10 years and new stones

Friday was Dave and I's 10th anniversary. It really doesn't seem like it's been that long which I guess is a good thing. I took the day off and we just spent the day together and went out for breakfast and lunch. It was pretty nice and the weather held out for most of the day.

I am starting to get in some stones I purchased recently. I still have two more sets of stones I'm waiting on, one of those most likely on Monday the other sometime next week. I'm trying to get some more colors and different stones so I can have a nice variety. Here is my latest haul.


The 3 green on the left are malachite, a pink andean opal, then an absolutely beautiful deep purple amethyst, 4 pink rhodochrosite stones, a speckled lapiz chrysoclla stone, 2 smokey quartz stones and lastly a petrified palm wood stone. The petrified palm has to be my favorite but that amethyst and the smokey quartz are close seconds. I think I have just enough gold filled wire left to wrap the palm wood and then I think either the amethyst or a malachite piece will be next. There's an idea I have in my head for the large rhodochrosite piece so I'll be saving that one for when I have some time to really sit down and just play.

Lately I've REALLY been wanting to venture into the metalworking aspect of jewelry making. I picked up a couple of books this weekend and watched a couple of tutorials on youtube just to see what I might be getting myself into. For some reason the idea of soldering kind of freaks me out. Don't ask, I have no problem at all working glass in an open flame but for some reason I doubt myself that I'll be able to solder and it turn out presentable enough. I figure it's worth a shot though and if I don't at least try I'll always wonder if I'd be able to.