An Odd Mix of Old Stones

This necklace is a mix of some odd stones that I would have never thought to put together. At the base is an irregularly shaped Brazilian Oco Agate slice; coloring is beautiful with raw edges and swirling white around. It has been handcrafted in artistic non-tarnish brass wire. The necklace is strung in some old stones of faceted rectangular Antique Jade; colors ranging from an almost clear, olive, mixed coloring and some that are a hint of off mustard color. Between I’ve putt another old stone, smoothly polished elongated barrels of Turquoise; which has been heat treated and stabilized turning it a nice color of brown with deep dark veining. It is a nice dark contrast to the lightness of the antique jade.

Heat Treatment of Stones
Centuries ago, someone stumbled upon the magical effect of applying heat to gemstones. High heat, such as that from a charcoal fire, can make a bland looking gemstone change its color into something spectacular. If this fortunate technique were not discovered, there would be very few affordable gemstones of good color in the market.

This method of treating stone produces dramatic natural changes by the use of heat only, the dramatic changes being, deeper more brilliant colors, smoother texture, richer luster, and easier workability. This method first includes; Providing stone material, then with or without a sand bath, placing the stone material in a heat treating environment, increasing the temperature in specific increments until the effective heat treating temperature is reached, keeping the stone at that temperature until all the desired changes have occurred, the temperature is then decreased in specific increments until the material is at room temperature. Once the stone is treated and cooled, it is ready to be shaped, and or polished.

Treatments of Turquoise
Treated turquoise, frequently used in modern jewelry, has been altered from its original state by a process intended to improve the color and/or durability of the natural stone. There are a number of different ways that turquoise may be treated.

Treated turquoise has existed for centuries. The earliest kinds involved a fine application of oil or wax to the stone, making it shine and deepening the color. This type of treated turquoise tends to "sweat" when exposed to heat or sunlight and can become cloudy over the years; however, the treatment can sometimes be successfully reapplied.

Most American turquoise today is stabilized or bonded with a treatment of plastic, epoxy, or water glass. This type of treated turquoise retains its look and luster better than oil or wax treated turquoise, and the stabilization process can be used on turquoise that is too unstable to benefit from the oil or wax method. Epoxy stabilization was developed in the 1950s by Colbaugh Processing of Arizona.

Native American jewelers in the Southwestern United States strengthen thin pieces of high-grade turquoise through a process termed backing. The turquoise is glued to a stronger material to prevent its cracking. Early turquoise backings were made of car battery casings and records, while modern jewelers usually use epoxy steel resin.

Some turquoise is dyed to improve its color or make it more uniform. Prussian blue is the most common dye used in this treatment. Some people do not like dyed turquoise, as they feel it is artificial, and it sometimes leaves color on the skin or fades.

Trendy Southwestern Mix

Working with stones I sometimes get a desire to do multiple strand necklaces; not often, but there are times when the stones and design just come together. In this creation, I started with rare ivoryite stones from the Arizona mines; accented with silver spacers and did half the necklace in raw stabilized turquoise chips beautiful earthy tones and the base of the necklace are tiny marbled onyx tubes.


Ivoryite is a wonderful and versatile stone to work with; it is a very unique variety of extremely fine grained mineral called magnesite; it is a natural mineral and not man-made as most people think. Quarried by hand, this stone looks and feels like soft silky ivory; it can be worked with metal tools, but cuts effortlessly with diamond tools making it excellent material for inlay, cabochons and small carvings.

Find your wearable earth, custom design jewelry at our online shop!

Turquoise: Spiritual attunement, cleansing, healing, protection, valor, soothing, peace of mind, guidance through the unknown, romantic spontaneity.
Onyx: Self-control, decision making, intuition, recognition of personal strengths.

Bits of Turquoise

This lovely 3 strand necklace is from bits of all natural Turquoise chips; a hint of Ivoryite and accented with a single strand of wood rice beads.

Visit Timeless Designs for more gemstone jewelry designs.

Raw Slab Finds

The local Mineral & Rock Show this past weekend yielded some nice raw slabs! Here are a few pictures of what I found, some I’ve included with their beads and jewelry designs – the Owyhee Wild Horse Jasper I don’t have any beads or designs, so I matched it up with one of my wire work Turquoise pendants!


Picture Jasper
Necklace Set is composed of Picture Jasper & Turquoise
Jaspers: Protection, nurturing, joy, awareness; balancing of physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual energies.




Tiger Iron
Necklace Set is composed of the three shades of Tiger Iron; Red, Blue and Gold, all wire wrapped in non-tarnish brass wire.
Tiger Iron: Artistic endeavors, beauty, and vitality.




Owyhee Wild Horse Jasper
Accented by a Turquoise pendant wire wrapped in non-tarnish brass wire.
Jaspers: Protection, nurturing, joy, awareness; balancing of physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual energies.
Turquoise: Spiritual attunement, cleansing, healing, protection, valor, soothing, peace of mind, guidance through the unknown, romantic spontaneity.

Visit Timeless Designs for gemstone jewelry in custom handcrafted individual designs!

Wild Horse Magnesite, Ivoryite, Agates & Turquoise

Visit Timeless Designs for these and many other gemstone favorites.

Wild Horse Magnesite, Ivoryite and crystals


Banded Agates in shades of pink, cream and grey

Heart of Turquoise & Pearls Set

Spring & Summer Exotic Heart Traditional

Various pendants for spring and summer! Whatever your favorite; Southwest Turquoise, faceted rare and exotic Pink Peruvian Opal, and even a little puffy Lapis heart charmed with pearls.

Southwest Turquoise; handcrafted brass wire coils and bail

Exotic Pink Peruvian Opal; handcrafted brass wire bail

Puffy Heart of Lapis with charmed accenting Pearls

Timeless Designs is your place for Pendants and other gemstone jewelry.

New For Spring

Fresh from the design board and studio, these new gemstone jewelry designs are classy, casual, flirty, and dressy. They will work with just about any style and fit any budget.

Flavors of yellow and blue in this necklace from Petsky Fossil Coral and blue Quartz between handcrafted wire links in non-tarnish brass.

Turquoise barrels scattered among antique gold spacers and beige seed beads.

Looking for a little spice, try this hot shades of red Coral in graduated gemstones shaped like peanuts and finished with dangle earrings.

A touch of class with this beauty made from freshwater cultured pearls among Kyanite and accented by a Lapis Luzli pendant and all in sterling silver.

Accents of red Coral hidden between nuggets and nuggets of Turquoise with all sterling silver; adding a touch of southwest to your collection.

Visit Timeless Designs for these and many other gemstone jewelry designs.

Magnesite Ivoryite Howlite Turquoise

In the lapidary and gemstone world, Magnestie, Ivoryite, Howlite and Turquoise are all natural gemstones in their own right. But how does one tell the difference and know which is which, since there are so many different stones with the same type of names and looks. For a lesson in geology and lapidary, I posed the questions to my resident Gemologist for clarification.

Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is ahudrous phosphate of copper and aliminium. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue. In recent times turquoise, like most other opaque gems, has been devalued by the introduction of treatments, imitations, and synthetics onto the market, some difficult to detect even by experts. The substance has been known by many names, but the word turquoise was derived around the 16th century from the French Language either from the word for Turkish (Turquois) or dark-blue stone (pierre turquin). This may have arisen from a misconception: turquoise does not occur in Turkey, but was traded at Turkish bazaars to Venetian merchants who brought it to Europe. It originated in China. Turquoise has a hardness of 5 to 6 on the Moh's scale. Tuerquoise is found throughout the American Southwest and Mexico; in Virginia and Pennsylvania, USA; throughout the Middle East except for Turkey and Iraq, China and Western Australia.

Magnesite is magnesium carbonate. Dolomite is almost indistinguishable from magnesite. Magnesite occurs as veins in and an alteration product of ultramafic rocks, serpentinite and other magnesium rich rock types in both contact and regional metamorphic terranes. These magnesites often are cryptocrystalline and contain silica as opal or chert. Magnesite is also present within the regolith above ultramafic rocks as a secondary carbonate within soil and subsoil, where it is deposited as a consequence of dissolution of magnesium-bearing minerals by carbon dioxide within groundwaters. Magnesite can be used as a slag former in steelmaking furnaces. Magnesite also forms within a crystal group that have the rhombic habit. Magnesite is usually associated with calcite, dolomite, aragonite, strontianite and serpentine. Magnesite is 3 to 4-1/2 on the Moh's scale. Magnesite in of itself does not ordinarily form good crystals, or solid pieces of rock, but can make up a substantial portion of some rock types. If it does form crystals or hard stones, it is about a 7 on the Moh’s scale. Stones hard enough for lapidary and jewelry purposes are found in Bisbee, Warren District Mule Mine, Cochise Co, AZ: Bangge Xainza, Nagchu Prefecture, Tibet: Jianchanling Mine, Western Qinling Tibet: Jianchaling Mine, Lueyang Co, Shaanxi Province, China: and Saertuohai, Tuoli Tacheng Prefecture, Xinjiang, China.

Ivoryite is a great substitute for ivory. Ivoryite is a synthetic material made to look and feel like Ivory, an animal friendly alternative! A substance called Ivoryite, which is a Misnomer, is a sedimentary precipitate of magnesium, calcium and silica. It is 5 to 5-1/2 on the Moh's scale, which makes it slightly harder than ivory. Ivoryite can be worked with metal tools, but cuts effortlessly with diamond tools. Polishes well with diamond, tin oxide, cerium oxide or white rouge. Excellent material for inlay, cabochons and small carvings. There is actually no specific mineral named Ivoryite, it is a misnomer given to harder varieties of Magnesite. Found all the same locations as Magnesite or Howlite.

Howlite is a calcium borosilicate hydroxide is a silicate mineral found in evaporite deposites. Howlite was discovered at Tick Canyon, California in 1868 by Henry How (1828 - 1879), a Canadian chemist, geologist, and mineralogist. In appearance, it is white with fine grey or black veins in an erratic, often web-like pattern, and is opaque with a sub-vitreous luster. Its structure is monoclinic with a Moh’s hardness of 3.5 and lacks regular cleavage. Howlite is commonly used to make decorative objects such as small carvings or jewelry components. Because of its porous texture, howlite can be easily dyed to imitate other minerals, especially turquoise because of the superficial similarity of the veining patterns. The dyed howlite (better known as Ivoryite or Magnesite) is marketed as turquenite. Howlite is also sold in its natural state, sometimes under the misleading trade names of "white turquoise" or "white buffalo turquoise", or the derived name "white buffalo stone". Noe “sacred White Buffalo Turquoise does exist in one mine in Nevada). Howlite is found in its natural state only in the Southwestern United States; Nova Scotia, Canada; Germany and Turkey. A accepted misnomer for a variety of Magnesite.

Appaloosa Stone or Wild Horse Magnesite is a natural Gemstone from a single source on an Indian Reservation near Bisbee, AZ. There is much discussion over this material, because it is too hard to be a magnesite (ivoryite or howlite), so most lapardists consider it to be a jasper deposit mixed in with the turquoise. A standard explanation of this material is “Wild Horse, often called Appaloosa Jasper or Magnesite, is a one source stone. The Navajos like using this unusual stone in their Jewelry. It has shadow hues in it, along with lots of lined matrix, and lots of white, all giving it an striking effect. Wild Horse “stone” completely captivate whoever gazes upon it!“

Another New Design

Fresh from the design studio, this one again mixes Picture Jasper and Turquoise together in a

more choker style necklace. Turquoise in a puffy teardrop mixed among Picture Jasper and copper spacers; dangle hoop earrings complete the look.

Visit Timeless Designs for more gemstone jewelry.

Twist on Turquoise

Although often mistaken by fakes such as Howlite, Chrysocolla, and Magnesite (which are all natural gemstones in their own rights), Turquoise is generally very distinctive with its vivid blue-green color and smooth, waxy appearance. One of the most beautifully colored of all stones; turquoise is a phosphate that combines copper and aluminum. The copper causes the exquisite blue-green, but the color varies from green to yellowish gray. Pale sky blue, such as the most sought after Sleeping Beauty, is the most cherish gem color; especially when infused with fine veins of impurities that show it is natural and not artificial.

For thousands of year, the best Turquoise came from the deserts of Persia and was known as Persian Turquoise. In the late 1800’s, deposits of Turquoise were discovered in the American southwest, and this is now the world’s prime source of high-quality ‘Persian’ Turquoise.

Southwest turquoise mines cover Nevada (where the majority of turquoise deposits are found), Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado; with one lone mine in California.
Nevada hosts the majority of the turquoise mines such as Valley Blue, #8, Montezuma, Zuni, Lone Mountain, Red Mountain, and Godber just to name a few. Arizona of course has the famed Kingman and Sleeping Beauty mines along and Colorado has Cripple Creek, Kind’s Manassa and Leadville. And of course the lone mine of San Bernardino in California rounds out the southwestern turquoise mines.

Of course, the American Southwest is not the only place to find Turquoise. Excellent mine finds have come out of China, Mexico and parts of Africa.

This piece highlighted here is a twist on the old Turquoise favorite matched with Picture Jasper. I’ve highlighted some of the Picture Jasper stones with non-tarnish brass wire swirls. Dangle hoops complete this causal yet classy look in the same turquoise and picture jasper gemstones.







Traditional Gemstone Properties
Turquoise: Spiritual attunement, cleansing, healing, protection, valor, soothing, peace of mind, guidance through the unknown, romantic spontaneity.

Turquoise Onyx

Beautiful black Onyx mixed among nuggets of blue Turquoise, sterling silver spacers and accented by a large square Turquoise pendant that has very nice dark/black matrix veining and accompanied by pewter end-caps. The matching earrings are dangling charm style from a round hoop and fishhook.






Traditional Gemstone Properties

Onyx: Self-control, decision making, intuition, recognition of personal strengths.
Turquoise: Spiritual attunement, cleansing, healing, protection, valor, soothing, peace of mind, guidance through the unknown, romantic spontaneity.

Visit our website for this necklace set and many other designs using natural gemstone that have been highlighted with wire sculpture.

Tucson in Review

A week in Tucson, the weather was great at about 80 degrees everyday; vendors were wonderful and I was able to find many new and unusual stones for new designs this year! Whew, it was a wild and long week, hand picking thru all the merchandize, looking for that perfect strand that reflected the personalities of many of my great clients!

The week started out by visiting across the freeway from the Tucson Convention Center to the Street Vendors….miles and miles of vendors selling wears; anything from raw materials strait from the mines, polished undrilled stones to strands of beads; for as far as the eyes could see! The afternoon was spent at JOGS a favorite buying ground for many wholesale purchases. They play host to many international dealers from as far away as Poland for Amber to China for Pearls and many great U.S. dealers from AZ, NM, TX, CA, and NY. Here you could find many types of stones, finished jewelry pieces and geodes of many shapes and sizes.


The next several days included highlights to GL&W shows Gem Mall and Holidome, JGX (a miniture AGTA show), and back to JOGs and the Street Vendors.

Many great finds from deep red coral, apple red sponge coral, turquoise, ivoryite, pipestone, white magnesite (howlite), lapis, crystals, freshwater cultured pearls, agates, jaspers, pendants, copper, sterling silver and gold vermeil findings and on the very last day I was able to come across some Wild Horse Magnesite – WOW, what a find direct from mine!!



I’m very excited to begin designing with the unusual cuts, colors and stones that I found in Tucson! In the coming weeks I’ll be premiering the designs here on the blog and also on our website. For now, I’ll be busy over the next few days getting everything inventoried and then begin working in the studio!


In the meantime, over the next few weeks we will continue to mark down and deeply discount existing designs to make room for our new ones! Get in on some great deals while you can, before the original pieces and Sale are gone gone gone!

Tucson 2009: Gem & Lapidary Wholesale Show

The Gem & Lapidary Wholesale Show (G&LW) is another of the ‘big’ shows at Tucson 2009. Held at the Holiday Inn/Holidome from Feb. 5-23, it is for wholesale buyers only with business and jewelry industry credentials. Here you will find just about anything relating to the jewelry industry; from finished products to beading materials, supplies and tons of gemstones and custom cut rough materials.

A sampling of vendors include; Colbaugh Processing Inc., Lucky Gems & Jewelry Ltd., Opex Opal, China Mountain Turquoise Inc., Bead Plus Silver Inc., Cowboy Trading (for Sleeping Beauty Turquoise), Kingdom Trading Company, and Rincon Trading Company (for all kinds of Turquoise).

For more information on the G&LW show, see their website.
For information on the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show 2009 visit Jewelry Show Guide or Tucson Show Guide.

Turquoise Agate & Pearls

A brand new design for 2009 and in to two of the most requested colors/gemstones of Turquoise and navy blue. A natural gemstone combination of China Turquoise with a nice brown/rust matrix grain, navy Madagascar Agate that is slightly marbled in gray and cultured freshwater Pearls shaped in natural teardrops; all accented by glass beige lined seed beads and sterling silver open spacers.





This piece is bold and classy for the Spring/Summer 2009 collection and would look just great with any business suite or a pair of jeans, white t-shirt and jacket. Whatever the occasion, this little number will add a touch of spice to your outfit!


Healing and Traditional Properties
Agates: Balancing physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual energies; perceptiveness, strength, inspiration, awakening
Pearl: Purity, faith, charity, innocence, integrity, focus, wisdom, spirituality, sincerity, fertility.
Turquoise: Spiritual attunement, cleansing, healing, protection, valor, soothing, peace of mind, guidance through the unknown, romantic spontaneity.

It is available for purchase along with many other designs on our website. Bookmark and watch our website, this is the first of many more designs to come for our Spring/Summer 2009 collection!

Wire Favorites

These are my favorite designs done over the past year that have been accented with wire sculpture. I enjoyed making these designs and coming up with more and more wire sculputre to accent the beauty of the gemstones. Next year I'll be taking advanced wire working classes and as I perfect the designs, will be adding more wire sculpture to many of my jewelry designs!


The first is made with an unusual gemstone in Turritella Agate accented with cultured freshwater pearls, Smoky Quartz and put together with handcrafted wire coiled links made in non-tarnish silver. This was one of the first designs I did with coiled links, I later graduated into double coiled links in different designs.

The second one is a more bold, flirty and classy look all in one! This piece again has the coiled links, but in black artistic and non-tarnish brass wires. Charmed in the center of each coiled loop is an awesome faceted Sardonxy Agate in marbled colors of black, brown, white and cream. I dangled 3 of the Agates from the center of necklace to act as a swing pendant. The matching earrings are made of Agate, including a dark brown round agate and Onyx.

The next design is a favorite of almost everyone who sees it. Beautiful handcrafted spiral links in non-tarnish silver and then accented with stabilized Turquoise nuggets and a medium freeform pendant that I accented in the same wire. The earrings are made of the same wire in smaller coils and have the same Turquoise nuggets.

Some of My Favorites

This week I’m looking back over the past year and thinking of the many different designs that were created. Every one is pretty much a ‘favorite’ but others still were harder to ‘sell’ and let go. In looking at the all the photo’s and pondering how they were created, I thought I would share a few of my favorites through-out the week.

Turquoise and Pearls
These two pieces are among the top favorites on my list and are in Turquoise and Pearls.

The first is a dramatic piece and a first attempt at working with pearls and multi-strands. I mixed fresh water cultured pearls with turquoise teardrop gemstones; intermixed with Swarovski Crystals in copper surrounded by copper metal spacers. For the earrings I took individual turquoise and charmed each of the pearls to the upper portion of the earring. It gave the earring a multi-dangle effect while still looking classy to complete the set. This lovely piece found a home with a very nice lady who saw the piece and said she wanted that piece exactly to complete her outfit to a friends wedding later that week. She liked the fact that it has a stylish and classy look, yet could also be worn more casual with jeans and a jacket.

The second piece is a long large turquoise marquee pendant wire wrapped in bronze artistic wire. This was also a first attempt at traditional wire wrapping and was a lone pendant until I got the idea to set it with a strand of single fresh water cultured pearls. I hand coiled both side pieces and then pulled separate wires through to form the ‘frame’ that the turquoise pendant would sit in. Once completed, I hammered the spirals just to give a little bit of depth around the bail; which was made just large enough so that it could be removed and worn with something else and the pearls worn separately. It really was like getting 2 necklace pieces in one! The lovely lady that bought this loves turquoise and loved the unique wire wrap of coils and the fact that it wasn’t in silver.

Visit our website for a wide selection of custom unique gemstone jewelry.
Stay tuned all week as I’ll be doing a ‘review’ of all my favorites from Timeless Designs jewelry collection!