Pear Shaped Semi-Precious Stones

Pear Shaped Semi-Precious Stones are incredibly common in jewelry. You see them in earrings, bracelets and you even see them in rings. Their shape, when used, gives a simple design a wide range of designs and is versatile enough to give your one piece several different possibilities.

Necklaces

You can use Pear Shaped Semi-Precious Stones in many different ways on a necklace. One large semiprecious stone can be used to anchor your necklace and customers can wear them with a V-neck top. Several of them hanging together, like in a chandelier or tiered multi-strand necklace, which gives your piece the weight it needs without bulging out (like coins do) or looking too awkward (like rectangular stones).

You can also drop the pear shaped stones in between unusual shapes (such as sterling silver charms, keshi or biwa pearls) to give uniformity amongst too much different oddly shaped components. Center drilled pear shaped stones can also be mixed in with coins and marquise shaped stones of various sizes to give texture and character to your piece.

In large necklaces that feature different materials, you can string together a small cluster of side drilled Pear Shaped Semi-Precious Stones to give the necklace a different feel. Pear shaped beads fit together neatly and give the piece a uniform but also woven effect. You can also use this technique with different sized pear shaped stones that allow you to add greater variety into your piece without making it look disorganized or unstructured.

Earrings

Pear Shaped Semi-Precious Stones  can also be hung in tiered chandelier earrings. You can start off with a sterling silver filigree frame and drop pears from it. You can also hang small increments of chain from the frame and drop the pears from the chain. By adding layers of this chain, you’ll get a chandelier effect which will hang nicely and add fluidity to your piece. Once again, the pear, because of its unique shape, gives the piece shape without looking odd or sticking out. 

Another way is to hang an increment of chain off of a filigree frame and hang different sized pears from it. You’ll get a different kind of variety and depth in your piece without using too much material. Easy earrings can also be created by dropping one Pear Shaped Semi-Precious Stones  off of a hammered, waved or textured soldered ring. The pear shape anchors the piece down smoothly and gives the piece a nice finish that cannot be done if using a round, oval, square or rectangular component.

Overall, Pear Shaped Semi-Precious Stones  are incredibly versatile pieces. Their angled sides allow them to be pieced together in uniform or varied clusters on a large necklace. Also because of their round ends, they are great and simple anchors for necklace pendants and earrings. Using Pear Shaped Semi-Precious Stones  is a great way to liven up your jewelry, provide more visual contrast and interest, and really add a new element of sparkle to your work.

It's our Mardi Gras Sale!

For our annual Mardi Gras sale we thought we’d go Big & Colourful and offer you 50% off All Shells, All Coral and Fire Agate products. This includes popular and favourite products such as Abalone, Fossil Coral, Red Coral and much, much more.

To view the complete list of sale items, please visit: Stones and Findings SPECIALS

Our offer is only valid from Tuesday February 2nd, 2010 to Monday February 15th, 2010!
*Minimum order of $150.00 still applies.

Please Note: Our showroom will be closed on Monday, February 15th for Family Day. However you can still place an order online at www.stonesandfindings.com to qualify for the sale. Happy Shopping!

Designing with Agate

Despite its fairly common availability and affordable market value, agate beads hold a fascinating place in human history. Used for its hardness to make tools by man's forerunners in Ethiopia's Omo valley as far back as 2.5 million years ago, placed in talismans, rings, and amulets by Persian magi for its magical properties over 1500 years ago, and worn by millions of people across the globe for aesthetic and healing value today, agate has always held high esteem in the world of gemstones. The wonderful metaphysical benefits of agate beads have been thought to include everything from improvement of memory, concentration, and analysis, as well as curing of insomnia, poor circulation, and pancreatic dysfunction, to the generation of honesty and goodwill, and perhaps more fantastically, the ability to control weather patterns. A rich mythos has developed around agate beads, indeed!

The agate gemstone forms in cracks, fissures, and cavities in rock formations, typically volcanic in origin. Where various levels of rainwater, silica, manganese, iron, and other mineral oxides combine slowly, layer after layer of the developing agate gemstone form in the 'host' rock's recesses. Because of the variety in minerals that eventually comprise the agate's makeup, the agate gemstone resulting from this extensive and time-consuming process often has a stratified appearance when cut open, much like rings of tree bark or the concentric layers of an onion, but with a great deal more visual complexity. This is explained by layers of clear, glassy quartz that alternate with waxy, translucent chalcedony.

Porous surface layers give the agate bead a very absorbent quality with regards to dyes. This property, on top of agate gemstone's widespread availability in most continents and the presence of modern cutting workshops, has lead to a huge proliferation of agate colours and styles in the world of gemstone jewelry. Furthermore, many still hold value in agate gemstone's deep history and alleged healing capabilities, and the agate stone has witnessed recent rejuvenation in growing 'New Age' industries. Others simply love its timeless look!

The name 'agate' derives from the Achates River in southwest Sicily, where it was initially discovered.

Click here to browse Agate at Stones and Findings

Designing with Tourmaline

Tourmaline is one of the most chemically complicated gemstones around, and it shows in the unmatched variety of available colour schemes. Several colours may even be present in the same piece, and will appear differently when viewed in different kinds of light and from different angles. A truly dynamic stone, indeed!

To add to the intrigue of this bizarre and beautiful mineral species, Tourmaline is naturally pyroelectric: when heated or compressed, it takes on a positive electric charge at one end and a negative electric charge at the other. This interesting quality was known by British importers in the 18th century, who made use of the charge to pull ash out of their pipes.

At that time the Dutch East India Company was importing vast quantities of Tourmaline from Sri Lanka to insatiable audiences in Europe. Almost two centuries later, Empress Dowager Cixi- the last Empress of China- also entered the Tourmaline trade, regularly shipping tonnes of it from Californian mines. Her appetite for beautiful pink tourmaline was apparently so voracious that it single-handedly created a prosperous mining industry in San Diego County.

Associated with amorous emotional energy, Tourmaline is seen as the gem of lasting love and friendship.

Click here to browse Tourmaline at Stones and Findings

FREE STRAND OF STONES!

Every 2 weeks, Stones and Findings gives our customers something special!



This week, you can choose a strand of stones to take home with every purhcase of $150 or more!

Click here for more!

New Color Search Option!

For anyone who's been shopping at Stones and Findings recently, be happy to hear that we have a new Color Search option!



http://www.stonesandfindings.com/colourSearch.php

You can now click on a color and find exactly what items we carry that will match that specific shade! And if you were thinking of colors within that tone, you can select "partially" this color and find the large array of stones, pearls, crystals and components that will cater to your needs!

Feedback is welcome!
Hope you enjoy!