I've been quietly working on a small batch of jewels with GOLD. Like real 14k GOLD. You've seen my work with 14k goldfill, but what I've got on the bench currently is full karat 14k. (You can read about what goldfill is here.)
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While I haven't yet reached the point of making jewelry entirely out of gold, this latest collection features gold bezels, accents, and a few gold earwires. Gold is expensive, ya'll. I don't tend to talk much about material costs, but not only has silver increased substantially in price over the last couple years, but so has gold and especially turquoise. Turquoise is a precious material in my opinion, and while it isn't widely valued the same as, say, sapphires or diamonds, I am paying nearly twice as much per carat for turquoise as I used to. (Check out this article about how some turquoise is actually worth more than diamonds!)
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I've been working into the night and every naptime I can to get these sweet new pieces ready. So hopefully in the next few days I'll have this GOLD collection up and available on the website. Then I'm on vacation for a while, and I'll be back with new work at the end of November.
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Here are some more of the stones I’m setting in gold bezels:
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