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Lapidary comes to my workshop

Posted April 1, 2015 

So I’m super excited about a new turn in my jewelry making. I’ve aquired some rock cutting equipment and am learning lapidary skills. I’ve always used regional turquoise from Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico and have been wanting to increase my regional offerings so last year I introduced jade sourced from Wyoming. To get hyper-local I figured I would be interesting to start cutting some of the stones I find while hiking here in my own county, Sublette County.

jasper chert fossilized algae quartz agate wyoming

Sublette County is a huge piece of land and mostly public land. It’s amazingly beautiful and varied in geography. We have high sage-brush desert in the southern half of the county and large granite mountains in the north. A lot of the land was carved by glaciers during the ice age so there are large boulders and glacial moraines at the base of the high peaks of the Wind River Range. The desert used to be a vast ocean and is part of the Green River Formation. People find all sorts of cool fossils in Wyoming and Sublette County and south is no exception. If you go a little farther south from Sublette County you get to Kemmerer, Wyoming, a small town known for the Green River fossils, millions of little fish fossils (below is a photo of one I have in my kitchen) as well as palm fronds, prehistoric crocodiles and birds.

kemmerer wyoming green river formation fish fossil

The jade in Wyoming is found in the center of the state near Lander and Casper and it varies in greens to pitch black that shines up like a mirror. I love the jade found here and this is especially one of the reasons I am beginning my lapidary journey; I want to cut unusual shapes for my jewelry. Besides jade we have quite a bit of interesting agate and jasper of varying patterns and colors. So now that the snow is melting I can go rockhounding with pals, what a good time.

(fossilized algae with the corner polished up)

By the way…an interesting thing about the word ‘lapidary’… it comes from the Latin word for rock: ‘lapis’. You hear ‘lapis’ used for Lapis Lazuli is a popular blue stone, often found in Afghanistan, and that name simply means Stone Blue (lazuli coming from the word ‘azure’).

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Wheeee, it’s a new year! Happy 2014!

Written January 6, 2014

Happy 2014, the number 14 didn’t have much significance to me but I heard somebody say that it is doubly lucky because it is the number 7 x 2. Also, my husband said it would be a great year to hike a “14er”, one of the peaks in Colorado that is over 14,000 ft, we’ll see if we have the chance to make it down there.

Returning to work after the holiday chaos is always interesting, it’s quiet and a there is a lot of paperwork to do. I’m going to be continuing my gemology courses online and going to the Tucson Gem Show in February for further education and gemstone/bead shopping. I’m working towards becoming a GIA (Gemological Institute of America) certified Graduate Gemologist.

Hopefully I will have time to experiment with the plethora of designs that are in my head during these quieter months.

Happy New Year.

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New Gemstone Earrings

Written October 24, 2013

I recently purchased a pile of beautiful gemstones. Last week I hosted a Ladies Night at my store and revealed dozens of new earrings. Each pair is different and the gems are transparent and sparkly, crystaly and colorful. I will post a few on this site but in the meantime here is a quick photo:

Pictured here is a mix of: rose quartz, amethyst, turquoise, amber, citrine, flourite, garnet, aquamarine, jade and peridot. All on handmade silver earring wires.

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Handmade Findings

Written September 24, 2013

To customize the jewelry that I make, I usually handmake the “findings”. Findings are what jewelers call clasps, ear wires, pin backs, etc. Basically the hardware of the piece of jewelry. Most of my beaded necklaces and some of my silver chains have a simple sterling silver hook and loop. I like these because they are unusual while being secure.

Pictured here are the hook and loop clasps on some recent Autumn themed necklaces that I made.