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Price: AU$ 287 (free worldwide shipping)
This necklace is, like all of our other pieces, a one-off design, intended for a woman that appreciates individuality and commitment to quality. The beads for this eclectic necklace have been collected all over the world and put together to create a piece of strong contrast. The piece contains, amongst others, these semi-precious beads:
- The focal point of this necklace is a Brown Lip Oyster Shell, which we purchased on a small market in the Solomon Islands. The oyster shell (with its unique brown iridescent unique pattern), is supplemented with a sterling silver plated charm from South Korea.
- Amethyst nuggets from Egypt. Amethyst is the purple variety of quartz with an impurity of iron, which gives it’s the eye-catching purple colour. Amethyst has been an extravagance in violet for many thousands of years, coveted by princes both ecclesiastical and secular. In popular belief, the amethyst offers protection against drunkenness – for the Greek words ‘amethystos’ means ‘not intoxicated’ in translation.
- Spines of a Slate Pencil Sea Urchin, which we purchased on a small market in Madang Province in Papua New Guinea. Whilst almost all sea Urchins have long sharp and venomous spines this species has in changed tactics to produce thick blunt spines. Each spine (when not totally bleached after long exposure on a beach) has a beautiful ring pattern, giving it a unique “signature”.
- Lava beads from Indonesia. Lava beads start life as molten rock of over 1,000 degrees Celsius Because of the air entrapped in the flowing lava these eye-catching beads are surprisingly light.
- Fossilized Crinoids – early stalked relatives of feather stars sometimes called water lilies that lived in the world’s ocean since the Ordovician period 490 million years ago. Because their stalk is made from calcareous material and the ocean sediment is an ideal environment for Crinoids to become fossilized, every circle on the grey coloured bead represents a perfect cross-section through one animal. These beads were sourced in Hong Kong.
- Foraminifera discs– the calcareous remains of one of the largest single cell marine organism in the world bought on a small market in Porta Vila, Vanuatu
- Tiny Shark vertebrae, collected from a beach in Tunisia, North Africa. Shark vertebrae have been used in jewellery all over the world from Africa, to Hawaii or New Zealand.
- Cross Biwa pearls and button Pearls, produced by the freshwater triangle mussel (Hyriopsis cumingii) near Shanghai, China. The beads are produced by grafting tissue of foreign mussels into the triangle mussel, which responds to this intrusion of foreign protein by producing the lustrous nacre bead.
- Two different types of agate are part of this necklace: Multi-coloured cracked Agate (rectangle), and faceted Agate (purple balls) from Brazil
- Rings made of iridescent Mother of Pearl from Mollusk Aquaculture in China. Mother of pearl consists of hard but brittle aragonite and is supplemented by the mollusks with an organic material similar to silk. The result is the strong, flexible material which can withstand hard use and which looks simply stunning.
- Concentric squares made of iridescent Mother of Pearl from Mollusk Aquaculture in China. Mother of pearl consists of hard but brittle aragonite and is supplemented by the mollusks with an organic material similar to silk. The result is the strong, flexible material which can withstand hard use and which looks simply stunning.
- Sterling silver plated and Tibetan silver beads sourced from South Korea.
