Nebula Stone has a more fizzy, energetic feel, and Kambaba Jasper has a more grounded, stabilizing feel.

I’ve been asked many times recently, "When will you have more quartz crystal jewelry available?" Well, this is when!  I’ve just put up 4 new designs of quartz crystal jewelry.  My favorite personally, is the one to the left, Haldir’s Joy, in the spirit of Haldir the elf of Lorien, in Lord of the Rings. Why in his spirit? Because it’s a Yang crystal AND an Isis crystal, and a blend of yin and yang has always felt to me like the elvin way. There are also Himalayan quartz and Tibetan "Black" Quartz pieces. All a joy to make, and hopefully, for the right person to wear.

P.S. Ignore my funky nail polish in the photos. I’m on adventures in weird nail polish lately. hehehe