Category Archives: Woot!

SAMPLE SALE!!!

Hi everyone! I’m thinning out prototypes and sample originals I’ve been holding onto for a while and it’s time to let go! Prices are discounted around 20% or more in a couple of cases. All prices include stones as pictured; sizes are as-is (though many of these can be easily sized later if needed).

Click the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for the rings, prices, and a description. Please email me at cheyenneweil@gmail.com or comment below (I’ll see your email on my end) if you have questions or would like more information & photos. And if you would like to buy one, I’ll get an invoice over to you via paypal or square-up. Shipping is via USPS Priority, insured, between $15-24 (depending upon the ring cost below), and I can ship within about 3 days (+ a little slack over the Thanksgiving weekend 🙂

Cheers!!! Continue reading

Vote for Gemfix design contest!

Hand-carved calla lily ring with Montana sapphire, 14K rose gold

Hi all!! Gemfix.com (an awesome gem cutter) is having a design contest for pieces using their stones and I entered my Calla Lily ring, which features an .88ct Montana Sapphire. Please go vote (for me!!)!

Go HERE for the gallery of pieces in the contest. You get one vote only.

Unfortunately, my photo does not do justice to this stone; in order to get a decent pic of the metal without too much reflection, the stone can suffer. However, I did get a kick-ass video of the stone outside in my garden; it’s well worth checking out how vibrantly different the stone looks compared to my studio lightbox..

Couple more photos below of the ring. Continue reading

photo shoot!!

https://vimeo.com/260884774

I was invited to participate in a photoshoot! I’ve never done one before, so all the action was super interesting for me. The videos were shot & assembled by Glitch Films.

The behind-the-scenes video is also really cool:

https://vimeo.com/260884597

I’m even in it! I feel he captured my natural flailiness quite well.

More after the click: Continue reading

tucson gem show 2018

Another year’s gem show is in the bag. I managed to break out of my usual AGTA/GJX “rut” and see some new venues. I spent close to three solid days on my feet from open to close, running on manic fumes the entire time, dismissing lunch (that’s for amateurs!), and sustaining myself with furtive bites of Lara bars. By the end of each day I would be a glazy-eyed dehydrated spazz. YAY! Man, I love this show.

The above lovelies are from a Holidome vendor. That is a vast and confusing venue with 5-ish ginormous football field-sized tents filled to overstuffed with largely gem beads and costume jewelry, though there were some good loose stone vendors for sure. I’ll make a post of what I DID actually buy soon. (Spoiler: I got one of those emeralds!)

Natural color Japanese Akoya pearl strands. I typically ignore Akoyas because I find the classic white “Mikimoto” style pearls a bit of a yawn, but these silvery blue-ish baroque guys were totally my speed. Please someone, give me a reason to call this guy up and order one of these strands!

Many more pics after the click: Continue reading

tucson gem show 2011

Cultured Sea of Cortez pearl

[Blue cultured Sea of Cortez pearl. It’s pretty amazing, not only because it is gorgeous, but because it is from the first ever cultured pearl farm in the Sea of Cortez. Previously, it had been understood that culturing the “Rainbow-lipped” oysters in the Sea was impossible. But three guys figured out how and now they have a small farm in Guaymas.]

Well, the gem show was overwhelming and hectic as usual. Two days to buy everything I think I might need for the next year is pretty nearly impossible—but I do give it my damnedest. At least I feel like I made some decent contacts.

Mostly, I bought pearls (some things do not change). The Cortez pearl above was the fanciest/rarest I’ve ever purchased. I will definitely have to visit the farm one of these days; it’s only a five-hour drive or so from my parent’s house. I’ll write more in depth about the various stones I got in a later post. For now, I’ll just post a little eye candy.

Tahitian pearls

Mmm: lovely round and semi-baroque Tahitian pearls. Gorgeous peacocky and magenta colors.

South Sea pearls

South Sea pearls from Myanmar, except for the upper right round pearl, which is a Chinese freshwater.

Chinese freshwater keshi and round pearl

I actually bought these at the last year’s show, but never got a nice photo before. Chinese freshwater rose/peach round pearl and keshi of various colors.

NV Turquoise -- all natural and unstabilized

Turquoise! I can never resist buying this stuff. These are all from Nevada I believe (maybe a couple pieces from New Mexico—will have to check) and are discovered, mined, cut, and polished by two of the nicest people. All their turquoise is non-stabilized and un-enhanced, and it is lovely stuff.

Rose-cut translucent diamonds

Rose-cut diamonds! The largest is 1.6 carats, the smallest is maybe 1/2 ct. Coolness!

* * *

And I did not watch the Grammy’s on TV but I did peruse the blogs this morning to see what everyone wore. So far my favorite jewelry piece was the Lorraine Schwartz snake bracelet: gold and platinum with large diamond slice ‘spots’ and pave white and yellow diamonds. It looks like it has ruby eyes too. (You can get a huge blown-up version here.)

Lorraine Schwartz snake bracelet

i’ve been busy

First there was this:

[Nine wonderful pounds of cleaned chanterelles. Hello delicious!]

Then a week later, this:

chanterelles and lobster mushrooms

That right there is just under twenty pounds of chanterelles and a tad over nine pounds of lobster mushrooms. We also got a few hedgehogs and some bleeding milk caps (lactarius rubrilacteus, also sometimes called lactarius sanguiferous, “rovellons” in Spain; turns out that this is one of the favorite mushrooms of the Catalan). I was bouncing all over the place with excitement over this haul. The forest is freaking oozing with mushrooms right now!

chanterelles in forest

OOZING! I tell ya. Do you see them all? I about died when I did.

And in between it all, there was this:

gold and silver ring stack

Rings! Rings! Rings! I got all these rings out in the mail within two days. It feels so great to get a big batch of orders out the door all at once.

etsy featured seller: ME!

This is so freaking exciting! My two days to shine are happening as we speak and I’m on Etsy’s front page with a featured seller photo (dork!), shop links, and interview and everything.

Of course, I spent hours and days obsessing over my interview questions and then suddenly the deadline was upon me and I freaked, quickly made sure I didn’t have any grotesque spelling errors, and just sent it in. Now I’m all, ohmygod: I forgot to say this, I should have said that, and I totally sound like a spazz!

Anyway, I’m very excited and also a bit nervous. Will anyone even read it? Will people actually go look at the things I make because of this? I have no idea what to expect.

ps – I would have put a pretty picture at the top if my computer hard drive didn’t die. And Joshua’s computer’s power supply not give out. Or my studio computer’s monitor go bad. All in this past week. I’m running linux now off a bootable disk. Anyway, you’ll have to be content with some krazee kapital letters and excitable punctuation in the header.