I am always on the lookout for new materials to try, at the moment I am getting to grips with copper (but more on that later…)

Amber is a semi precious stone that I have often seen, but never used, I’m not sure why, it might be that it’s a colour I don’t ever wear and so don’t gravitate towards. Lately though I have noticed amber in varying colours, some very unusual.

When I looked at Catherine D’ Arcy’s site I was delighted to see how many of these variations she is using in her designs.  Catherine designs  her range and commissions the Mexican Taxco silversmiths to manufacture to her specifications. Her pieces are bold and striking and she uses the most wonderful stones in her amber jewellery.

Some necklaces contain a Dominican fire amber pendant. This particular stone is a rarity outside of the Dominican republic and is considered a collectors item.

But my particular favorite piece of her silver jewellery is this necklace which has a collection of silver baubles attached, it’s whimsical and pretty, very unusual and seriously wantable!

Image courtesy of Corazon Latino

Smoky Quartz must be one of my favorite stones and I am partial to the very intricately faceted shapes  available at the moment. I’ve made this pair of earrings using a perfectly round stone, a brushed silver angled disc and a smaller Smoky Quartz stone cuddled on top. Perfect for winter!

I’ve made these briolette drop earrings using the same pale faceted Smoky Quartz briolettes as in my post from yesterday – I’ve wire wrapped them on gold filled 14ct gold. They are soooo difficult to photograph though….. You will just have to take my word for how stunning these stones are! Perhaps I need to read that Canon manual!

I’ve just finished making these Briolette Cluster Earrings. I bought some exquisitely faceted semi precious stones on my way back from our Paris trip and have been keeping them to myself for a little while! These earrings are a combination of pale Smoky Quartz and the loveliest faceted Aquamarine, perfect winter colours. I wish my photographic skills were better because this photo actually doesn’t do the stones justice!

I’ve just finished this pair of Peacock Pearl Earrings. These pearls are not perfect, but they have a really stunning colour, the most beautiful iridescent blue and I’ve topped them with a little brushed silver disc which is angled at the edges.

Another bracelet which I have made for myself and wear all the time. I’ve used my most favorite ever peacock coin pearls and lovely large sterling silver nuggets. This Bracelet would also work wonderfully with white coin pearls for bridal jewellery.

This is one of my favorite bracelets. I’ve made it using faceted Labradorite ovals and sterling silver pebbles. I can never resisit Labradorite, it’s a stone that has a wonderful steel grey colour and a good quality stone has flashes of colour that bring it to life. This unusual toggle clasp completes this bracelet

I’ve just finished this necklace. It’s made using beautiful large green baroque pearls clustered with faceted labradorite, matching freshwater pearls and 14 ct beads. The chain is a really unusual combination of round and oval links and it’s one of my favorites. I love the green and gold together. I’ve also wire wrapped some small pearls into the chain and it’s finished with a toggle clasp. It also has matching baroque pearl earrings!

Pey sent me this lovely picture of herself at her son’s wedding, wearing the necklace I made for her. Doesn’t she look fabulous?  I don’t know about you, but I find Rose Quartz pink a really difficult colour to wear,  I think it looks great on Pey as she has a lovely tan. I also think it looks good on the classic “English Rose” complexion – that enviable creamy pale skin, but on me – not so good!

Sadie was very kind, and sent me one of her beautiful wedding photo’s. I was so pleased as I just love seeing something that I have made,  worn on such a special day. I was also glad because I neglected to take a photo of Sadie’s necklace once I had finished making it……..

Sadie, you were a gorgeous bride!

Pey wanted a pair of long drop earrings to match her bracelet and necklace – these are made using green and pink freshwater pearls and swarovski pink crystals.

Pey’s matching bracelet was a cluster of all the components that made up her necklace – on a different chain though.

Pey commissioned some jewellery to wear to her son’s wedding.  All she gave me to work on was that her dress was green and that she wanted a colour combination of pink and green. I sent her some diffent colour options and she matched these to her dress. The combination she chose was a kind of sage green pearl, a soft pink pearl and a true pink crystal.  The necklace is made with a large faceted rose quartz coin, above which is a tight cluster of crystals and pearls and below is a tassle cluster of the same. I also included crystals and pearls into the length of the chain we decided on.

I hadn’t made a purple 50 Crystals Ring before. This one was another order last week. I love this colour!

I took this photo of a clear 50 Crystals Ring I made for an order last week

I’ve just finished this cluster necklace and I am very pleased with how it’s turned out. I couldn’t resist the gold chain when I first saw it. It is the most beautiful vintage gold colour – very similar to rose gold. I’ve made the cluster using a large peacock coin pearl, crystals , vibrant blue freshwater pearls and faceted labradorite. The blues and greys of the cluster are a perfect match for the warmth of the gold chain.

For details of this necklace contact me at jenni@twinkleberry.co.uk

I made this necklace using a strand of large shell pearls that I bought recently. Shell pearls are very popular at the moment and I can understand why. The colours and shine are wonderful and they also feel substantial when you wear them, I love my strand and find that I wear it a lot.

This particular necklace has some silver dotted along the strand and is finished with a sterling silver toggle clasp. As with pearls, I recommend buying a strand that is knotted between each pearl.

For a shell pearl necklace like this one, contact me at: jenni@twinkleberry.co.uk.

I made this necklace for a client recently – it’s a version of the Baroque Teardrop Bridal Necklace, which is featured on the site in Champagne. This necklace uses the clear crystal teardrop and white pearls and I think it’s a beautiful, very classic bridal necklace. I’m proud of this range as all my pearl necklaces are strung in the traditional manner, which is by knotting between each pearl. It’s a very labour intense way of stringing, but the pearls then drape beautifully and should the strand ever break, you will not loose all your pearls.

I’ve just finished this bracelet for a client who had bought this one from me a while ago and wanted a similar one, but in green.  I used the palest matt mint green chalecedony, one of my favorite Swarovski colours for the crystals and some Sterling Silver nuggets – and to finish it off – a pure silver handmade Rose Clasp!

This ring was an order for Colleen, who wanted a 50 crystal ring in green.  We were both amazed at how many different shades of green Swarovski has available!  Colleen chose this colour and I think it’s very versatile as you could wear it in summer as well as winter. As I only have my lilac ring featured on the site I thought I would put an image of Colleen’s ring here.

Sadie contacted me in February about making her bridal jewellery for her wedding, which was on Saturday 06/06/2009. While I love the idea of making someones wedding jewellery, I am always a little nervous of bespoke commissions. A wedding is such a special day and everything should be perfect and exactly as you imagine it, and it’s sometimes difficult to interpret someone’s vision as a finished piece.

Sadie was a perfect client though as she knew exactly what she wanted and so, as her pieces progressed, I sent her a photo and she and I both knew quite quickly that we were on the same wavelength.

The necklace and bracelet that she wanted were ornate and quite unique. It was very exciting for me as I had never made anything quite like them and I think we were both very happy with the results.

The bracelet was a cluster of larger crystals with 5 cluster drops hanging from the body of the bracelet.

Sadie’s necklace had a body that was very similar to the bracelet, just using hundreds of smaller crystals and although we did add another feature to the necklace I thought that the body as it is pictured here was just lovely as well.

I must have taken loads of photo’s of this piece, but would you believe that I did not take one of the finished product! I think I was anxious to get it posted to her and it simply slipped my mind. I am hoping that she will let me have one of her wedding pictures to post here……..

These Cluster earrings were ordered by my friend Anita, she liked the other cluster earrings that I have made, but wanted the drop to be a little longer and I made these using more of the blues and greens that she favours. Again, with little smoky quartz faceted discs, which I just love, sadly my strand of them is almost finished!

I love these Cluster earrings. They are very similar to the ones I made on gypsy hoops and I think are just as nice. These ones were made using small smoky quartz discs and a combination of swarovski crystals and fresh water pearls.

One of the necklaces that I made to send to Quick and Crafty magazine was a rose quartz cluster – I liked that it uses my twinkleberry brown and pink colours. It’s made using a faceted rose quartz stone and the cluster is a combination of pink,white and champagne coloured pearls, smoky quarts and silver.

Thank you Elizabeth, for the very lovely things you said about my jewellery!

These earrings were made for Jackie, for her birthday. I made them using small champagne crystal hearts, beneath a cluster of champagne crystals and pearls. They were made to match the large Champagne Heart Necklace that her daughter Kate bought for her.

Billy and Desiree were married on Saturday. Desiree wanted necklaces for the 5 special girls from their families who were included in the ceremony in various ways. In the end, Desiree decided on 4 Murano hearts for the older girls and a little czech heart for the little one in the group. Instead of suede I used a contemporary silver chain to hang the hearts on.

Kirstie Allsop – from “Location, Location, Location”  has lost her engagement ring and has set up a website to try and find it.

I know I would be devastated if I ever lost my wedding band. When I got married we couldn’t afford a diamond engagement ring and it never really bothered me as I prefer coloured stones ( I can’t tell you how happy David was about that!). For our 10th anniversary David designed the most beautiful ring for me as a surprise, it has 40 small diamonds set into a rose gold band – I could never imagine a more beautiful ring. Isn’t it funny how there are some things that are so precious and sentimental.

Kirstie, I hope you find your ring.

Normally when I buy semi precious beads I buy a whole strand of them. Because you are buying something that was  created naturally it’s unavoidable that there be flaws and imperfections in it, unlike things made in a mass production factory, where everything is churned out “perfectly”.

Unfortunately the Briolettes that I buy for my Smoky Quartz Briolette earrings are often a bit too irregular or the stones have scratches, and because I  think that earrings components need to match perfectly I end up with stones that I can’t bring myself to use for this particular pair of earrings (sometimes as many as a quarter of the strand!)

It’s such a waste – these are still very lovely stones – I made this pendant last week, out of a less than perfect smoky quartz briolette, and an explosion of a cluster of  really unusual matt green Swarovski crystals.

These very elegant earrings are made from some silver shell pearls, topped with a little bit of sparkle. Apart from the silver pictured here they are available in White, Champagne and Rose Gold. Contact me at jenni@twinkleberry.co.uk for details

This pair of earrings has been very popular, especially with the colder weather closing in and the warm sumptuous colours coming out in our woolies – delicious cranberry coloured pearls hovering over a bronze coin pearl.

I made this stick pearl cuff bracelet to match this necklace. It should fit really snugly on the wrist and this one fastened with a silver toggle clasp, but it could equally be made on stretchy elastic. I LOVE these pearls!

I have made this necklace using a very unusual silver chain – it has oval links with a flattened link in between and then I have wire wrapped some wonderful faceted oval labradorite into the silver. It’s a really substantial piece and perfect for winter, the silver grey of the labradorite is flecked through with fire colours making it a very interesting stone.

This necklace was made for Theresa, whose wedding was over the weekend. We decided on a Stick Pearl Necklace as the dress had a low neckline and needed a bold necklace. The Pearls were a perfect colour – iridescent white with pink tinges.

I love this as an option for wedding jewellery as it is definitely something you could use again afterwards – perfect with jeans and a white shirt!

I made this bracelet with a strand of Mother of Pearl I bought recently – different colours to the one I used for this necklace, but gorgeous none the less. This strand is a combination of white, cream, champagne, grey and gold – perfect for Bridal jewellery!

I’ve used one of my favorite Rose gold Toggle clasps to finish it off.

I really struggled to find some more Cranberry Pearls for this bracelet. For some reason I just couldn’t find any that I liked – they were either too small or just not the rich,vibrant cranberry colour that I was after. I was thrilled when I found these and so bought loads of them! I have used some for this bracelet, which is a combination of pearls and sterling silver barrel beads wire wrapped together and finished with a toggle clasp.

I had to have this silver flower shape when I saw it recently. I have used it as a pendant with a silver tassel falling from it. It’s made a very unusual piece and as I only bought one of them (what was I thinking….?) a one off piece. I have attached a variety of jewel coloured Swarovski crystals to the tassel – it’s so pretty!

This necklace was quite an unusual one for me. I came across this strand of faceted glass some time ago and just loved the colour and shine. The beads are very large and I had never worked with beads that were this big – I was intimidated! I’ve kept them for ages, just not really being sure what to do with them and I still like them as much now as when I bought them. They are a truly gorgeous colour. I tried using just one bead on it’s own – mixed with other components – but somehow it just seemed like they needed to be used together and so that’s what I ended up doing, each bead is separated with a simple silver bead and the glass remains the star of the show. It’s a really substantial necklace and I am delighted with it.

This little bracelet has been hugely popular. It’s a combination of faceted Smoky Quartz, Swarovski Crystals and the most unusual sterling silver nuggets all wire wrapped together. It’s a favorite colour combination of mine, but I think people love it because of the little clasp I have used – its a solid silver little rose and completely irresistable!

This bracelet is made using some of the stones that I bought last year – wonderfully faceted chalcedony in the colours of the sky. I’ve used quite a heavy silver chain and a toggle clasp.  As well as wire wrapping some bigger stones into the chain I have attached some dangles to the links themselves and a little cluster to the clasp, so it’s a really full bracelet, that is such fun to wear.

I designed these cluster drop earrings to match this necklace – using smaller faceted smoky quartz coin shaped stones and blue and green swarovski crystals. I’ve put these on gypsy hoops but they could also be hung on any other earring hook.