Simple and Elegant Pearl NEcklace

This is a simple and elegant white pearl necklace. This is a single-strand freshwater pearl necklace. The pearls are white to off-white, about 5mm in size, and quite round and smooth. This pearl necklace is about 16 inches long and highlights the simple elegance of pearl jewelry.

Simple and Elegant Pearl NEcklace

This is a simple and elegant white pearl necklace. This is a single-strand freshwater pearl necklace. The pearls are white to off-white, about 5mm in size, and quite round and smooth. This pearl necklace is about 16 inches long and highlights the simple elegance of pearl jewelry.

Trendy and Chic Pearl Necklace

This is baroque pearl necklace is quite unique and trendy. These are genuine, irregularly shaped white and green pearls. The white pearls in this necklace are 5 to 7 mm, and the green pearls are 6 to 8 mm. This is a long necklace about 46-inches long, giving you flexibility on how you choose to wear it – single long strand, or a layered look.

Superb Pearl Necklace

This is simple green jade and white pearl necklace. The white freshwater pearls are about 6 mm, round and quite smooth. The light green beads are jade, and they are about 8 mm around. The pearls and jade beads are separated by small golden metallic beads. The necklace is about 18 inches long.

Beautiful Pearl Necklace

This is pretty, single strand pearl necklace. The necklace has alternating genuine white freshwater pearls and light blue jade beads. The pearls are about 6 mm, round and smooth. The light blue beads about 8 mm. The pearls and jade beads are separated by small golden metallic beads. The necklace is about 18 inches in length.

Innovative Copper Jewelry

It is interesting to watch the innovations in the world of fashion jewlery. As we know, the objective of creating fashion jewlery is to develop designs, colors, and patterns that are appealing to the customer – primarily the teenage customer – while at the same time, maintaining the affordability of the jewlery. This is particularly interesting in today’s market, where gold sells for about $800 an ounce! So designers and sellers almost have to stay away from precious metals and precious gemstones when designing their creations. The use of base metals like copper for fashion jewlery appears to be been spurred by the current economic crisis. Copper has been used in jewlery designs for a long time. Early designs were quite crude, by today’s standards. However, as craftsmanship and techniques improved, so has the quality of copper jewlery. Take for example, the beautifully crafted copper pendant shown in this picture. The focal bead is natural, jet-black onyx. It is no doubt, a pretty stone. But by itself, the stone is not particularly outstanding. But put in into a pretty rustic rose copper setting, and suddenly you’ve got yourself a stunning piece of fashion jewlery! At $20, this copper pendant satisfies both key requirements for fashion jewlery – a beautiful piece of jewelry at a very reasonable price!

Calsilica in Fashion Jewelry

Its been about 12 years now since calsilica first appeared on the fashion jewelry scene. With its bright, vivid, and varied colors, it is not hard to understand why calsilica captured the imagination of jewelry designer as well as jewelry wearers alike. Calsilica earrings, silver pendants, rings, and other items were often the stars at gem and jewelry shows.

So what is calsilica and where does it come from? The general consensus is that calsilica is a man-made amalgamation of various minerals and stone fragments that are held together with resin. Often, the powder and fragments are deposited under water and compressed to form cake. The cake is dried and infused with resin. Once the resin hardens, varies pieces are cut from the block, and then polished to achieve the desired sheen.

There is little evidence to suggest that calsilica is a naturally occurring material. Nonetheless, good calsilica specimens are pretty, and can be used to make attractive, inexpensive fashion jewelry.

Use of Emerald in Fashion Jewelry

Emerald is one of the most popular semi-precious gemstones used in the making of fashion jewlery. Historically, emeralds have been mined in ancient Egypt, Austria, and northern Pakistan. Some varieties of emerald are also found in Columbia, Zambia, South Africa, India, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and Russia. Emeralds are used in a wide range of jewelry, ranging from relatively inexpensive fashion jewelry, to fine jewlery costs hundreds of dollars. All emerald must of course, be green, although the shades of green may vary from yellowish green to bluish green. The finest quality emerald used to make expensive jewelry has a deep verdant green color with a high degree of transparency. Clearly, the use of this fine quality emerald in fashion jewelry is not cost effective. However, a deep green emerald, with a good facet cut is a perfect focal bead for a silver pendant. The silver pendant in the adjacent picture is a good example of a good facet cut emerald and an intricate 925 silver setting work in harmony to create the perfect piece of fashion jewelry.

Chemically, emeralds are a form of beryllium aluminum silicate. The green color of the emerald is a function of impurities such as chromium and lesser amounts of vanadium. The hardness of most emeralds range from 7 to 9. Despite this relatively high hardness values, inclusions in most emeralds increase their susceptibility to fracture, causing emeralds to be classified as brittle. An emerald signifies love, friendship and loyalty, and is a birthstone for May.

Tiger Eye in Fashion Jewelry

Tiger eye is an attractive gemstone that is commonly used in fashion jewlery such as sterling silver pendants, silver earrings, and silver bracelets. Tiger eye is usually yellowish brown or reddish brown, and when polished, has a silky texture. Tiger eye is a member of the quartz group, where some fraction of the quartz has been replaced by a form of asbestos. The stones are sometimes gently heat-treated in order to change their color to a reddish shade. Artificial tiger eye is sometimes created from fiber optic glass. Tiger eye is relatively inexpensive and a typical stone for fashion jewelry costs about US$2. Typical tiger eye has a hardness of around 7 and a specific gravity of about 2.67.

Tiger eye is now widely used in fashion jewelry because of it color, appearance, and texture. Of course, the relatively low cost of the stone plays an important role in this application! This silver pendant is a perfect example of the application of tiger eye in creating beautiful and inexpensive fashion jewlery. The focal bead is a beautiful specimen of tiger eye. The setting is 925 silver and the uniqueness of the pendant lies in its asymmetric design.

Silver Jewelry

Silver was discovered at least 6,000 years ago, and since then, has always been considered to be a valuable metal. Silver has a very wide range of applications – ranging from industrial uses such as photographic film, to currencies in some countries. However, silver remains extremely popular as fashion jewlery. The beauty, luster, and the ease with which it can be fashioned into superb jewlery are just some of the reasons for the every-growing popularity of silver in the world of jewlery design. Silver was first discovered in Turkey before 4,000 BC. Thereafter, silver was mined and refined in China, and South America. The largest producers of silver today are in North and South America.

Silver today is used to make a wide range of jewlery, including silver pendants. When used as a pendant, 925 silver is used to create an artistic setting that houses a gemstone. In the sterling silver pendant shown to the right, a large size blue topaz stone is mounted in a superbly crafted sterling silver setting. The simplicity of the silver setting is perfectly complimented by the brilliant blue topaz stone.

Silver today is highly polished so that it reflects light and looks beautiful in fashion jewlery. One drawback of silver however, is that even minor impurities cause silver to tarnish when exposed to the atmosphere. While this is may be a drawback for certain kinds of fashion jewlery, some artisans use this property to create silver jewlery will an antique finish. The 925 silver pendant to the left is typical example of antiqued silver jewlery.

Turquoise Jewlery

I was looking at some turquoise pendants recently, and got into finding out more about turquoise. Did you know the best quality turquoise comes from Iran??? In the United States, turquoise is found in the Southwest in Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Chemically, a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminum, turquoise is formed by the percolation of meteoric or groundwater through aluminous rock in the presence of copper. For this reason, it is often associated with copper deposits as a secondary mineral, most often in copper deposits in arid, semiarid, or desert environments. Typically turquoise mineralization is restricted to a relatively shallow depth of less than 20 m, although it does occur along deeper fracture zones where secondary solutions have greater penetration or the depth to the water table is greater.

Natural turquoise is generally quite soft and porous. Because of its low density, hardness, and porosity, most turquoise must be stabilized before it can be used in jewlery. The turquoise is infused with a transparent synthetic resin. This is called “stabilized turquoise” and can be cut and polished to be used in jewelry. Over 95% of turquoise in today’s jewelry market is stabilized turquoise. Only a very small fraction of natural turquoise (less than 5%) of the turquoise on the market today is untreated turquoise. Turquoise with adequate hardness and density so as not to require epoxy treatment, is hard to come by and is quite expensive.

It is also important to note that Ebay and some other sites are replete with fake turquoise. Howlite, a form of calcite, and sometimes called white turquoise is used to manufacture fake turquoise. Howlite is infused with an epoxy resin and blue dye to mimic turquoise. The product is sometimes called “laboratory turquoise” or “created turquoise”, or even “stabilized turquoise” by some unscrupulous sellers! Beware!!