Birthstone necklaces and Mother's necklaces

In life there are so many reasons to celebrate, so many memories to hold onto. For me, jewelry has always been like a talisman and a way to mark these special times. When I was graduated pre-school I still remember the little costume jewelry pin my mom gave me. It was a non-working clock that had little crystals on it the color of my birthstone (pink alexandrites for June). And when I got engaged I have the beautiful vintage engagement ring my (now) husband and I picked out from an antique shop in San Francisco. For Mother's Day two years ago my boys bought me a cool cuff bracelet by Connie Verrusio that was made from a re-purposed brass ruler (yeah, we're nerds).

In my work, each piece I create has special meaning behind it. Some of the most powerful and meaningful work I like to create is birthstone jewelry.  Different colored gemstones correlate with each month, and the gemstones have widely varied properties for healing, faith, friendship and love. It's fulfilling for me to create such meaningful jewelry for women and make it fun and fashionable, too.

Last year I created my Crush collection using genuine gemstones in combinations that were so much fun, I felt like I was making jewelry out of candy. Yum!

Click on the picture to view these pendants in my shop:

When my customers started ordering them in combinations of birthstones for Mother's Day, Anniversaries and Weddings I realized how powerful these necklaces are.

Then I got requests for 3-stone necklaces. I started with my Wrought necklaces, big, juicy gemstones in luscious color combinations to represent birthstones. I started with two, which also represent his-and-hers for anniversaries. This one is citrine (Nov) and blue topaz (Dec):

Then a triple gemstone necklace was requested. This one has amethyst (Feb), blue topaz (Dec) and white topaz to represent a diamond (Apr):

And brand new for 2013 is my Crush trio necklace, featuring a larger center stone to represent Mom and two smaller stones to represent the kids. I made this one for my sister (center-peridot-Aug) and my nieces (citrine-Nov and pink tourmaline-Oct) for Mother's Day:

Coming soon... Crush birthstone rings in single, double and triple!

Thank you for your support of my work, tell me what jewelry is special to you and why. Inquiring minds want to know.

First stop, the tropics

Our jewelry vacation has begun! Thanks for joining me on the journey of Metalicious jewelry making. This is where we travel together to learn about the inspiration of creation. (Sorry, I love a good rhyme).

One of the first jewelry collections I designed when I started Metalicious was my Bubble Collection.  These are whimsical, fun pieces that I made by slicing up different sized tubing and soldering it together to look like bubbles. Here's my best selling Champagne necklace in sterling silver with a gorgeous London Blue Topaz briolette gemstone:

So why the bubbles? I'm not a soap maker, deep sea diver or competitive bubble blower. But I do love going through the car wash.

All that blue, sudsy goodness that leaves my car squeaky clean!

I also love to swim. I was lucky enough to have a pool growing up and spent entire summers swimming and ending up with green hair. And I can play a mean game of "Marco-Polo." But my favorite way to spend the summer now is at the beach.

My husband and I were lucky enough to spend our 10th wedding anniversary in Vieques, PR. I found some amazing shells and sea stuff that I carefully packed and brought home to make into jewelry. I added them to my Raw Collection of shark teeth.  This recycled sterling silver shark tooth necklace is my best seller:

My favorite piece from Vieques is my Sea Urchin Necklace.

But I also was obsessed with these tiny conch shells as I was snorkeling. I only picked the ones that were uninhabited by both conch and hermit crabs!

Totally not kidding...

No, that's not seaweed on my head. It's my ratty hair...

So after our trip I wanted to be able to do something good as my way of thanks to Mother Nature. I'm donating a percent of the profits from my Raw collection will be donated to the Coral Restoration Foundation. They work hard to recover the Florida Keys coral reefs through nursery rearing of coral colonies and planting out on reefs. I'd love to "adopt a coral" on behalf of my customers. Every little bit will help!

Thanks for taking the trip with me!