Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Mother May I?

First of all, thank you for coming to my blog.  For this month, I'm giving away this lovely Turquoise Lyre Necklace. It's made with a 8mm Turquoise stone bead, tiny gold bead accents and smaller turquoise bead. All hung on a 18inch gold chain. It's very beautiful, I made one like this for my mother and mother-in-law last year and they looooved it!

Here are some additional images of this lovely piece.



  How to Enter:
Use the Rafflecopter widget below!
The first entry is mandatory and you can earn additional points as well!
Number of winners: 1
Ending date of the giveaway:  May 12th 2013
Where it can be won: U.S. and International
The prize is from: www.panzell.etsy.com
Questions or inquiries? Leave a comment or email me panzelljewelry@gmail.com
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rocks and Rainbows

The reason I went into jewelry-making was my love for rocks. Sounds lame right? When I was little, my mom bought me this book on geology , it had tons of info about rocks and fossils. I would read it over and over again, and I even tried busting open some plain rocks hoping there would be crystals inside. These days, you might have noticed the rocks that designer's have been incorporating in their pieces which have a very natural and colorful sheen.  

First of all, there is Pyrite. It's a gray, shiny rock that has been making appearances everywhere. And I must say, I think it is soooo beautiful. 

Yves Saint Laurent made a nailpolish color based on this mesmerizing nugget. And I must admit, it doesn't look too bad.

I use Pyrite in it's gray form in many pieces of my jewelry: 
Pyrite Chip ChainBohemian Blue Pyrite Necklace, gold silver raw nugget wire wrap rainbow
Pyrite Chunk Chain, raw druzy silver pendant ball mica fool's goldPyrite Chunk  Ring, adjustable bronze filigree fool's gold vintage victorian nature rock iron ore 

And it gets better! There's a form of pyrite which is called Peacock Pyrite or it's scientific name Chalcopyrite. It is still fragile like it predecessor but has a beautiful rainbow sheen that simply glistens in the sunlight. Here's a ring I made from a big nugget.
 
Image of Panzell Jewelry "Peacock Pyrite Chunk Ring" Peacock Pyrite Chunk Chain

Aren't you captivated by now. But there's more, lately, jewelry suppliers have began treating regular druzy crystals with a gaseous form of titanium which gives a similar rainbow like coloration. 
 
 And I've been drooling over the other forms of this titanium rainbow treated rock all over ebay (its my go-to for supplies). Expect to see these goodies incorporated in jewelry if you haven't already. I think it closely correlates with the galaxy print trend that has taken hold, it's about intense hot colors and a futuristic look.



Wasn't that pretty? Well, I hope you enjoyed this post and learnt something as well. These are relatively cheap and affordable and add such a splash of color and interest in any jewelry piece.