Like candy

The brand new Clementine necklace was a real design adventure and this post will describe the stone variations that were considered.

The original plan was to use the chandelier component from the Gia, Cyrilla, and Paige earrings with some red, pink, and brown stones. A number of combinations using garnets, rubies, sapphires, and smoky quartzes were tried:


But then I found some carnelians at my favourite Vancouver bead store and a pink sapphire at a fabulous Victoria bead store and knew I had something special. Here is an in-progress shot of the pendant - an earring hook was used during the production stage so I could hold the piece up to tell whether the stones were evenly balanced:


Rounding out the final design are a single crystal quartz above the center stone, red spinels in between everything, and a pink tourmaline to connect the pendant to the necklace. Don't the colours look like candy?

Worldly Gia

Eighteen new items have just been added to the shop at aileen.etsy.com including the Gia earrings. Sharp eyes will notice they feature the same sterling silver component as the Paige and Cyrilla, but these earrings have their own style.

A true study in international collaboration, the stunning Swiss and London blue topazes were handpicked at a bead show in New York, while the sparkly lemon quartzes were found at a similar event in Hawaii. The tiny crystal quartzes were sourced during a trip to Seattle, and the chandelier components were from my favourite sterling silver shop in the Hong Kong district of Sham Shui Po. Doesn't the combination look amazing?