When I go out fossil hunting, I often pick up rocks that just appeal to me also. I like to make jewelry out of fossils and rocks that are “extras” rather than let them sit in a specimen box or on the floor. But sometimes it is rather hard to get inspired to make jewelry. Today I am exhausted from the Root River Antique Power & Tractor Show and fossil hunting! So I decided to just sit and make jewelry, but what? I decided on collections that reflect the personalities of people I love, or just know, to inspire me!
The Shirley Collection
A Tribute to my Mother.
My Mother was the person who started me collecting rocks. When we were kids, she would take us out to hunt “sparkly creek rock” in the dry washes and creeks around Winona. They were for her rock gardens where she planted Moss Roses. We also found fossils, but she wasn’t interested in them.
Mother loves anything that sparkles, but she is also a warm, earthy person. The piece on top is a beach worn receptaculitid with warm brown, sparkling gold stone as an accent with copper wire. The piece on the left is a unique whitish rock with a subtle sparkle in the sun, I accented the rock with glittering blue beads. All of these are way prettier than the pictures and the one on the right is stunning! It is a whitish rock with champagne quartz drusy (Sparkly Creek Rock) that can’t help but catch your eye in the sunlight. I set it in an unobtrusive basket of decorative half round wire with a single golden bead on top.
The Shirley Collection
The What About Bob Collection
I was thinking that I needed some “stronger” jewelry that would appeal to men if they wanted to wear their fossils. Actually, I would wear any of these, but I am also a strong woman who likes fishing.
The top left is a cephalopod in green wire with a green stone on top of a single segment of crinoid stem, the wire then wraps around and comes up through a long wooden bead, wraps into two segments of a crinoid stem with another green rock on top, all topped off with a fishing leader and leather thong. Cephalopods somehow seem very appropriate for a man to wear — they were the apex predator of a sea without fish. The one on the right is also a cephalopod, glued onto a metal maple leaf attached to a leader and leather thong. The bottom one is a simple beach rock with a hole in it with tiny fossils. The “back”, it can be worn either way, has many small crinoid segments in it. To me it reflects that a man only shows so much on the outside and you have to “turn him over” to see the depth. Just Bev thinkin’. 😀
The What About Bob Collection
The Beverly Collection
I love sparkle and variety! When I teach school I wear my fossil jewelry to kind of bring kids out and get them asking questions — it humanizes a substitute teacher. 🙂
The top one is a beautiful, large crinoid stem stacked on itself. I used brown aluminum wire and golden beads to accent it. Below it is a stunningly perfect Maclurite crassus that I did in blue wire and blue beads. To the right of the Mac is a Silurian Blastoid that I just love in black wire and red beads. To the left is a Silurian horn coral in silver with black and silver beads. And at the bottom is a trilobite from Morocco that I wrapped in silver and purple. Again, a picture just does not show how gorgeous these pendants are!
The Beverly Collection
I now understand why people would rather pay someone to wrap a fossil than do it themselves. I have over $50 in tools and perhaps $600 in wire and beads! And it takes time to learn how to wrap, colors to use, experiment with chains, etc. After now, oh, about a hundred pieces, I am finally feeling somewhat confident in my wrapping and bead selection.
I am posting these so that YOU do not have to go through the learning curve that I did. You can look at a fossil that I have wrapped and take what you want of the design and leave the rest or mix and match! However, it is a shame that the pictures just don’t show the sparkle of some of these pieces.
