Tag: bracelet

“Bluest” Agate Bracelet

“Bluest” Agate Bracelet

This is the first bracelet I made in 2023. It is the “bluest blue” agate so far from The Carver. The stone is 100% natural and is not treated in any way. I was so taken by the deep blue banded coloration that I decided I just had to put it in a new bracelet. The stone’s rectangular shape “drove” my design—sleek, simple and angular. As I have often said, the setting design is only for one purpose: to highlight the shape, beauty and uniqueness of the cut stone. This bracelet is now available for purchase in the Shop! “Bluest” Agate Bracelet More views Click on each image to see an enlarged version

New Bracelet: The First in Several Years

New Bracelet: The First in Several Years

A volcanic breccia agate cuff bracelet, the first new bracelet made in several years, is now offered for sale in The Shop! This sterling silver cuff is one of only 36 bracelets crafted by me. The coloration of the stone was so unusual for The Carver that I just had to put it into a bracelet; so I cut, polished, and handmade the cuff. Check it out now in the Shop. I hope you like it!

TexasAmethystAgate Islesboro, Maine, Studio Tour

TexasAmethystAgate Islesboro, Maine, Studio Tour

I recently joined the Islesboro Arts Collective and participated in the group’s first annual studio tour held July 9, 2022. While Texas Amethyst Agate is dedicated to researching and documenting The Carver Agate Field of West Texas, I expanded this focus to participate in this event by adding Maine gemstones to my lapidary/jewelry works. The main stones featured included two handmade sterling silver cuff style Maine tourmaline bracelets. as well as jewelry incorporating three other gemstones found by me on Islesboro. These included green plasma jasper, brown/beige jasp-agate, and white Pripet Wharf marble included with ‘fools gold’. I crafted fancy designer freeform gemstones from each of these Maine stones and set them in a gold fill wire wrap to create pendants. I really loved the green plasma jasper which contrasts beautifully with the wire wrap. The three pendants prepared for the studio tour as well as the Maine tourmaline cuff […]

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New Year Powder Blue Fortification Agate Bracelet

New Year Powder Blue Fortification Agate Bracelet

This bracelet and its powder blue agate stone were created just before Christmas 2019–the only bracelet I made in 2019. It is a great start for 2020 and is gemologically interesting. Though at first, this blue agate may merely seem beautiful and elegant, it is much more, particularly if you like rocks like I do! First, the lower right hand corner of the stone has a half moon shaped blue area of finely banded agate. This fine blue banding displays opalescence, e.g., its blue color and reflectivity subtly changes depending upon the intensity and type of light (natural, incandescent, fluorescent, LED, etc.). Second, the orientation of the stone to the light will change its reflectivity and brightness.  This is very much what you would see with certain types of precious opal.  Third, the fortification agate (named so because it has a shape with angular corners, like looking down from above […]

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Free-Form Designer Cabochons (Cabs)

Free-Form Designer Cabochons (Cabs)

Pictured above is a free form designer cabochon, or cab, from ‘The Carver’. Free-form means that I have shaped and polished the pictured stone to maximize its natural beauty. The stone is not cut and polished to a specific shape–oval, square or round–or to a specific size. Most cabs are of a uniform shape (oval or round and sometimes rectangular or square) and usually these are cut to a size predetermined to fit easily and exactly into a mass-produced stock jewelry setting for a ring, bracelet, pendant, belt buckle, or whatever.  These stock settings are machine made, inexpensive, and widely used to make jewelry designed to take a single specifically shaped and sized cab. The free-form designer cab is a stone cut without a specific standardized shape or size and it requires a metal setting, usually silver or gold, that is individually designed and constructed to fit the specific size […]

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New Bracelet: The Bloodstone

New Bracelet: The Bloodstone

The Bloodstone, a green mossy red plume agate–and a new find from ‘The Carver’. This stone is very difficult to identify because it has the clear look of bloodstone, eg., green with red inclusions. Yet under magnification, the green portion of the stone closely resembles a green mossy agate with red plume-like inclusions. It came from very fractured material which dictated the shape of the finished stone which I have included in a new sterling silver cuff bracelet. This is #29 produced. Check the shop for more views of this unique stone and bracelet.

New Bracelet: West Texas Mountain Sunset

New Bracelet: West Texas Mountain Sunset

The last of the three new bracelets has just been completed: West Texas Mountain Sunset. This is a geode slab from ‘The Carver’ agate field in West Texas. I designed a unique cuff bracelet to highlight the beautiful sunset scene depicted in this stone. The peak is a crystalline geode center bounded by a deep red banding and surrounded by orange and gold citrine which gives the appearance of a twilight sunset. This bracelet, #32, is available in the Shop. Enjoy!

New Bracelet: The Strawberry

New Bracelet: The Strawberry

Here is the second new bracelet: The Strawberry. This is a carnelian (red quartz) geode cross-section from ‘The Carver’.  It has a white crystalline center which contrasts beautifully with the red carnelian. This bracelet, Cuff Bracelet #31, is available in the Shop, so be sure to check it out.  

New Bracelet: The Carver Carnelian

New Bracelet: The Carver Carnelian

Here is the first of three new bracelets coming your way: The Carver Carnelian. This new bracelet is designed to show off an intense red carnelian designer stone, cut from a nodule found on ‘The Carver’. It is most notable for its intense color and lack of fracturing. This bracelet, #30, can be seen in the Shop, so head over there and take a look!

New Bracelet: Houdini Agate

New Bracelet: Houdini Agate

New bracelet! The 4+/- acre part of ‘The Carver’ discovered and shown in the 2018 Diversity Galleries produced the surrealistic stone featured in this new bracelet. This stone is a cross-section of a geode (a hollow center stone), which after being formed with a crystalline lining in its hollow center, somehow filled with a densely yellow-colored chalcedony (a micro-crystalline quartz, e.g., you can not see the quartz crystals with the naked eye). After the yellow center filled and hardened within the hollow of the geode, a fracture or crack formed in the yellow center. This fracture, or crack, was later filled (healed) by a thin layer of red silica which somehow got through the outer stone wall of the geode and the yellow center of the stone. In short, it took three different steps to form this beautiful and extraordinary, inexplicable stone. The photo below shows the rest of the stone from […]

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