What’s New

New Pendants and a Prototype of a Christian Cross Design Now in My Shop

I add four new pendants to the shop, including some fresh new designs.

I spent most of the week working on projects in my garage, but I did get to spend a few days in my jewelry studio making new pendants for upcoming shows and my online shop.

Ruby In Zoisite
Ruby in Zoisite cabochons on hand stamped and pierced sterling silver. Buy it online.

The first is a variation on a design I’d done in the past for a triangular stone. In this case, I’ve got two Ruby in Zoisite (or ruby-zoisite) stones bezel set into a pierced and stamped sterling silver back plate. I do all the cuts and stamping (and related filing and sanding) by hand, so there’s a lot of work in this one. It came out great (in my opinion) and although it comes with a sterling silver chain (like most of my pendants), I plan on making a beaded necklace for it that combines ruby in zoisite, garnet, and sterling silver. Look for it soon.

Ribbon Variscite
Ribbon Variscite on sterling silver. Buy it online.

Next up is the first of two “ribbon” stones. The first is ribbon variscite, a relatively rare and costly stone that I picked up two years ago at the Tucson gem and mineral show. The variscite appears in a vein like a ribbon it its matrix. I did a simple back plate design for this one that has evenly spaced cuts around the bezel setting.

Bio Chrysoprase
Bio Chrysoprase on sterling silver. Buy it online.

The other ribbon stone is bio chrysoprase, a rare form of quartz with a great green color in a line through the stone’s matrix. It’s an almond shaped stone and I used a design similar to one I’ve done before, framing the stone in a hand-textured sterling silver structure and setting it with prongs. This design is a lot of work — there are 10 individual solders! — but I think it’s so worth it.

Copper Cross
Copper cross with Kingman turquoise cabochon. Buy it online.

And finally, something completely different for me — by request: a Christian cross. I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to make this piece and decided to try a prototype in copper before I dive into silver. The design requires thick sheet metal — 18 gauge — which, in silver, can be quite costly. So I experimented with copper to get the right shape, stamping design, and cabochon positioning. I think it came out nice and I will be making more of these in sterling silver over the weeks to come. Until then, if you like copper, you can get this one at a very reasonable price.

I’ll be at Leavenworth art in the park for two consecutive weekends starting on August 24, so if these pieces don’t sell from my online shop, you can find them there — along with any other new pieces I create over the next 10 days.

Why I Left Etsy

A blog post on my personal blog details why I left Etsy in favor of a Square-based shop.

I don’t often share personal blog posts on this site, but I wanted to make an exception since this post is so relevant to my jewelry business. It explains how I sell my jewelry and why I made the switch from Etsy to a Square-based online shop.

Why I’m Leaving Etsy — and Maybe You Should, Too?

Segmented Ring Sterling Silver and Copper Pendants

Several riffs on the same basic pendant design.

Ring Onyx Pendant

Ring Turquoise Pendant

Ring Variscite Pendant

Three versions of the same basic design: Sterling Silver ring with Onyx stone, Copper ring with Kingman Turquoise Stones, and Copper ring with variscite stone.

Inspired by a photo in the now defunct Lapidary Journal magazine, I’ve completed three riffs (so far) on a design that combines silver, copper, and small gemstones.

I start by making and texturing a sterling silver or copper ring. Then I hand cut, texture, and solder on sterling silver and copper circle wedges or halves. I add bezel cups for various sizes of small gemstones such as turquoise or onyx, as well as a ring and hand-formed bail. After applying patina and polishing, I set the stones and the piece is done.

I like making these because they’re all subtly different and the combinations of shapes, textures, metals, and stones is limitless. They range in size from a diameter of 1.7 to 1.8 inches with another half inch at the top for the bail.

I’ll be making custom beaded necklaces for each pendant — provided I have the coordinating beads — that will be available separately. (You can see the one I made for the piece with the onyx stone in the first photo.) The pendants will come with an 18″ sterling silver chain if you prefer not to buy the beaded necklace.

What do you think? Care to sketch up a variation that you’d like to see and wear? I’d love to make your designs a reality and this is a great piece to make variations of.

Other Pendants Added to Online Shop

I few pendants that managed to avoid being listed in the online shop are now online.

I don’t know how I missed them, but in reconciling my online shop inventory to what I actually have on hand, I found five pendants that had never been listed.

Two of them are my rotated square style pendants, which I make with round stones. I made a batch of 5 of these about a month ago and never added them to the shop. I sold three to a wholesale client last week. These two are left:

Bumble Bee Jasper Square Picture Jasper Square
Two of my rotated square style pendants: Bumble Bee Jasper (left) and Picture Jasper (right).

And then there were two wire framed pendants that actually made it into my inventory database but, for some reason, did not appear in the online shop. They’re there now:

Red Tiger Eye Wire Frame Rosetta Lace Agate Wire Frame
Here are two sterling silver wire-framed pendants: Red Tiger Eye (left) and Rosetta Lace Agate (right).

Dicrotic Glass Prong
Dicrotic glass cabochon prong set on hand-textured sterling silver.

And finally, there’s a rather large pendant I made a while back, before I was doing more bezel settings. It’s a gorgeous piece of hand-crafted dicrotic glass prong-set on a piece of textured sterling silver.

You can find all of these (until they are sold) in my online shop or at art shows I’ll be appearing at throughout the summer.

New Fold-Over Pendants in Stock

Five new pendants added to inventory.

After last week’s visit to the shops in Winthrop and Twisp that sell my jewelry, I had to hustle to start building up stock. So I started with some items I already had partially made: my “fold-over” bail pendants.

Foldover Kingman T Bronze
Kingman Turquoise with bronze on sterling silver.

Foldover Kingman Turquoise and Spiny Oyster Shell with Bronze
Kingman Turquoise and Orange Spiny Oyster Shell with bronze on sterling silver.

Foldover Labradorite
Labradorite on sterling silver.

Foldover Lapis Lazuli
Lapis Lazuli on sterling silver.

Foldover Rose Quartz
Rose Quartz on sterling silver.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I make these in batches, completing one step on all pieces before moving on to the next step. For those who are curious, the steps are as follows:

  1. Cut sterling silver sheet in two different sizes of the same elongated teardrop shape. These are all hand cut. I’ll normally cut more than I need for the pendants I plan to make so I have some already done for next time I make them. That’s why the ones I made this weekend were already partially made.
  2. Sand the edges of each cut piece to smooth them.
  3. Choose the stones for each piece. I have a dwindling inventory of small gemstones that are perfectly sized for these. I try to pick a variety.
  4. Make the bezels for each stone. None of these are “standard” sizes so I need to make a bezel from scratch for each one. I start with fine or sterling silver strip and then size, cut, solder, pickle, and shape it.
  5. Solder the bezels onto the teardrop back plates for each pendant, then pickle, wash, and dry them.
  6. Stamp the backplates with a variety of designs. I have no set design so these are all different every time I make them.
  7. Apply a darkening agent to blacken the silver.
  8. Use a variety of techniques to polish the pieces so the silver is bright while the cuts made by the stamps remain darker. This involves manually polishing and putting each piece through a series of tumbling processes that take four to six hours.
  9. Wash and dry each piece.
  10. Set the stones. I need to remember which stone goes into which piece since they’re not interchangeable!
  11. Roll the bail around bail-making pliers to create the bail.

Because of the assembly line process I use to make these in batches, if I start early enough, I can usually make 4 to 8 of them in a day — that’s how I can keep them affordably priced. The trick is to get them into the tumblers at roughly the same time as early in the day as possible. While they’re tumbling, I can usually get started on a new piece that isn’t part of a batch.

All of my fold-over bail pendants are made of sterling silver (and stamped as such on back) or copper with good quality gemstone cabochons set in them. They come with an 18″ sterling silver chain. They retail for $69 and can be found in my online shop or at many of the shops and galleries where my work is sold.

Low Inventory on Pendants

A visit to a wholesale client and gallery leaves me low on pendant inventory.

Good and bad news….

I recently went up the Methow River to two of the shops that sell my jewelry. The first was The Iron Horse in Winthrop. I first started selling there back in summer 2022 and they made a very large first purchase of my work. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that they’d sold every pendant and most of the earrings and bracelets I’d left with them last year!

Owyhee Jasper
 
White Buffalo

I finished making these two pendants on the same day I left them at The Iron Horse in Winthrop. The top pendant is Owyhee Jasper on sterling silver and copper; the bottom one is White Buffalo on sterling silver.

A fifteen minute session with their buyer pretty much wiped out my pendants and beaded necklaces inventory. Indeed, she purchased two pendants I had just finished that morning that were never even properly photographed! (I snapped photos for my records before I left them with her.) She also stocked up on my new tube and bali bead earrings and a few other earring styles she’d bought on my previous visit.

If you’re in Winthrop, I hope you check them out. You can find The Iron Horse at 229 Riverside Ave, Winthrop, WA 98862. Tell them Maria at ML Jewelry Designs sent you.

Afterwards, I went to The Confluence gallery in Twisp and left five pendants with them. They’ve been selling my jewelry for about four years now and had sold out on all of my pendants, too, although they still had enough earrings on hand. You can find The Confluence at 104 Glover Street South, Twisp Washington 98856.

That left me with an inventory of only six pendants for my online shop and upcoming art shows. Needless to say, I’ll be busy in my jewelry studio over the next few weeks. Keep checking in to see what’s new.

So the good news is that I sold a bunch of pendants to retail shops that sell my work, thus getting them out into the wilds of Washington State. The bad news is that my online shop is nearly empty and I’ve got a lot of work to do.

New Earrings: Tube & Bali Bead Dangles

A combination of several types of beads for interesting and often colorful dangles.

Tibetan Agate Tube & Onyx EarringsAlthough I’ve been making beaded earrings for years now, I’ve changed things up by adding tube beads and sterling silver bali beads to the mix. Tube beads are long, slender beads, usually between 1/4 and 1/2 inch long; bali beads are flat spacer beads with tiny round bead shapes around their edges. The combination of those beads and the standard round 4mm gemstone beads and 2mm sterling silver beads I use in necklaces make a more interesting and elegant pair of earrings.

Crazy Lace Agate Tube EarringsSee for yourself! Here are two examples of the five styles currently available: Tibetan Agate, Onyx, and Sterling Silver and Crazy Lace Agate and Sterling silver. I’ve got more styles coming soon.

You can find these (until sold out) at one of the following places: various art shows I’ll be attending, at the galleries and gift shops that sell my work, or on my online shop.

Back from Consignment: Cloud Mountain Turquoise Pendant

I get an old friend back in inventory.

Cloud Mountain PendantOne of the drawbacks of selling on consignment is that not everything sells. The gallery in Ellensburg where I sell a lot of my jewelry on consignment seems to do better selling my smaller and wire-framed pendants. (In fact, on my visit there the other day, she just about cleared out all of the wire pendants I had!) What doesn’t sell comes back to me and I was very pleased to see this old friend, a piece of Cloud Mountain Turquoise bezel-set on a hand cut and textured sterling silver backplate. Even the custom beaded chain came back with it.

You can find this (until sold) at one of the following places: various art shows I’ll be attending, at the galleries and gift shops that sell my work, or on my online shop.

New Pendants: White Buffalo on Sterling Silver

I finish two new White Buffalo pendants in time for next week’s art show.

White Buffalo Turquoise PendantYesterday, I put the finishing touches on a pair of similar but definitely different White Buffalo turquoise pendants.

This is real White Buffalo from Tonopah, Nevada — the only place this stone occurs naturally — that I purchased at the Kingman Mine in Arizona several years ago and had a local lapidary polish into cabochons. They are both set on solid 22 gauge sterling silver using bezels and feature sterling silver balls and tube bails that can accommodate 4mm beaded necklaces or just about any chain.

They’re shown here with a Howlite and sterling silver beaded necklace, which is available at additional cost. Otherwise, they each come with an 18″ sterling silver chain.

White Buffalo Turquoise PendantYou can find these (until sold) at the various art shows I’ll be attending, at the galleries and gift shops that sell my work, or on my online shop.

Added to My Online Shop: Gemstone Bead Chain Bracelets

Finally photographed and put online!

Malachite Chain BraceletI’ve been making these for a while and they’re very popular for their bright colors and durability. Now I’ve finally got them online where everyone can see (and buy?) them.

The full description:

Made with individually crafted 21 gauge fine silver or copper wire, each link is joined when made so there or no unsoldered rings to split open and break. These bracelets are durable! Available with a variety of gemstone and other stone beads, bracelets have either sterling silver or copper (depending on primary metal) lobster clasps. Approximately 8 1/2 inches long, they can be easily shortened if necessary, by clipping off the last link with a wire cutter. (Be sure you want it shortened before you make the cut!)

The bracelets currently in stock, all in fine silver, are:

  • Larimar
  • Malachite (shown)
  • Smoky & Tourmulated Quartz
  • Hologram Quartz
  • Smoky Kingman Turquoise w/Copper
  • Rose Quartz
  • Pearl & Carnelian
  • Pink AB Druk Czech Glass
  • Carnelian
  • Lapis Lazuli
  • Amethyst
  • Onyx
  • Kingman Turquoise w/Spiny Oyster Shell & Bronze & Copper

(Yes, I’ve been busy.)

You can find these (while supplies last) at the various art shows I’ll be attending, at the galleries and gift shops that sell my work, or on my new online shop.