Why Matching Earrings Are Harder Than They Look

A matching pair is not two of the same earring. It is one earring and its reflection, and those are different objects.

Why I make them at all

I like making coordinating earrings for necklaces already in a collection, and I should be honest that the reason is partly commercial. When I do not make them, they become the thing people ask me to commission most.

There is an aesthetic reason underneath that. Regular earrings look off next to this work. The clustering is specific enough that a conventional pair beside it reads as a mismatch, so people who buy a necklace come back looking for the earrings that belong with it.

Making them up front solves that, and it gives me design direction without starting from nothing. Each pair still has to stand on its own, though. Plenty of people will never wear them together.

The part that is actually difficult

Your two ears frame your face, which means a pair of earrings is seen as a mirrored set, not as two copies.

So the clusters have to be opposites. Not similar. Reversed.

The only way I have found to get that right is to build both at the same time, mirroring my own movements as I go. Left hand doing what the right hand is doing, in reverse, stone by stone. If I finish one and then try to reproduce it, I get a copy, and a copy worn on two ears looks subtly wrong in a way most people feel without being able to name.

Once the pattern holds, I mark the metal with a sharpie where the holes need to be drilled, so each cluster gets wired down into its frame rather than resting against it.

There is a second demand hiding in this, which is that the two clusters have to be mirrored and also have to be equally good. A pair fails if one side is livelier than the other. You cannot fix that at the end by adding a stone, because adding to one side breaks the mirror you just spent an hour holding.

Alpenglow Earrings

These go with Alpenglow, the pink kunzite baroque pearl drop necklace.

I hand-formed the teardrop frames from 12-gauge 14k gold-filled wire and soldered an ear post to each, then filled them. The cluster sits inside the open frame rather than hanging below it, which is the same structural idea as the necklace, where fabricated link shapes frame the stones set into them.

Kunzite, morganite, lavender keshi freshwater pearls, simple-cut aquamarine, Japanese Akoya keshi pearls, and pink and purple sapphires. Two lavender quartz went in last, once everything else was placed.

These took seven hours, which is the longest of the three pairs and longer than some necklaces in this collection. Small does not mean quick. There is no room to hide a decision at this scale.

Halo Earrings

These go with Halo, the floating choker finished with a cascade of gold-filled sequin chain.

The two AAAA moonstone marquis in these came off the same strand as the eight in Blue Hour. That was deliberate. I wanted the moonstones on the earrings to mirror the moonstones on the choker, and using the same strand is the only way to be certain they match rather than merely resemble each other.

Below the clusters I wired sequin chains at different lengths, each one topped with a tiny moonstone. Staggering the lengths is what makes them read as a tassel instead of a fringe.

Sequin chain moves differently than link chain does. It catches light in flat little flashes as it swings, which is the same behavior as the cascade on the choker, and it is why that chain is on both pieces.

Last Light Earrings

These go with Last Light, the kunzite double chain necklace.

They are the simplest thing in Second Light. An ear post soldered directly to paperclip chain, and a single pink druzy at the bottom of each. Four materials, two hours.

The chain is the same elongated paperclip as the necklace, and the druzy is the same druzy that appears in its cluster. So the pairing is not a matter of palette. They are literally made of the same things, reduced to a line and a stone.

Three pairs, each made once

None of these will be made again. The frames were formed by hand, the clusters were built as opposites in a single sitting, and in two cases the stones came off strands that are now used up.

If you have a piece of mine and have been looking for earrings that belong with it, that is the commission I get asked for most, and you can start one through the custom shop.

Questions

Why do matching earrings have to be mirrored instead of identical?

Because your ears frame your face, a pair is read as a mirrored set rather than as two copies. Clusters that are identical rather than reversed look subtly wrong worn together, even to people who cannot name what is off. The reliable way to get it right is to build both clusters at the same time, mirroring your own hand movements, so each is the other reversed.

Can I wear these without the matching necklace?

Yes, and they are built to. Each pair is designed to stand on its own, and plenty of people will never wear a set together. The coordination is there for the people who want it.

Can you make earrings to match a piece I already own?

Yes. This is the single most requested commission I get, and it is exactly why these three pairs exist. You can start one through the custom shop.

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The Last Kunzite I Had

I had one kunzite pendant left, bought from my gem vendor Earthstone, and I knew this was my last chance to use it in the pastel collections.

That is why this piece exists. Not a design idea that needed a stone. A stone that was running out of chances.

I buy what I fall for and then keep designing until each stone has found the one piece it was meant for. Most of the time that works out. Occasionally a stone waits years, and occasionally I get to the end of a collection and realize the waiting is over, one way or the other.

What is actually inside this stone

It is large, pale pink, and finished smooth rather than faceted. Hold it to the light and you can see straight into it, which is the point of a finish like that, and also the risk.

Two things are visible in there. Growth and etch tubes, which are fine parallel channels running through the crystal like needles laid side by side. And healing cracks, sometimes called feathers, which are partial internal fractures that read as faint veils.

Neither is damage. Both are the record of how the crystal grew and what happened to it while it was growing.

Why kunzite is never faceted if you can help it

Kunzite has two directions of perfect cleavage, the same structural weakness that runs through moonstone. Pressure or vibration from faceting can split or splinter it. The stone also resists abrasion, so the heavy friction that faceting requires puts more stress on exactly the internal structures least able to take it.

A smooth finish is gentler. Rolling and polishing distributes pressure evenly instead of concentrating it, which lowers the chance of losing the stone on the lap.

There is an optical reason as well. Kunzite is pleochroic, which means it shows different colors depending on the angle you view it from. A rounded dome lets those shifting pink and violet hues blend softly into each other.

Facets would do two things instead. They lock the color into rigid reflections, and each flat face becomes a window onto every inclusion inside. A smooth surface holds the veils and the tubes in suspension rather than spotlighting them.

I wanted it hung between two chains, not from one

I wanted something different from anything else in the collection, and I kept coming back to the same picture: the stone suspended between two chains dropping in parallel on either side of it, making a clean vertical line.

Which meant the stone needed two sides to attach to. It does not naturally have those.

So I set it into a 24k gold vermeil oval first, folded in half over a dowel with enough space to hold the stone. That gave me a left and a right to wire the chains into, and it turned a pendant into a component.

Then I edged the oval and grew a cluster off it

Once the stone was secure I edged the vermeil with tiny stones. Pale amethyst, mystic labradorite and moonstone, fifteen and fourteen and seventeen of them respectively, each one wired individually.

Then the cluster. Pink druzy, pink chalcedony, morganite, lavender quartz, rose quartz, pink and purple sapphires, a large flat aquamarine briolette, and Japanese Akoya keshi pearl accents.

This is the part of my work people recognize, and it is the part I do not rush.

The cluster hangs off the stone rather than surrounding it. On a piece built around a vertical line, a cluster that ringed the pendant would have closed the shape and undone the whole idea. So it gathers at one shoulder of the oval and spills from there.

The pattern I scrapped

I knew I wanted to fill the space between the two chains, so I built a pattern of pearls and gemstones to run down it.

I took it out.

Against the scale of the pendant and the weight of those elongated paperclip links, the pattern read as too small and too delicate. It was a fine idea at the wrong size, and keeping it would have made the whole necklace look busier and less certain. The empty run between the chains does more than the pattern did.

Made once, and there is no next one

I chose elongated paperclip chain for the two runs because the links are long enough to carry the linear idea instead of interrupting it.

This is the fourth kunzite piece I have made for the pastel work, after a choker that has since found its person and Alpenglow, whose own kunzite arrived with a single drill hole and had to be set into a crescent. Its matching earrings make four.

This was the last pendant. There is not another one waiting, which is the other reason for the name.

Questions

What are the lines and veils inside a kunzite?

Two common inclusion types. Growth and etch tubes are fine, parallel, needle-like channels running through the crystal structure. Healing cracks, also called feathers, are partial internal fractures or healing planes that look like faint veils. Both are natural records of how the crystal formed, and a smooth cabochon finish holds them in suspension rather than spotlighting them the way flat facets would.

Why is kunzite finished smooth rather than faceted?

Kunzite has two directions of perfect cleavage, so pressure or vibration from faceting can split it, and because the stone resists abrasion the friction of faceting stresses its weakest internal structures. A smooth finish distributes that pressure evenly. Kunzite is also pleochroic, showing different colors by viewing angle, and a rounded dome blends those shifting hues instead of locking them into rigid facet reflections.

Is Last Light one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes, and in this case there is no way to repeat it even loosely, because it was the last kunzite pendant of its kind I had. If you would like something made in the same spirit with a different stone, you can start a commission through the custom shop.

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Why Moonstone Is Cut Smooth

You almost never see a faceted moonstone, and there are three reasons for that. All of them are the same reason, really. The stone only works if you leave it alone.

I could not get enough of these stones

Eight AAAA rainbow moonstone marquis, cut as smooth polished domes rather than faceted. The flash in them is almost neon. An electric blue that moves when the stone moves.

That flash has a name. Adularescence, and it is not a color in the stone at all. It is light scattering between microscopic alternating layers of two feldspar minerals, orthoclase and albite, stacked inside the crystal like sheets.

Which is exactly why the cut matters.

Three reasons the dome is correct

A rounded, polished surface works like a lens. Light enters, scatters across those internal layers, and glides smoothly through the stone. Facets do the opposite: flat faces break light into sharp, sparkling reflections that sit on the surface, and that masks the glow underneath. You trade the moonlight for sparkle, and moonstone is not a sparkle stone.

The second reason is the stone's own fragility. Moonstone belongs to the feldspar family and has two directions of perfect cleavage, which means it splits easily along flat planes if struck. Grinding it into a dome removes the sharp edges that would chip in daily wear. Cutting sharp angles into it does the reverse, and raises the risk of fracture both on the lap and on a wrist.

The third is inclusions. Most moonstone carries fine internal fractures that look like tiny centipedes, and that is the actual term for them. A cabochon blends those into the overall glow. Faceting turns each flat face into a window and puts every flaw on display.

So the smooth finish is not a style choice. It is the only cut that lets the stone be what it is. You can read more in my moonstone guide, and if you have ever confused the two, pearl versus moonstone sorts them out.

I built the frame, then edged only one side of it

I hand-formed an oval from 12-gauge 14k gold-filled wire and drilled tiny holes around it as anchor points, so every stone could be wired down into the frame rather than sitting against it.

Then I edged that oval with the marquis moonstones, running them up the right side only.

Not all the way around. Up one side, in an asymmetric line, and then filled in with the rest of the cluster. That decision is what made the rest of the piece harder, and better.

The topaz already matched

While I was choosing the cluster I found some sky blue topaz left over from another collection.

They reflected the same blue as the flash in the moonstones. Not close to it. The same. That settled the whole palette, and everything else got chosen to sit beside those two blues: morganite, aquamarine, gray and pink sapphires, and Japanese Akoya keshi pearls.

There is a lot of luck in a sentence like that. There is also the fact that I keep what I do not use.

The drop is holding the necklace straight

I knew I wanted a gemstone drop from the beginning, so I wired 14k gold-filled chain into the base of the cluster and worked down it. Larger stones at the top, graduating smaller the further down they go, with more space between them as they descend.

I have used this same aesthetic many times, clustering stones down a chain, because it works. The look is recognizable by now, and I am fine with that.

But the drop is doing a structural job too. The pendant is deliberately asymmetric, with the moonstones weighted up one side, and an asymmetric pendant will hang crooked if you let it. The drop puts weight at the bottom and pulls the whole thing straight.

The second cluster, on the other side

Then I built a smaller cluster on the opposite side of the oval.

It balances the design and gives the eye something on the other side, and it fills the empty part of the frame. What it does not do is fill it completely. There is still plenty of negative space inside that oval, and there is meant to be.

I finished it on paperclip chain, which was the right weight twice over. Substantial enough to carry a pendant this heavy, delicate enough to belong with stones this fine.

Made once

Blue Hour is named for the light after the sun goes down, when everything reads blue. That is the color living inside these eight stones, and it gives Golden Hour a sibling at the other end of the day.

The same moonstone strand runs through Halo and through its matching earrings, so the three pieces share a stone as well as a collection. This one was made once, and the cluster inside its oval is the second cluster I built for that frame. The first one did not fit, and went on to become a bangle.

Questions

Why is moonstone cut smooth instead of faceted?

Three reasons. A rounded dome works like a lens and lets light scatter across the stone's internal layers, which is what produces the floating glow called adularescence, and facets break that light into surface sparkle instead. Moonstone also has two directions of perfect cleavage, so a dome removes the sharp edges most likely to chip. And most moonstone carries fine internal inclusions that a cabochon blends into the glow and faceting would emphasize.

What causes the blue flash in moonstone?

Adularescence, which is light scattering between microscopic alternating layers of two feldspar minerals, orthoclase and albite. It is not pigment and it is not a coating. It is structure, which is why it moves as the stone moves.

Is Blue Hour one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. It was made once and will not be repeated. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can start a commission through the custom shop.

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Why I Made a Bangle Instead of Another Cuff

Sometimes you design in service of the collection itself.

I had two bracelets in Second Light. I wanted three.

Two cuffs, and a gap where a third bracelet should be

Both of the others are cuffs. Ember is a heavy fabricated frame built around a stalactite slice, and the Alpenglow Bracelet is seven linked shapes with a stone set into every one. Both are dense.

So the third one had a job. It needed to be more minimal than either, and it needed to not be a third cuff.

A bangle answered both at once. It brought a form the collection did not have, and it gave someone a way into this work that does not require wearing a statement.

I should say that this is not how I usually start. Most of the time a stone arrives and I follow it. This time I was looking at a list of what the collection had and did not have, and I designed toward the gap.

One wave, and nothing else

I knew the design element before I knew anything else. A single wave.

I formed it on a wire jig from 10-gauge 14k gold-filled wire, letting one side resolve slightly higher than the other so the curve came out asymmetric rather than even. That unevenness is the whole design. It opens a place along the bend where a gemstone cluster can sit down into the curve instead of perching on top of it.

Then I shaped it on an anvil until it held. Wire this heavy does not hold a curve because you formed it there once. It holds because it has been worked until the metal agrees, and 10-gauge is thick enough to argue.

The whole form took seven hours at the bench. The Alpenglow Bracelet took eighteen, across three days. That gap is the piece.

The two ends took a few passes

Each end finishes in a small 14k gold-filled ball, and the ball does not sit on the end of the wire. It sits down inside it.

That means drilling a burred-out divot into the cut end of 10-gauge wire, then soldering a ball into that divot so it sits level and centered. On a curve, with two ends, and the two of them visible side by side whenever the bangle is on a wrist.

It took a few passes. This was the tricky part of the piece, and it is the part you would never guess was difficult, because when it works it looks like nothing happened at all.

The cluster was built for a different necklace

While I was forming the bangle I was also working on Blue Hour, my moonstone marquis pendant. I had hand-formed its oval frame and I was building a gemstone cluster to fill it.

That cluster did not fit. It was too big to sit properly inside the oval, and at that size it threw the proportions of the necklace off.

It was exactly right for the curve of the bangle.

I set it into the bend and marked the metal with a sharpie where I needed to drill, so the cluster could be wired down into the frame rather than resting against it. Shield-cut and pear aquamarine, a fancy-cut amethyst, lavender quartz, morganite, kunzite, pale amethyst, and clear pink, opaque pink and purple sapphires, with a Japanese Akoya pearl and a freshwater pearl among them. Twelve kinds of stone in a cluster you could cover with a thumb.

Nothing was wasted, and nothing was compromised to make it fit. The cluster simply belonged somewhere other than where I built it.

A pearl that reaches across

One lavender keshi freshwater pearl runs across the curve and anchors into the other side.

It does two things at once, which is why it is there. It holds the cluster more securely than the drilled anchor points alone, and it carries the eye across the open span of the wave instead of letting everything pile at one end.

There is a second keshi pearl in the cluster itself. Together they are the largest single material cost in the piece, more than the wire.

Opulent and minimal

That is the result, and I am going to use both words because the piece earns both.

The form is one line. One curve of gold-filled wire, two finished ends, nothing else structural. Set against that, the cluster is as dense and as layered as anything in Second Light, with a dozen stones packed into a space the size of a thumbprint.

Crest was made once. The wave was formed by hand and will not come off the jig the same way twice, and the cluster that sits in it was built for a different piece entirely, so it exists in this configuration and no other.

Questions

What is a bangle, compared to a cuff?

A cuff is a wide open band you slide onto the wrist through a gap. A bangle is a slimmer form, and Crest is a single asymmetric wave of 10-gauge 14k gold-filled wire with a finished ball at each end. It is the third bracelet in Second Light and the only one that is not a cuff.

What does 14k gold-filled mean?

Gold-filled is a thick layer of real 14k gold bonded to a base core under heat and pressure, and the gold layer is far thicker than plating, so it wears for years rather than months. Everything structural in Second Light is 14k gold-filled, with 24k gold vermeil used for a few set components. No solid gold is used anywhere in the collection.

Is Crest one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. It was made once and will not be repeated. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can start a commission through the custom shop.

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Why a Link Bracelet Takes Three Days

I finished the kunzite necklace, and part of the ritual of completing a piece is to sit with it. In a way, it’s to soak in the newness of what I created (this is why buying something new is so satisfying, right?). Part of it, admittedly, is to admire what I had just made. But in this process, I begin to see elements of the design that can be improved and parts I can borrow for my next design.

In this case, I noticed where I had placed a pearl with sapphire clusters towards the end of the necklace. While there was nothing inherently wrong with this initial design choice, I decided I wanted something more substantial. I replaced it with one large pale amethyst.

I knew my current selection of pieces was thin on bracelets, and as I continued auditing the necklace, I began thinking about the fabricated shapes and how they could serve as a borrowed design concept to create a large link bracelet that would carry a similar spirit to the necklace. So I went back to the same jig and made the bracelet it was asking for.

Seven shapes in a line

Most bracelets I create are cuffs or bangles, but this one was an entirely new concept: creating large links interconnected to form a daisy chain, designed flat but that would wrap around the wrist.

That changes what the shapes have to do. I laid out seven of them to run linearly: a large teardrop at the center, an elongated oval on either side of it, then two rounder and larger ovals, and a smaller elongated oval at each end. Hand-formed on the same jig, from the same 12-gauge 14k gold-filled wire as the necklace, so the two pieces would obviously come from the same aesthetic family.

Seven fabricated links soldered closed. Polished to a high shine. Seven finished shapes on the bench, and the hard part still ahead of me.

Twenty-eight holes, and every one had to agree

Each shape needed four holes. Two on one side, two on the other, so it could hold hands with the shape on its left and the shape on its right.

Seven shapes. Twenty-eight holes. And every single one had to line up with the hole in its neighbor closely enough to pass a head pin straight through.

There is very little forgiveness in that. Drill one a hair off, and the pin binds, or the link sits crooked, and it pulls everything downstream of it out of true. You do not always notice at the time. You notice four shapes later, when the run has started to curve away from you, and you have to work out which hole is the liar.

Keeping track of twenty-eight of them, in the right order, on the right sides, was the whole job. This is why designing is akin to playing chess. You have to think about how one move on the board can affect several moves downstream once a piece is in play. One mistake and it can cost you the whole game.

Three days before a single stone went in

I joined the shapes with 10-gauge 14k gold-filled head pins so every connection point would be genuinely strong, and threaded 14k gold-filled jump rings through the drilled holes and then through the hole in each head pin, locking each link to the next. The minutiae of engineering is always the tedious and unsexy part.

The other thing I was solving the whole time was length. I wanted 7 inches, which is standard. I also knew I wanted a 24k gold vermeil double-strand clasp, so it would go on and come off with one hand. Vermeil is a thick layer of gold over sterling silver, not over base metal.

But the finished length is the sum of every gap between every component. I did not know most of those gaps until I was already committed to them. So I kept going back, adjusting, re-measuring.

Fabrication and assembly took three days of separate bench sessions. Not one stone had gone in yet. That is where the time in this piece actually lives, and it is the part nobody can see. Nothing about the process can be automated or shortcut.

Three vendors, three names, one stone

Then the stones, and I want to be straight about one thing first, because it is a real buying question and nobody answers it plainly. I know this because it has bitten me in the past. I used to take the names of the stones I purchased as the source of truth. What I didn’t realize until later is that many gemstone manufacturers invent names for their stones.

The pale amethyst here, a stone one of my vendors sells as Scorolite, and the lavender quartz I buy from a different vendor are almost identical, except one is technically amethyst and the other a type of quartz. The two stones sit side by side, and one wouldn’t be able to distinguish one from the other.

Amethyst is the purple variety of quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation, sitting at 7 on the Mohs scale. Pale amethyst is amethyst at the light end of its range.

What it actually looks like is a muted, cool violet, closer to lilac, with a soft greyish undertone sitting under it. Put it next to a crisp purple amethyst, and it reads hazy. Diffused. Milky, almost, and translucent rather than clear.

Scorolite is a name somebody made up. Lavender quartz comes from a different supplier and is, for every practical purpose, indistinguishable.

I use all three in this bracelet and in the necklace. They are one stone with three price tags and three stories attached, and knowing that is worth more to you than any of the three names.

I had planned six little clusters. I did not need them.

I started at the center teardrop and built the full cluster there: kunzite, pale amethyst, morganite, pink and purple sapphires, with Japanese Akoya keshi pearl accents. I ran a lavender keshi pearl vining up one side, which gave the shape a second anchor point as well as a line to follow, and filled the top with a large pale amethyst simple-cut gemstone.

The plan for the other six shapes was six smaller versions of that.

Then I went through what I had. I already owned exactly the right stones. I’ll be honest, this bracelet has already demanded three days of production, and creating seven unique gemstone clusters was a hill I wasn’t certain I was ready to climb. Filling the space with a singular stone was much more appealing and, as it turns out, the correct aesthetic choice. The design needed something bolder to fill the void. It didn’t need the fine detail of a gemstone cluster.

Two lavender keshi pearls sat perfectly into the flanking elongated ovals. Their luminescence mirrored the milky undertone in the pale amethysts, and they were the right length and width for the shape almost to the millimeter.

Two large pale amethysts dropped into the rounder ovals as though the shapes had been formed around them. Two simple-cut aquamarines fit the end shapes exactly.

Nothing needed building up to fill space. Nothing was empty. The design was balanced with the perfect mix of delicate and bold.

The pale amethyst stones are simple cut, and that cut does something particular with light. Each facet throws it back from inside the stone like a small mirror. Pass light through, and it goes kaleidoscopic, refracting internally in a kind of parallel dance.

I added sapphire clusters above and below each of those stones, partly for detail and partly for a practical reason: a stone threaded on a wire will rotate, and a stone that rotates shows you its back half the time. The clusters set it where I put it so it will not spin.

Made once

What I like about how it came out is that the metal frames the stones instead of merely carrying them. Every link is a window with one thing in it. That only works because the shapes were made first and the stones were chosen to fit them, which is the opposite of how most jewelry gets built, mine included.

Seven shapes that will never come off the jig the same way twice, twenty-eight holes drilled by hand, and a set of stones that happened to already be the right sizes. It was made once, and it will not be made again.

It wears beautifully next to the kunzite necklace it came from, and just as well on its own. Both pieces belong to Second Light, the pastel collection I continue here from Tamar.

Questions

Is lavender quartz the same as pale amethyst?

Effectively, yes. Amethyst is the purple variety of quartz, colored by iron and natural irradiation, and pale amethyst is simply amethyst at the light end of its color range. Lavender quartz is the same species sold under a different vendor's name, and Scorolite is another trade name for it again. All three appear in this bracelet. You can read more in my amethyst gemstone guide.

What length is the bracelet, and how does it fasten?

It finishes at 7 inches, which is a standard bracelet length, and the spacing between the seven links was worked out during assembly specifically to land there. It closes with a 24k gold vermeil double-strand clasp, chosen so it goes on and comes off easily with one hand.

Is it one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes, it was built once and will not be repeated. Every link was bent, soldered, polished and drilled by hand in my Denver studio, and the stones were selected to fit these particular shapes. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can start a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

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What Kunzite Looks Like at the Bench

I usually start with a stone. I find the one I cannot stop looking at, I carry it around for a while, and eventually it tells me what it wants to be.

Alpenglow started in a notebook, with shapes drawn out and placed in an appealing configuration.

Five shapes, formed one at a time

I wanted large fabricated links, which meant I had to make them. I used a metal wire-bending jig with adjustable dies so the curves would come out smooth and uniform rather than approximately round, and I formed each shape from 12-gauge 14k gold-filled wire.

A large teardrop for the center. An elongated oval next to it, then a smaller oval. Then two more triangular shapes for the outer ends, because I knew I wanted the top point of each triangle to be where the chain attached.

Each one got soldered closed at its two end points, polished to a high shine, and drilled with tiny holes at every place another piece would eventually attach. That is hours of work that produce five plain gold shapes and nothing you would yet call jewelry. It is also the part that decides whether any of the rest of it holds together.

The moment it dropped into the shape

The centerpiece was a large smooth pink kunzite I already had. There is often a bit of kismet and destiny whenever a stone finds its home.

Kunzite looks almost like a pale pink piece of hard candy. It carries fine parallel grooves running the length of it, called striations, and they catch the light from inside so the stone reads as fibrous rather than glassy. Move it under a lamp, and they shimmer at different angles, one after another.

I held it up against the large fabricated teardrop, and it nestled straight into the shape. That was the moment. Once I wired it onto the vermeil oval to set it, the necklace had a direction, and everything after that followed.

There was one problem. It had a single drill hole, and the hole sat at the slimmest point of the stone. Meaning it had only one anchor point, which is insufficient, especially when pointing downward to defy gravity rather than hanging right side up as a regular pendant on a chain.

This is not my first kunzite. I made a pink kunzite choker some time ago, and it has since found its person.

Kunzite, by the way, is the pink to lilac variety of spodumene, colored by traces of manganese, and it sits at 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale. I selected this stone for its pure aesthetic beauty.

So I could not hang it. It had to be seated into something that would allow multiple anchor points and to secure it well enough that positioning it inversely would not matter.

So I took a 24k gold vermeil oval. Vermeil is a thick layer of gold over sterling silver, not over base metal. I folded it in half over a wooden dowel, working it until it cradled the kunzite, then wired the stone in.

That gave me three anchor points into the fabricated teardrop instead of one. The stone is held by the structure now, not hanging off it.

The vermeil was showing, so I drew a line across it

Setting the stone left a curve of bare vermeil exposed along one edge. Not that this is a problem; the gold vermeil is still beautiful to look at, but I wanted the bare metal elements to be exclusive to the fabricated shapes.

I edged it with mystic labradorite. The stones are so small they read as a line before they read as stones, sweeping across the kunzite in an arch that comes back down on the far side from where it is wired.

It is the smallest material in the necklace. It is the first thing your eye follows.

Everything else grows out from there

Above and below the kunzite I built the clusters: kunzite pear briolettes, clear and opaque pink sapphires, purple sapphires, lavender quartz, morganite briolettes, moonstone rondelles, and Japanese Akoya keshi pearls. One large baroque pearl hangs below the lower cluster, with two lavender keshi freshwater pearls dropping beneath it.

Between each pair of shapes sits a simple-cut aquamarine on a 14k gold-filled head pin. Each one carries its own small cluster of pink and purple sapphires, above and below.

That is more than mere decoration. A stone threaded on a wire will rotate, and a rotating stone shows you its back half the time. The clusters hold it where I put it.

Both aquamarine and morganite appear in this piece. I have written up the difference separately. Go check out the link if you’re curious.

The side I changed my mind about

The two ends are not symmetrical, and that was not the plan.

One triangle takes a small gemstone cluster and runs into 14k gold-filled paperclip chain. The other was going to take a pearl with sapphire clustering above and below it, the same as its opposite number. I built it, looked at it, and swapped the pearl out for a single large pale amethyst simple cut with a small cluster of sapphires at its top.

I am glad I did, and not only because the necklace is better for it. That one pale amethyst is the reason there is now a bracelet. It sat there looking like the beginning of something, and I went back to the bench and made the piece it was asking for.

Why it is called Alpenglow

Alpenglow is the pink light that stays on the mountains after the sun has already dropped behind them. If you live where I live you see it most evenings, and it is the exact color of this stone.

It is also the whole idea of this collection stated in one word. Second Light is about the light that arrives after the light you were counting on has gone. I did not have to reach for the name.

The necklace was made once. The kunzite had one hole and one shape, the five links were formed by hand and will never come off the jig the same way twice, and the cluster was built to this stone and no other. It will not be made again, which is the point.

Questions

What is kunzite?

Kunzite is the pink to lilac variety of the mineral spodumene, colored by traces of manganese, sitting at 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. It is strongly pleochroic, so the depth of pink shifts depending on the angle you look at it from. The stone is named after George Frederick Kunz, the gemologist at Tiffany and Co. who first described it in 1902 from a find in San Diego County, California.

Does kunzite fade, and how should I care for it?

Kunzite's color can weaken with prolonged exposure to strong light and heat, so it is a stone to wear and then put away, rather than one to display on a sunny shelf. Clean it with a soft cloth and mild soapy water only. Never use an ultrasonic or steam cleaner, because the same perfect cleavage that makes kunzite difficult to cut also makes it vulnerable to a sharp knock. Looked after that way it lasts a lifetime.

Is Alpenglow one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes to the first. It was built once and will not be repeated. The five link shapes were bent, soldered, polished and drilled by hand in my Denver studio, and the cluster was built around this particular kunzite. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can start a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

Stay Close

Love what you see? Keep finding us.

Google now lets you choose your favorite sources so they show up labeled in AI search answers. If you enjoy discovering handcrafted gemstone jewelry here, add Andrea Li Designs and we'll be easier to find next time you search.

Add Andrea Li Designs as a Preferred Source

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Moontide: The Moonstone Necklace I Was Not Sure Would Work

I build most pieces knowing, more or less, where they are going. This one I built the way you play chess against someone better than you: looking a hundred moves ahead, hoping the plan you cannot fully see will hold.

It took me close to twenty hours over three days. For almost all of that time I was confident, in the way thousands of hours at the bench make you confident, and still not certain. Those are two different feelings. I did not actually know Moontide would work until I was setting the finishing touches and the whole thing finally stood up and held its shape. That was the moment. Everything before it was faith.

The stones I chose, and the ones I gave up

The heart of Moontide is a run of rainbow moonstone marquis, cut into that pointed-oval shape jewelers call a navette. They are the finest moonstones I have ever worked with, AAAA grade, nearly clear, with a blue flash that seems to float up from somewhere inside the stone rather than sit on its surface. I graduated them by size, largest at the center front, tapering as the design climbs toward the neck.

Around each moonstone I wrapped mystic labradorite, aquamarine, and tiny moonstone rondelles, and set small blue topaz between the frames. But that was not the original plan. I had meant to edge each frame in pastel Herkimer diamonds. When I started working at the scale this piece demanded, the Herkimer proved too brittle to survive the construction. The design was already ambitious enough without fighting my own materials, so I let the Herkimer go and let moonstone, aquamarine, and labradorite carry the cool, watery palette instead.

Gemstone science: where the flash comes from

Moonstone's glow has a name: adularescence. It happens because moonstone is built from microscopic alternating layers of two feldspar minerals, and when light enters, those layers scatter it and send it back as that soft, rolling sheen. In the best rainbow moonstones, like these, the effect reads as an electric blue floating over near-colorless stone. Labradorite carries a cousin of the same magic, called labradorescence, which is where its own metallic blues and greens come from. Moonstone sits around 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs hardness scale, so it is a stone to wear with a little care. Because each stone's flash depends on its own internal structure, no two are alike, and no two ever catch the light the same way.

Andrea Li

☾ ✦ ✧

Gemstone Profile:

Moonstone

The glow · Adularescence

◇

Identification & Type

Moonstone (orthoclase feldspar). A captivating variety of feldspar known for its ethereal, floating luster.

◇

Physical Properties

✓

Mohs hardness: 6 to 6.5

◉

Colors: translucent to opaque. Classic white with a blue sheen, plus rainbow, peach, and grey.

✦

Luster: pearly to vitreous.

□

Chemical formula: (K,Na)AlSi₃O₈

◇

Key Phenomenon: Adularescence

Scattered light. The sheen comes from light diffracting through thin, alternating mineral layers inside the crystal, which scatters it back as that soft floating glow. Rainbow moonstone, a variety of labradorite, spreads it into a full spectrum.

◇

Major Origins

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) India Madagascar United States

◇

Symbolism & Metaphysical

☉

Intuition & Clarity

☾

New Beginnings

✦

Calm & Balance

☽

Feminine Energy & Fertility

◇

Care & Handling

✓

Gentle cleaning. Use warm, soapy water and a soft brush. Never an ultrasonic or steam cleaner.

✓

Avoid chemicals. Protect it from harsh agents, perfume, and cosmetics.

✓

Store separately. Keep it in a soft pouch so harder stones cannot scratch it.

The beauty of moonstone. Elegance in nature's glow.

Andrea Li

andreali.com

Building the cages

I do not bezel stones like these. Instead I made a frame for each marquis by taking a 24k gold vermeil oval and folding it, gently, over a wooden dowel, almost in half, into an open horseshoe shape. I left one side sitting a little higher at the back, which gave each frame dimension and something to anchor its moonstone into. Then I hand-wrapped the perimeter of every frame with mystic labradorite, aquamarine, and tiny moonstone rondelles, and went back and wrapped again, rewiring and securing the whole thing a second time so nothing would ever wiggle loose. Some frames I went through three times. When I broke a stone, I replaced it and started that frame's discipline over. When I missed a single rondelle, the pattern fell out of step and the moonstone would not sit centered, so I took it apart and did it again.

The frames themselves are two sizes. The front three are larger, one for the biggest moonstone and one on each side to flank it with the next size down. The rest are smaller, so the necklace reads as a graduated fan that narrows as it wraps the neck. That graduation was a decision I made at the very beginning, long before most of the piece existed.

The problem I solved at four in the morning

Here is the part that kept me up. Each frame needed to connect to its neighbors, and it needed a second layer above to hold everything up as the necklace climbs and, honestly, defies gravity a little. I set tiny blue topaz between the frames to join them, and they had to land at the exact same point on every arch or the whole necklace would hang crooked. I marked the pattern with a sharpie so I could repeat it precisely.

The top join was the real puzzle. Plain chain would not work, because chain has fixed spacing and the distance between the frames has to change continuously as the piece curves toward the neck. A bare beading chain would let the design collapse on itself. It needed something substantial between the frames to prop it open. I hunted for the right bead. Pearls were easy to drill but felt too precious. Then I remembered a stock of smooth aquamarine cabochons left over from my Glacier collection, exactly the right size, and I only had to ream a wide hole in that one kind of stone rather than dozens. The trouble with a smooth cabochon is that it can rotate. It was at four in the morning that I realized I had tiny 24k gold vermeil spikes I could place between the stones, a variable number in each gap. Their points radiate in every direction, almost like a burr, so they catch against the smooth cabochons where a plain rondelle never could. They do not stop the spin completely, but they slow it and give each stone structure on either side, and they became the thread running through the entire piece. Once I saw it, the design finally came together.

One last detail I love: on the final moonstone rondelle at each end, right before the chain, I drilled the hole extra wide so the end cap sinks down inside the stone and disappears. No visible hardware. Just stone into chain.

Why Moontide is one of a kind

Every one of these moonstones was unrepeatable before it reached my bench, and the way I graduated, framed, and joined them cannot be drawn the same way twice. Moontide is the first piece of Second Light, the next chapter of the pastel work I began with Tamar. Second Light is about light returning after dark, and a necklace built almost entirely of captured moonlight felt like the right place to begin. This one asked more of me than almost anything I have made. It was worth every one of those hundred moves.

The matching earrings

I made a pair of earrings to wear with Moontide, changed just enough to stand on their own. Each one centers a faceted Swiss blue topaz, a slightly deeper blue than the necklace's accents, framed with the same hand-wrapped halo and finished with a moonstone marquis drop. Tiny 24k gold vermeil spikes echo the spacer beads that run through the necklace, so the pair reads as clearly part of Moontide without simply repeating it.

Shop the Moontide necklace and its matching earrings, the first pieces of the Second Light collection.

Questions

What gives rainbow moonstone its blue flash?

The effect is called adularescence. Moonstone is made of microscopic alternating layers of two feldspar minerals, and when light enters the stone those layers scatter it and send it back as a soft, floating sheen. In fine rainbow moonstone like the marquis in this necklace, that sheen reads as an electric blue over near-colorless stone. Because it depends on each stone's internal structure, no two flash exactly alike.

Is moonstone durable enough to wear often?

Moonstone sits around 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs hardness scale, which is softer than quartz, so it rewards a little care. It is a wonderful stone for a statement piece worn for an occasion or an evening, kept away from hard knocks and stored on its own so nothing harder scratches it.

Is Moontide one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. Each moonstone was unrepeatable before it reached the bench, and the whole piece is engineered around this exact set of stones. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

Stay Close

Love what you see? Keep finding us.

Google now lets you choose your favorite sources so they show up labeled in AI search answers. If you enjoy discovering handcrafted gemstone jewelry here, add Andrea Li Designs and we'll be easier to find next time you search.

Add Andrea Li Designs as a Preferred Source

One click. Works across Google Search, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

For Tamar

Any artist who has successfully found their identity and an aesthetic that naturally grows from it will tell you it's not an easy path. It's a hard-fought journey that constantly causes you to second-guess yourself. It often begins as an inward exploration to find meaning, purpose, and what you want your work to say. I had been navigating this space for years before I met Tamar and felt I had finally discovered a fragile seed to which I could anchor my aesthetic, something that was uniquely mine, a signature look that is unmistakably me. Except it was still raw and wild, and I often wondered whether, in the process of chasing something so distinct from mass-market jewelry, I would land in a space far removed from accessibility and connection. Then something happened that gave my doubtful soul the soothing balm of reassurance it so desperately needed. It was a moment that changed my life forever, and it came to me in the form of a beautiful soul full of vitality, unlike anything I had experienced previously, Tamar.

Some people see your work. A rare few see all the way through it, to the thing you were reaching for and could never quite name yourself. She was one of those few.

We met the way she tells it below: across a crowded ballroom, though I have always remembered it as her finding me. She became a collector, and then something more than a collector. She understood these pieces more completely than anyone, and she gave me language for what I do. When she told me that the back of my work, the woven wire matrix I had been told for years to hide, was the very thing she loved most, she called it the weave. I have called it that ever since.

Tamar is no longer with us. The two most recent collections carry her name because I wanted her to stay woven into the work the way she is woven into how I understand it. What follows is Tamar, in her own words. I have not changed a single one, because I could not write anything better if I tried.

In her own words

Elegance is good taste plus a dash of daring - Carmel Snow

Review of Andrea Li Designs Signature Collection & Commission Works

My first Andrea Li experience:

Across a crowded ballroom, I was captivated by the bold flash of gold and auburn rutilated quartz, woven into a stunning cornucopia of braided gemstones that seemed to float in a life of its own. Spirited away and then obsessed, I had to meet that delightful designer necklace. In ballroom fashion, I worked my way towards its wearer and opened a conversation with the usual bland gala small talk, all the while carefully working my agenda: to obtain the name of creator of that wonderful couture flowing down her neckline. When at last, Andrea Li disclosed she was in fact, the artist, I could barely breathe. Not only was the creation bold, beautiful and elegant, so was its creator. I later learned this piece had a similar impact on the Denver art scene, as it was featured by the Denver Art Museum for Brilliant, Cartier in the 20th Century exhibit in 2015.

Of course, a studio appointment was arranged. Andrea Li was responsive and professional; she demonstrated a good designer's instinctive feel for my tastes and recommended several preview pieces over the internet. But I was not prepared for the absolute power of the work in her studio. In this private creative space, I was swept off my feet. Andrea Li's studio works contain semi-precious stones of all textures, shapes and dimensions, woven as if by magic into a series of symphonies. It was an experience, a vibrant floating tapestry of light and texture, a blending of earth and sky, moss and topaz, volcanoes and I.M. Pei, woven into art with the elegance, genius and originality of an innovator reminiscent of Miles Davis. Each piece with a rich inner life of its own that seemed as old as the universe itself. That one-hour appointment turned into an afternoon and at least one bottle of wine.

These are some of the pieces that spoke to her on that first studio visit. The set on the left she bought for her friend Leslie and the other set for herself.

As with a true artistic experience, in the wearing, you are transformed in a way no other statement piece can inspire. Andrea Li Designs creations not only reflect who you are - they inspire and instruct as if from ancient patterns. I learned this from a fashion benefit where the designers paired me in an Andrea Li Signature Collection piece, in fire coral and onyx, with a Gino Verlardi black velvet ball gown. Verlardi's classic gown required a classic wearing - using your finishing school grooming and posture, a stature and carriage appropriate for announcement at the Mayflower hotel. But the accompanying Andrea Li Designs piece required even more depth: an original and daring statement. It looked at me as if it was the dragon. In a leap of faith, I let the piece teach me how to wear it and experienced the full the passion and elegance of rare fire coral. You will never feel the same after wearing an Andrea Li Designs. Its gift will stay with you.

This is the coral necklace I adorned her with to compliment the black Gino Velardi gown

But there was something more I needed from the artist Andrea Li. There was something started with the fire coral that lingered unfinished. I reached out for a commission piece with only an idea, an ephemeral feeling - on the theme of passion and love, that the heart needs to be brave enough to suffer in order experience joy on the other side. For this concept work, the only direction I gave Andrea Li was a 2-CD set of Mozart's Violin Concertos, the color "red" and the statement that "after suffering comes joy". The piece is stunning. She and her companion cuff are simply named Mozart. On every wearing, she draws attention from across the room. A joyous dance of gold and ruby and the unbearable lightness of being.

More of her words

Later, Tamar answered a few questions about the work. Again, unaltered.

On what makes it special:

Besides the obvious craftsmanship and artistic design, - Your storytelling - choice of semi-precious - the weave

On how it is different:

Your storytelling - each piece is a world in its own. Every collector's piece has a story, an origin, and an artist behind the work.

On why she bought it:

It chose me. (joking…)

I bought a piece of Andrea Li's artistic vision. I like it in there - part fantasy, part creativity.

On color, and the commission:

I'm a little synesthetic so, I can hear or feel a color. It's not just me - lots of artists are that way. (Key of A major is yellow, Key of C is peridot, ha!)

And the commission piece - I feel red - deeply alive, deeply loving, deeply loved.

And, finally:

what really sold me on the piece was you. The storytelling, the depth woven into each piece, what the stones mean, and how you educated me on the stones and built trust that this was quality cuts of stone, how you hand-picked them out. So for me personally, its buying genuine art.

This cherished image was taken at my runway show Beauty Must Suffer wearing one of her favorite pieces she purchased from me.

What her memory set in motion

When I first shared my tribute to Tamar, I thought it would only reach the people who already loved her. But grief travels in ways we cannot plan. Some time after I lost her, one of Tamar's dear friends, Jennifer, found me. She had learned of Tamar's passing from an obituary, and somehow the trail led her to me, and to the collection that carries Tamar's name.

We have been walking through this grief together ever since, and we still are. Not one of us carrying the other, but both of us side by side, two women who loved the same person and needed someone who understood exactly what that kind of loss weighs. The grief is still raw. I am not sure it is meant to be anything else.

To keep Tamar close, Jennifer chose a piece from the collection that carries her name. She carries a little of Tamar with her now.

The night before Jennifer and I last spoke, she dreamed of Tamar. In the dream, she told Tamar that the two of us had found each other, and that she was happy now. When she told me, I could hardly breathe, because that very week I had been walking through an exhibit at the museum and felt Tamar there beside me, the way she always was among beautiful things.

I do not believe any of that is coincidence. I think it is Tamar, still doing what she always did: bringing the right people into the same room, and making sure that no one who loved her has to carry it alone.

She saw the whole of it. The earth and sky, the moss and topaz, the volcanoes and I.M. Pei. She saw the weave, and she gave it its name.

I keep making the work, and now two collections carry hers. Everyone who wears one carries a little of Tamar too. That was always the point of art, she would tell you: to hold what we love in something that outlasts us.

Tamar made me brave enough to believe in myself, but, more importantly, to have the courage to look beyond my identity to see the person my art touches, and ultimately to remove myself from the equation in order to serve that individual alone. My art no longer belongs to me. It is not a vehicle for self-glory; its purpose is to transform the wearer and, hopefully, to manifest the same legacy of lasting impact that Tamar taught me was possible.

Thank you, Tamar.

Halo: A Beautiful Contradiction

I wanted to make a choker that looked like it was floating. That was the whole idea before I even walked into the studio, and it is a good example of how a piece rarely arrives the way you picture it.

Life gets busy, and keeping the studio perfectly stocked is not always high on the list. So this began the way real work often does: I trusted my inventory, got to the bench ready to build my floating choker, and discovered I had only enough wire in 12 gauge. Not what I would have chosen. But I went to work anyway, because sometimes the constraint is the assignment.

The materials

This is a Second Light piece, built in 12-gauge 14k gold-filled wire with a soft, watery pastel palette. The stones are a whole family of pale color: purple, pink, and grey sapphires, pale amethyst, morganite, aquamarine, a crown-cut mixed beryl, AAA-quality marquise moonstone, freshwater pearls, mystic quartz, and tiny moonstone rondelles, all finished with a cascade of 14k gold-filled sequin chain. Left to its own, it is a lot of gravitas hanging in the air. Held together the way I built it, it is barely there on the neck. That contradiction is the piece.

Gemstone science: why moonstone reads like captured light

Moonstone was the right stone for something meant to float. That drifting glow, called adularescence, is not a color in the stone at all. It is light scattering between microscopic, alternating layers of feldspar inside the crystal, so the shimmer seems to hover just under the surface and move as you do. Rainbow moonstone is actually a variety of labradorite, which is why it can throw a whole soft spectrum rather than a single flash. It is also a brittle stone with cleavage, so it asks to be set gently and cool, never near heat. All of which made it the perfect companion to a choker built around the idea of weightlessness.

Andrea Li

☾ ✦ ✧

Gemstone Profile:

Moonstone

The glow · Adularescence

◇

Identification & Type

Moonstone (orthoclase feldspar). A captivating variety of feldspar known for its ethereal, floating luster.

◇

Physical Properties

✓

Mohs hardness: 6 to 6.5

◉

Colors: translucent to opaque. Classic white with a blue sheen, plus rainbow, peach, and grey.

✦

Luster: pearly to vitreous.

□

Chemical formula: (K,Na)AlSi₃O₈

◇

Key Phenomenon: Adularescence

Scattered light. The sheen comes from light diffracting through thin, alternating mineral layers inside the crystal, which scatters it back as that soft floating glow. Rainbow moonstone, a variety of labradorite, spreads it into a full spectrum.

◇

Major Origins

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) India Madagascar United States

◇

Symbolism & Metaphysical

☉

Intuition & Clarity

☾

New Beginnings

✦

Calm & Balance

☽

Feminine Energy & Fertility

◇

Care & Handling

✓

Gentle cleaning. Use warm, soapy water and a soft brush. Never an ultrasonic or steam cleaner.

✓

Avoid chemicals. Protect it from harsh agents, perfume, and cosmetics.

✓

Store separately. Keep it in a soft pouch so harder stones cannot scratch it.

The beauty of moonstone. Elegance in nature's glow.

Andrea Li

andreali.com

The build, and the clasp that saved it

Shaping heavy 12-gauge wire into a floating collar was the first fight. The hardest part was doubling the wire back and squaring off the ends so the two ends met cleanly on the opposite side. I fiddled with it until the wire would rest flush, then set my solder neatly between the two ends.

And then I had two problems at once. Once it was soldered, the circumference was far too large, and I could feel that 12-gauge, as heavy as it is, was actually too thin to hold my floating concept rigid on its own.

Here is the moment the piece turned. Because the circumference was too big, I had extra length to work with, so I used it to build a hook clasp at the front. That one decision solved everything. The clasp took in the excess size, and the act of anchoring the collar closed at the front gave the whole structure the rigidity the thin wire could not provide by itself. The floating concept came back to life because I had, almost by accident, given it a spine. The shortage of wire, the very thing I had cursed an hour earlier, was what handed me the answer. To make the clasp a feature rather than just hardware, I soldered a pearl peg on the end and set a large freshwater pearl there, so the closure became the most decorative point on the piece.

Building the cluster in mid-air

Then came the gemstone cluster, and it fought me too. My first plan was two separate clusters running along the edges, because the front clasp needed clearance and I did not want a cluster blocking the hook. But when I held it up in the mirror, I could see the truth immediately: the cluster had to sit in the center of that empty floating space, or the whole design fell apart. So I started over with that intention.

I began with my usual vine cluster, assuming it would happily suspend between the two wires. It would not. As I built between them, it became clear the vine needed anchoring all the way along, or it would shift. So I diamond-bit drilled two large pale amethysts and one substantial aquamarine, opening them enough to thread multiple wires through, and spaced those stones down the cluster as structural anchors that hold the entire vine in place.

A few smaller choices made it cohere. I used round pearls throughout the cluster, which I rarely do in this collection, specifically to echo the large pearl on the clasp so the two ends of the piece would speak to each other. I filled and finished the front with moonstone marquise stones. And on the opposite side of the cluster I added a cascade of 14k gold-filled sequin chain, anchored with tiny moonstone rondelles, for drama and movement, the falling counterweight to the cluster's density.

What sitting with a piece teaches you

I always live with a finished piece for a while, setting it in places where I will keep catching sight of it, because that is when the last improvements reveal themselves. This time I could see one empty spot near the start of the cluster asking for a stone. I chose a beautifully faceted amethyst. My first instinct was to go large and really fill the gap, but a larger stone crowded the pearl hook clasp and would have kept it from clearing when you fasten it, so I sized down. The smaller amethyst rounded out the cluster and gave the whole design more cohesion, which is often how it goes: the right answer is the one that respects how the piece is actually worn.

Last, I went back and secured a few stones that had not passed my own durability test. I built gold-filled wire bezels around the ones that needed it and deepened their security within the cluster with a barrier of smaller stones that "set" them more firmly. It is quieter work than the drama up front, but it is the difference between a piece that photographs well and a piece that lasts.

The finished choker is minimal and not minimal at once, light to wear despite the gravitas of all that clustering. I named it Halo, for the ring of light it makes around the neck, and because a halo is exactly that kind of contradiction: weightless, and yet the most serious thing in the room. A beautiful contradiction, which feels honest to me, because so many true things are.

I would not have found any of it with a full drawer of the perfect wire. Constraints force us to be more creative. They take the obvious path away and leave you standing in front of the more interesting one. This piece is the proof I keep on my bench.

Questions

How does a floating choker stay closed without a visible clasp?

This one closes with a hook clasp at the front rather than a hidden catch at the back. The hook is anchored by a pearl peg set with a large freshwater pearl, so the closure doubles as the most decorative point on the piece. Fastening at the front also gives a fine-gauge collar the rigidity it needs to hold its shape.

How is the gemstone cluster kept from shifting?

The vine cluster is anchored, not just suspended. I diamond-bit drilled two large pale amethysts and one substantial aquamarine so I could thread multiple wires through them, then spaced those stones along the cluster as structural anchors. Any softer stones are further secured with hand-formed gold-filled wire bezels and a surrounding barrier of smaller stones.

Is a statement choker like this heavy to wear?

No, and that is the contradiction I love about it. It carries real visual weight from the pastel gemstone cluster and the cascade of chains, but built in 14k gold-filled wire and balanced by the front closure, it sits light on the neck. [CONTINUE READING — PRE-LAUNCH TEASE: Halo is part of Second Light, arriving November 4. Link to the Second Light collection / pre-launch page. Primary next step is the Style Quiz / join-the-list so readers are first to know when Halo and the collection go live. Do NOT link a shop/product page yet (Halo's product page is being built and the piece is not yet purchasable). Swap in the Halo product link + a shop CTA at launch.]

Discover

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Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

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The Leap of Faith Behind a Mother's 70th

Every so often a piece leaves my studio and comes back to me as a story I could not have written myself. This is one of those, and I asked the man at its center if I could tell it. He said yes.

It began the way more and more of my work begins now: someone was looking. Travis was not a collector, and he was not looking for me. He was a son searching online for design ideas, hoping to find or commission something special for his mother's 70th birthday, when he came across images of my work. He kept scrolling through my site, and the Janis Gold Leaf necklace stopped him. It was, he told me later, exactly what he had been picturing. It was still available, and the price surprised him. So he ordered it right then.

And then, like a lot of us would, he started to doubt himself.

The doubt every online shopper knows

Here is what he wrote to me afterward, and I am sharing it because I think it is honest in a way we rarely say out loud:

There are so many scams on the internet and who hasn't ordered something that looked amazing online but showed up nothing like the pictures.

I felt that in my chest when I read it. Not because it stung, but because it is the exact fear I am up against every single day as one woman making real things in a Denver studio, in a marketplace full of images that promise more than they deliver. He had no way to know, from a photograph, whether I was an artist or an algorithm.

What he did not expect was for the necklace to arrive exactly like the pictures, packaged with the kind of care you can feel before you have even lifted the lid. In his words, I was "clearly an artist that takes a lot of pride in her work, and that is so rare these days when most things are valued based on marketing and not craftsmanship."

That line is the whole reason I do this the way I do.

Making earrings that belong to a necklace

Trust, it turns out, compounds. Before long Travis came back, this time not as a shopper taking a chance but as someone asking me to make a piece just for him. He wanted matching earrings so his mother could wear the set together for her birthday. His only guidance: something simple, and something light, because she prefers studs or drops that do not weigh on the ear. That is the quiet moment a buyer becomes a collector, and I did not take it lightly.

This is one of my favorite kinds of commission, and also one of the trickiest. The Janis Gold Leaf is a one-of-a-kind piece I reworked from a genuine vintage parure, a matched set from the 1940s to 60s that I found at an antique shop called Somewhere in Time and rebuilt into something modern. So there was no drawer of matching parts to pull from. An earring to go with it could not simply borrow its shapes. It had to echo the necklace without competing with it, and it had to solve for the body, since the ear is a different problem than the collarbone. I kept them deliberately light and hand-fabricated a post base so they would sit close and comfortable, then carried the language of the gold leaves across so the pair would read as one intentional set rather than two pieces that happened to meet. They were finished and in his hands well before her birthday in early July.

I felt the honor of it the entire time. My work was going to a worthy home, to be part of a milestone, chosen by a son for his mother. That is not a transaction. That is a piece doing exactly what I hope every piece does.

The gift I did not see coming

A while after the earrings shipped, a package arrived for me. Travis had sent a handwritten card and a small hand-carved tray. The card read:

Thank you again for getting those earrings done so quickly. They are the perfect size and match the necklace beautifully. Both the necklace and earrings are truly works of art, and I am so happy to give them to my mother for her 70th. I wanted you to have this both to show my appreciation and because I think you would like it. I picked this up when I was in China. It's made from a rare hardwood called Nanmu whose sap crystallizes in the grain when it gets very old. It creates a neat tiger's eye effect when it's polished up. I thought you would appreciate that as someone who loves gemstones.

I did not know the wood, so I read more about it. It is Golden Silk Nanmu, a rare hardwood of China and South Asia. Over decades, the living tree secretes a resin that slowly crystallizes inside the wood itself, and that crystallization does two things at once. It makes the wood nearly imperishable, resistant to rot and water and time. And when the wood is finally cut and polished, those hardened threads catch the light so the grain shimmers like woven gold.

I sat with that for a long while.

I have spent my whole life turning the tangled, hidden parts of a thing into the reason it is beautiful. I did not expect a stranger to hand me that truth, made physical, in a piece of wood, its endured years crystallized into gold. He could not have known what that would mean to me. He simply saw the work, and reached for something he thought I would love, and it turned out to be a small mirror of everything I believe.

Why I am telling you this

I am not sharing this to sell you anything. I am sharing it because it is the best answer I have to the fear Travis named at the start.

Yes, the internet is full of things valued on marketing instead of craftsmanship. But the antidote is not louder marketing. It is the work itself, made honestly, so that when the right person finds you, it can speak for itself. Travis took a leap of faith on a stranger, and what met him on the other side was real. That is the only promise I know how to keep.

His mother has her set now, waiting for the holidays. And I have a little tray of woven gold on my desk, reminding me why I never hide the truest part of what I make.

Questions

What is the Janis Gold Leaf necklace made of?

The Janis Gold Leaf is a one-of-a-kind piece I created from genuine vintage jewelry, a matched parure sourced from a reputable dealer who sells antique jewelry exclusively, its components dating to roughly the 1940s through 1960s. I rework pieces like these into a modern design, integrating new elements and 14k gold-filled wire, so each one carries real history reimagined into something you cannot buy anywhere else. The asymmetrical pendant drops about 3.5 inches, and the necklace is 21 inches, adjustable to 25. Once a piece like this sells, it is gone for good.

Can you make earrings to match a necklace I already own?

Yes. Matching earrings are one of my most requested commissions. Rather than copying the necklace, I echo its design language, its metals, leaf shapes, or stones, while solving for how earrings actually wear, keeping them light and balanced for the ear. The goal is a set that reads as one intentional design, not two separate pieces.

Are the vintage pieces real, and will the necklace last?

Yes. I source verified vintage from a dealer who sells antique jewelry exclusively, then rework it into a new one-of-a-kind design rather than reproducing it, so no two are alike and each is gone once it sells. The 14k gold-filled wire I build with is a thick bonded layer of real gold over a jeweler's brass core, far more durable and tarnish-resistant than plating and made to be worn for years, so a piece with decades of history behind it is made to carry decades more. [CONTINUE READING: link to the Signature Collection + the Janis Gold Leaf product page + /custom-shop for commissions]

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Ember: The Smallest Stalactite Became a Cuff

By the time I got to the last amethyst stalactite slice, it was clearly the smallest of the three. It could have become a modest third necklace. Instead I decided to wrap it around a wrist.

This collection already had two stalactite necklaces, the horizontal Awakening and the vertical Cascade. A third one on a chain would have started to feel like a repetition. The smaller slice gave me a way out. It was the right scale to sit on a cuff, close to the skin, where you catch it in glimpses instead of seeing it head on. So I set out to build something the other two could be worn with, or that could hold its own alone as a piece of arm candy. I named it Ember because that is what it is: the smallest, warmest coal of the three, still glowing.

The materials

Ember is built on a custom cuff frame I fabricated from heavy 10-gauge 14k gold-filled wire, with the same small folded 24k gold vermeil circle I use to cradle the stalactite. The centerpiece is that last, smallest amethyst geode slice.

The cluster leads with light purple amethyst in asymmetric shield cuts, chosen because their jutting, uneven shapes mirror the raw edges of the stalactite itself. Around them I set fancy-cut amethyst, softer "Scorolite" amethyst, aquamarine in irregular shapes and flat briolettes, tiny sapphires in every color, and akoya keshi pearls. Framing the whole thing are four larger flanking stones, two grey moonstone rectangles and two light amethysts, threaded straight through the cuff.

Gemstone science: one geode, three slices

All three stalactite slices in this collection were cut from the same kind of formation: an amethyst stalactite grown drop by drop inside an ancient volcanic geode, almost always from Uruguay or southern Brazil. Silica-rich water seeps into a pocket in cooling basalt and builds a hanging spike, filling first with a banded agate eye, then ringed by a halo of pale purple amethyst crystal. Amethyst is purple quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation, and it sits at a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. What matters for a cuff is that each slice is cut to a different size from the same rare material, so the smallest one carries the exact same geology as its larger siblings, just scaled to the wrist. You can read more in my amethyst stalactite guide.

Andrea Li

andreali.com

Gemstone Science: Amethyst Stalactite Geode

One geode, sliced · a sealed landscape no two of which are alike

How It Forms

01

A pocket opens inside cooling volcanic basalt, and silica-rich water seeps in.

02

Drop by drop, a stalactite grows hanging downward, exactly the way one grows in a cave.

03

The center fills first with banded agate, then amethyst crystals grow outward, finished by a raw druzy rim.

Ancient volcanic pocket in cooling basalt · drop-by-drop stalactite formation

Anatomy of a Slice

Microcrystalline Agate Center

The banded eye at the heart of the slice, the first mineral to fill the pocket.

Amethyst Crystals Halo

Larger purple crystals growing outward into the open space, forming the ring of color.

Raw Druzy Rim

The sparkling crystal-tipped edge that finishes the formation, left exposed as the feature.

The Facts

Origin

Uruguay and southern Brazil, from ancient volcanic geodes.

Mineral

Purple quartz, the violet variety of crystalline quartz.

Color Cause

Traces of iron plus natural irradiation deep in the earth.

Hardness

7 on the Mohs scale, durable enough for regular wear.

Unique Patterns

The pattern forms entirely by chance. No two slices are ever the same.

Truly One of a Kind

Drawn once by the earth over millions of years, it can never recur.

Setting Point-Down

Lets it hang the way it first formed, millions of years ago, in the dark.

Learn more at andreali.com

Andrea Li

The creative process

A cuff has a demand a necklace does not: it has to open and close comfortably around a wrist, over and over, without fighting you. So I fabricated the frame from heavy 10-gauge wire and soldered the ends at an angle to leave a wide opening, then rounded and high-polished those ends so the cuff slips on and off easily and never catches. Only after the frame was sound did I set the stone.

The stalactite went in the same way its sisters did, and this shared technique is the signature that ties the trio together. I fold a single 24k vermeil circle over a wooden dowel, widen its one anchor hole with a diamond-tipped reamer, and thread gold-filled wire through it again and again to weave a web that locks the frame to the slice. Then I set the cluster over the top so the stones appear to grow out of the stone. I let the asymmetric amethyst shield cuts jut out first, echoing the stalactite's raw edges, and then vine into a fuller cluster that reads as if it is creeping across the surface of the geode.

The moment it tested me

The hardest part of Ember was the four flanking stones, and specifically the holes I had to drill for them.

I wanted two large grey moonstone rectangles and two light amethysts to sit outside the main cluster, threaded through the body of the cuff itself so the whole bracelet reads as one continuous story rather than a centerpiece with empty metal on either side. To thread a heavy-gauge head pin through each of those large stones and anchor it to the cuff, the holes on both sides had to align almost perfectly. There is very little forgiveness in that. Drill one a hair off and the head pin binds, or the stone sits crooked. It took patience and a steady hand to get all four to line up and pull the cuff together into a single, integrated piece.

Why this one is truly one of a kind

Like its two sisters, Ember is built around a slice that was unrepeatable before it reached my bench, and the cluster and cuff are matched to that one stone alone. But Ember carries something the necklaces do not: it is the smallest of a set of three cut from the same material, the last of its kind in this collection. When these three stalactites are gone, there will be no fourth. That is the whole idea behind Second Light, the pastel work I continue here from Tamar: I buy the stones I fall for, and I keep designing until each one has found the single piece it was always meant for.

Questions

What is an amethyst stalactite slice?

It is a cross-section cut from an amethyst stalactite, a formation grown drop by drop inside ancient volcanic geodes, mostly from Uruguay and southern Brazil. Each slice shows a banded agate eye at the center, ringed by a halo of pale purple amethyst crystal. Because the pattern forms entirely by chance, no two slices are ever the same. You can read more in my amethyst stalactite guide.

Is a gemstone cuff comfortable to wear every day?

This cuff is fabricated from heavy 14k gold-filled wire with an angled opening and rounded, polished ends, so it slips on and off easily and sits securely. Amethyst and moonstone are best treated gently, so a cuff like this is made for real wear while still being one of a kind.

Is this cuff one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. It is built around the smallest of three amethyst stalactite slices and will never be repeated. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

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Cascade: The Amethyst Stalactite Necklace That Falls Like Water

When I finished the first amethyst stalactite necklace in this collection, I knew there had to be a second one. Not a copy. A counterpart.

The first piece, the one I called Awakening, lies on its side like a small landscape, calm and horizontal, with the gemstone cluster gathered tight at one end. I had another slice from the same rare group of stones, and it wanted to do the opposite. It wanted to fall. So instead of turning this one on its side, I hung it the way a stalactite actually grows in the dark: pointing down, reaching toward the ground, drop by drop. Everything about this necklace came from that single decision to let the stone descend.

The materials

The heart of the piece is an amethyst geode stalactite slice, set downward into large 24k gold vermeil circles I fold by hand. Because the stone is substantial, it needed a chain with equal presence, so I built the body from a chevron-patterned 14k gold-filled chain, layered in three rows so it reads as one thick, unified band.

Around the slice I grew a cluster of coordinating pastel stones: fancy-cut amethyst, mixed beryl in aquamarine, morganite and heliodor, aquamarine briolettes, tiny sapphires in every color from opaque pink to green, a touch of green topaz, grey moonstone, kunzite, and akoya keshi pearls. The chain drops are anchored with green amethyst, and the lighter edge of the setting is finished in tiny sparkling mystic labradorite. Every stone was chosen to echo the soft purples and smoky greys held inside the slice itself.

Gemstone science: a stalactite, set the way it grew

An amethyst stalactite slice is a cross-section cut from a formation that grew hanging inside an ancient volcanic geode, almost always from Uruguay or southern Brazil. Silica-rich water seeps into a pocket in cooling basalt and, drop by drop, builds a hanging spike exactly the way a stalactite grows in a cave. The center fills first with microcrystalline agate, the banded eye you see, and larger amethyst crystals grow outward around it into the open space, forming the pale purple halo, often finished with a rim of raw druzy. Amethyst is simply purple quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation, and it sits at a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. Because the pattern forms entirely by chance, no two slices are ever the same. Setting this one point-down lets it hang the way it first formed, millions of years ago, in the dark.

Andrea Li

andreali.com

Gemstone Science: Amethyst Stalactite Geode

One geode, sliced · a sealed landscape no two of which are alike

How It Forms

01

A pocket opens inside cooling volcanic basalt, and silica-rich water seeps in.

02

Drop by drop, a stalactite grows hanging downward, exactly the way one grows in a cave.

03

The center fills first with banded agate, then amethyst crystals grow outward, finished by a raw druzy rim.

Ancient volcanic pocket in cooling basalt · drop-by-drop stalactite formation

Anatomy of a Slice

Microcrystalline Agate Center

The banded eye at the heart of the slice, the first mineral to fill the pocket.

Amethyst Crystals Halo

Larger purple crystals growing outward into the open space, forming the ring of color.

Raw Druzy Rim

The sparkling crystal-tipped edge that finishes the formation, left exposed as the feature.

The Facts

Origin

Uruguay and southern Brazil, from ancient volcanic geodes.

Mineral

Purple quartz, the violet variety of crystalline quartz.

Color Cause

Traces of iron plus natural irradiation deep in the earth.

Hardness

7 on the Mohs scale, durable enough for regular wear.

Unique Patterns

The pattern forms entirely by chance. No two slices are ever the same.

Truly One of a Kind

Drawn once by the earth over millions of years, it can never recur.

Setting Point-Down

Lets it hang the way it first formed, millions of years ago, in the dark.

Learn more at andreali.com

Andrea Li

The creative process

Always, with these stalactites, the hardest part is invisible in the finished piece: building the structure everything else attaches to. I use large 24k vermeil circles that I gently fold in half over a wooden dowel to get a clean crease, and I cradle the slice inside that fold. There is only one hole to anchor the whole frame, so I widen it as much as I dare with a diamond-tipped reamer, then thread layer after layer of gold-filled wire through it to weave a web that locks the vermeil circles in place. Only then can the gemstone setting begin, covering the surface of the circles so completely that the stones look like they are growing straight out of the stone.

Here I made a choice about restraint. I clustered gemstones along only half of the vermeil circle and edged the rest of the lighter left side in nothing but tiny mystic labradorite, keeping it deliberately minimal so the fully clustered right side could sing. Then I cascaded that cluster downward, letting it spill past the edge of the stalactite to exactly where the three chains reappear at the bottom right, so the pendant and the waterfall drop read as one seamless line rather than two separate ideas.

The chains were their own puzzle. I wanted them to waterfall off the bottom of the pendant into a dramatic triple drop, extending the line of the stone and giving it room to breathe. To make three chains lay correctly around a neck, I used a two-strand bar clasp and drilled an extra hole in the middle to carry the third chain, then cut the chains to slightly varied lengths, shorter on the inside and longer on the outside, so they would curve cleanly instead of tangling.

The moment it changed

The first version of the chain drops was wrong, and I knew it the moment I held it up.

I had originally anchored each of the three drops with a green rutilated quartz teardrop, clear quartz shot through with fine green needles. On paper it made sense. In the hand it was too much: the green was oppressive, and it clashed with the soft, muted palette of the rest of the stones. So I took them off and switched to simple-cut green amethyst rectangles instead. Their color was quieter, their rawness echoed the stalactite and the other stones, and suddenly they belonged to the chorus rather than shouting over it. That one swap is the difference between a piece that fights itself and a piece that resolves.

Why this one is truly one of a kind

The slice was unrepeatable before it ever reached my bench. Its banded eye, its purple halo, the exact way the crystals grew, all of it was drawn once by the earth and will never be drawn the same way again. When I build a cluster and a cascade of chain to match one stone, I am matching a composition that cannot recur. Cascade is the vertical, dramatic sister to Awakening, and together with the Ember cuff they complete a three-piece story I could only tell with these three particular slices.

Questions

What is an amethyst stalactite slice?

It is a cross-section cut from an amethyst stalactite, a formation that grew drop by drop hanging inside an ancient volcanic geode, mostly from Uruguay and southern Brazil. Each slice shows a banded agate eye at the center, ringed by a halo of pale purple amethyst crystal, often finished with a rim of raw druzy. Because the pattern forms entirely by chance, no two slices are ever the same. You can read more in my amethyst stalactite guide.

Is amethyst durable enough for everyday wear?

Amethyst is purple quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation, and it sits at a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale, which is durable for regular wear. The raw druzy rim of a stalactite slice is its most delicate part, so it is best treated with a little care.

Is this necklace one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. This exact slice, cluster, and cascade of chain will never be repeated. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

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The Wire That Found a Home Twice: Green Amethyst Hoops and Their Necklace

Some of my favorite pieces start as someone else's leftovers.

Years ago I did a kind of work most people never see. I ghost-designed jewelry for another brand, creating pieces they would put their own name on, which the industry calls white labeling. For one production run I bought a quantity of thin, square-gauge gold-filled wire. Then the designer decided to bring her production in house, and just like that the project ended, leaving me holding a spool of wire with nowhere to go.

I do not throw beautiful material away. So I set out to find it a home in my own work, and it ended up finding two.

First, the hoops

The wire was light, which made it perfect for a statement hoop that would not drag on the lobes. I wanted something geometric and thoroughly modern, so I fabricated a caged hoop: individual shapes, long ovals and circles, each soldered separately and then soldered together. The hard part was keeping the circles from drifting under the torch, because the two earrings had to come out identical. Then I bent the wire into two large matching hoops, threaded them through the cage, and soldered them in so the whole thing read as one integrated form. I added a small mirrored gemstone cluster to each, with a long green amethyst set down the center.

I always wear a new design out before it goes to its person, to be sure it actually feels good to wear. Every time I have worn these, someone stops me. That is the quiet proof that a piece is doing its job: turning heads and starting conversations.

Then, the necklace

Making the hoops left me with more of that square wire, and I could not let it sit again. So I made a necklace in the same language.

I fabricated and soldered three long ovals to echo the long ovals that anchor the hoops. The longest became a drop pendant; the other two split at the top to flank the main gemstone cluster and to give me anchor points for the chains that wrap around the neck. A long green amethyst drops from the cluster to be framed inside that longest oval, tying the pendant and the cluster into one gesture. The cluster itself anchors all three ovals and vines up the side of the right one, just enough asymmetry to feel alive while the whole piece stays balanced.

Gemstone science: amethyst's green sister

The green amethyst running through both pieces is properly called prasiolite. It is quartz in a soft, leafy green, and most of it begins as amethyst or pale quartz that turns green through heat, deep in the earth or through careful treatment. So it is amethyst's cooler, calmer sister, the same mineral in a different mood. At a 7 on the Mohs scale, it is durable enough to live an everyday life.

To fill the open space inside each flanking oval and to balance the cluster, I added two of my Mixed Beryl crown-cut beads, one to a side, threaded in individually.

The trick was the chain

For the body of the necklace I used a labradorite enamel chain flanked by a slightly heavier chain that shares its delicate look but lends a little more presence. Together they read almost as a single chain with fine detailing.

The genuinely tricky part was spacing. The two chains had to stay evenly spaced all the way around, including at the back of the neck where chains love to twist together. Holding that spacing is what preserves the illusion of one unified piece. It is the kind of work no one is meant to notice, which is exactly why it matters.

The result is more minimal than the bolder pieces in this collection, which I love. It moves easily from a casual day to a cocktail hour without trying.

Why this one is one of a kind

A spool of wire bought for a brand that is not mine, orphaned by a decision I did not make, and given two lives by hand: a pair of hoops, and the necklace built from what they left behind. The green amethyst ties them together; the asymmetry and the chain-work make the necklace its own. None of it can be repeated, because the wire is nearly gone and the choices were made one response at a time.

It is proof of the thing I believe most. Nothing beautiful has to go to waste, and the second life is often the better one.

More like these

Drawn to this green? So am I.

Green amethyst statement jewelry→

Questions

What is green amethyst, or prasiolite?

Green amethyst is properly called prasiolite, a green quartz. Most of it begins as amethyst or pale quartz that turns green through heat, deep in the earth or through careful treatment. At a 7 on the Mohs scale it is durable enough for everyday wear.

Are the hoops and the necklace sold together?

They were made from the same orphaned wire and share one design language, but each is its own one-of-a-kind piece.

Can I commission something similar?

Yes. Every piece is built once. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

Stay Close

Love what you see? Keep finding us.

Google now lets you choose your favorite sources so they show up labeled in AI search answers. If you enjoy discovering handcrafted gemstone jewelry here, add Andrea Li Designs and we'll be easier to find next time you search.

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Fairy Dynamite's Sister: A Rainbow Pearl Lariat

Every necklace in this collection picks up where the last one left off, and this one began with what Fairy Dynamite did not use.

When I finished Fairy Dynamite, I still had a length of hand-bailed pearl chain left over, bought at the Tucson gem show for this collection. It is a soft, light grey, with a subtle rainbow iridescence riding across it, exactly the palette to mirror the pastel stones I had been working with. I did not want to repeat Fairy Dynamite. I wanted a sister to it, something from the same world spoken in an entirely different voice.

A different shape for the same family

This time I reached for a lariat, the kind of necklace that threads through itself and falls in a long, easy drop. And I wanted to build it around another 24k gold vermeil oval, the same component family that runs through this whole collection.

The pearl chain would pass through the oval and loop back on itself, so the oval became the heart of the design. I built a gemstone cluster right into it, gathered around larger center stones: blue topaz, green amethyst, and kunzite. Then I edged the oval with tiny sparkling mystic labradorites to give it a finished frame.

Gemstone science: the delicate one

Kunzite is the quiet risk in this piece. It is a pink-to-lilac variety of the mineral spodumene, and it is pleochroic, which means it shows you different colors from different angles, soft pink one way and a hint of violet another. It also has what gemologists call perfect cleavage, a built-in plane where the crystal will split cleanly if it is struck wrong. That makes kunzite one of the more delicate stones I set, and one of the most rewarding when it is handled gently.

The piece inside the piece

There is a thread of continuity here that I love. The tassel at the end of the looped pearl chain is an old ear-cuff component whose twin lives inside Fairy Dynamite. Two halves of the same forgotten pair, finally finished, in two sister necklaces.

I thought I was done. Then I hung the whole thing up, and the clustered oval sat crooked, tilting in a way no amount of adjusting would fix. It simply needed weight to pull it straight.

So I built a second drop to give it that weight: two large blue topaz pieces and a single simple-cut aquamarine nugget, each one capped with a pearl cut from the same chain, and spaced with short lengths of that pearl chain between them. The new drop fell into perfect alignment beside the lariat's own drop, and the oval finally hung straight and true. It was meant to be invisible engineering. Instead it became the part people notice first. The necklace needed that second drop, and I had not even known it.

Why this one is one of a kind

A lariat made from a leftover length of chain that exists in no other piece. A tassel that only carries meaning because its other half is in another necklace. A second drop that was never planned, born because a finished piece refused to hang quietly. This is what one of a kind really means. Not just that I made one, but that the piece could only have become itself through the exact small accidents that built it.

It is Fairy Dynamite's sister, and like all sisters, entirely her own.

The Matching Earrings

I make a coordinating pair of earrings for every necklace in a collection, meant to be worn together or apart. The lariat is a long, quiet statement, so its earrings had to stay out of its way. Rather than compete, I kept them simple: a small gemstone drop of aquamarine crown-cut beads that accents the minimal, opera-length spirit of the necklace without ever shouting over it.

Questions

What is kunzite?

Kunzite is a pink to lilac variety of the mineral spodumene. It is pleochroic, meaning it shows different colors from different angles, and it has perfect cleavage, a built-in plane where the crystal can split if it is struck wrong. That makes it one of the more delicate stones to set.

What is a lariat necklace?

A lariat is a long, open-ended necklace that threads through itself and falls in a long drop rather than fastening with a clasp.

Is this piece one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. Each piece is made once. If you would like something in the same family, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

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The Ovals That Found a New Home: A Vermeil Collar Necklace

This necklace started with a box of gold ovals that were never meant to be mine.

A fellow jeweler had been sitting on a large inventory of 24k gold vermeil ovals. She had bought them for her best-selling design at the time, a boho earring called Feather Leathers, where custom-cut leather hung whimsically from the ovals with gemstones draping below. Then she pivoted her whole business to custom engagement rings and retired the earrings for good. The ovals had nowhere to go. I took a number of them off her hands, because I cannot watch a beautiful material go unused, and I knew they would find a home in my one-of-a-kind work.

I just had to figure out what that home was.

Finding the shape

I played with the ovals for a while, arranging and rearranging, until a pattern emerged that wanted to be a collar. A collar sits differently than my usual asymmetric pieces. It asks for symmetry, for a center that anchors everything, so I knew from the start it needed a cluster at its heart.

I was excited, because I had just bought something perfect to build that cluster around: strands of Mixed Beryl crown-cut beads, tiny faceted geometric stones in aquamarine, morganite, and heliodor.

Gemstone science: one mineral, three colors

Here is something I love about those beads. Aquamarine, morganite, and heliodor are all the same mineral, beryl. The color is the only thing that separates them: aquamarine is beryl tinted blue by iron, morganite is beryl blushed peach by manganese, and heliodor is beryl warmed to yellow. So a single strand of them is one stone wearing three moods, which makes them a quietly perfect foundation for a cluster where color is meant to lead.

The part the stones decided

I had a grand plan for the center, and the stones talked me out of it.

The first idea was dramatic: a large amethyst stalactite slice suspended from a cascade of ovals dropping from the center point, turning the collar into an opera-length statement. I built toward it, but the proportions never came right. The drop fought the collar instead of flowing from it. So I let the grand version go and kept it simpler, a single graceful drop instead of a cascade.

Then the beryls fought me too. The first two crown-cut beads I tried to wire in snapped under the tension. They are lovely but delicate at that tiny size, so I changed my whole order of operations. I built the cluster's structure first with sturdier stones to set the shape, then threaded the fragile beryls in one at a time, after the framework could protect them. A stone always teaches you how it wants to be handled. You just have to listen before you have broken two.

Building outward

With the drop simplified, I framed a large aquamarine nugget inside the central oval, edged that oval with tiny sparkling purple Herkimer diamonds, and secured the cluster to both the drop and the two ovals flanking it.

I had meant to leave those flanking ovals open, but once the cluster and drop came together, the empty space inside them looked unfinished. So I reached for baroque pearls shaped almost like little angel wings and let them extend the cluster outward on either side, filling the openness with movement. That accident of proportion became one of my favorite parts of the piece.

From there I set a rhythm down the length of the collar: ovals edged in 3mm mystic labradorite beads with gemstones threaded through the center, alternating with open ovals each holding a single larger stone. One held a blue topaz, the next a copper aquamarine, chosen because they echoed each other in size, shape, and watery color. I carried the pattern to the point where the necklace slips behind the neck, then finished the rest of the length with bare gold ovals, letting the design quiet down before it disappears.

Why this one is one of a kind

This necklace could not happen twice. The ovals came from a design that no longer exists, bought in a quantity that will eventually run out. The beryls that survived the bench are set in an order I worked out by breaking the ones that did not. The angel-wing pearls are there because an empty space asked to be filled. Every choice was a response to the one before it, which is the only way I know how to work, and the reason no two of my pieces are ever the same.

It is a collar built entirely from beginnings that belonged to someone else, made wholly into something that is only mine.

Vermeil Oval earrings (mate to the Vermeil Oval Collar necklace)

These carry one quiet detail straight from the necklace's body. I edged each 24k gold vermeil oval with tiny sparkling purple Herkimer diamonds and suspended a single baroque pearl to hang in the center, the same gesture that runs along the collar, distilled into a single oval per ear.

Questions

What are the Mixed Beryl crown-cut beads in this necklace?

They are tiny faceted beads of aquamarine, morganite, and heliodor, which are all the same mineral, beryl. Only the color separates them. Iron tints aquamarine blue, manganese blushes morganite peach, and heliodor warms to a soft yellow.

What is 24k gold vermeil?

Vermeil is sterling silver coated in a thick layer of gold. The ovals at the heart of this collar are 24k gold vermeil, rehomed from a fellow jeweler's retired earring design.

Is this necklace one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. Every Andrea Li piece is built once, and when it sells it is gone. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

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The Choker That Floats: A Rainbow Moonstone Story

It started with a handful of spikes.

I had found a strand of AAAA rainbow moonstone marquise briolettes, pointed little beads that catch the light and throw it back as color, and I could not stop looking at them. They had a glow that seemed to rise from somewhere deep inside the stone. I knew they had to be the center of something. I just had to figure out what.

The light inside a moonstone

That glow has a name: adularescence. It is the soft, floating sheen that seems to drift just below a moonstone's surface as you tilt it.

Gemstone science: why rainbow moonstone flashes color

Moonstone is a feldspar, and its sheen comes from its structure. Inside the crystal are microscopic, alternating layers of two feldspar minerals, albite and orthoclase. When light enters, it scatters between those layers and floats back to your eye as that dreamy glow. Rainbow moonstone takes it a step further. It is actually a variety of labradorite, and its internal layers act like a prism, splitting light into a whole spectrum of blues, yellows, oranges, and purples. No two stones ever catch the light the same way.

A spike that found its match

The marquise briolettes were shaped like spikes, and that shape jogged a memory. I had a small cache of bullet-shaped moonstones left over from my Femme Fatale collection, and their pointed silhouette was a perfect echo of the new briolettes. Two stones from two different collections, made years apart, that looked like they had always belonged together.

I also had a new material I was eager to feature: Mixed Beryl crown-cut beads, faceted geometric little stones in aquamarine, morganite, and heliodor. I wanted a design that would truly showcase all of it, the spikes, the bullets, and the crown cuts, without crowding any of them.

Andrea Li

☾ ✦ ✧

Gemstone Profile:

Moonstone

The glow · Adularescence

◇

Identification & Type

Moonstone (orthoclase feldspar). A captivating variety of feldspar known for its ethereal, floating luster.

◇

Physical Properties

✓

Mohs hardness: 6 to 6.5

◉

Colors: translucent to opaque. Classic white with a blue sheen, plus rainbow, peach, and grey.

✦

Luster: pearly to vitreous.

□

Chemical formula: (K,Na)AlSi₃O₈

◇

Key Phenomenon: Adularescence

Scattered light. The sheen comes from light diffracting through thin, alternating mineral layers inside the crystal, which scatters it back as that soft floating glow. Rainbow moonstone, a variety of labradorite, spreads it into a full spectrum.

◇

Major Origins

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) India Madagascar United States

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Symbolism & Metaphysical

☉

Intuition & Clarity

☾

New Beginnings

✦

Calm & Balance

☽

Feminine Energy & Fertility

◇

Care & Handling

✓

Gentle cleaning. Use warm, soapy water and a soft brush. Never an ultrasonic or steam cleaner.

✓

Avoid chemicals. Protect it from harsh agents, perfume, and cosmetics.

✓

Store separately. Keep it in a soft pouch so harder stones cannot scratch it.

The beauty of moonstone. Elegance in nature's glow.

Andrea Li

andreali.com

Designing for the float

The answer was restraint. I landed on a minimal choker, the kind of design that gives a gemstone cluster room to breathe.

The whole idea was to make the cluster look like it was floating around the neck, with as little structure showing as possible. A clean stage, with nothing competing with the stones. The less hardware the eye notices, the more the stones get to be the entire story.

Building the vine

I fabricated the choker base by hand from 14k gold-filled heavy gauge wire, shaping it to sit close around the neck. At the very tip, where the choker comes around to the front of the throat, I soldered a tiny pearl peg and set a single luminous baroque pearl, the soft punctuation mark the whole piece resolves toward.

Then I drilled a row of tiny holes up the length of the wire. Those holes are how I anchor a cluster securely to a base this minimal, with no bulky setting to hide behind. Working up from there, I built the gemstone cluster like a vine twirling up the side of the choker, the marquise moonstones and bullet moonstones and crown-cut beryls climbing toward the front. I filled the heart of the cluster with tiny sapphires, sparkling Herkimer diamonds, and keshi pearls, the small details that give a cluster depth when you look closely, and let the whole thing resolve right at the baroque pearl cap.

The empty side

Here is the decision that makes the piece work. I left the other side of the choker completely bare.

No flourish, no stones, just the clean gold line of the wire. That emptiness is what sells the illusion. With one side blooming and the other side quiet, the cluster reads as something that grew there on its own, floating at the throat rather than sitting on a necklace. It also gives the choker a modern, architectural feeling, asymmetry used on purpose, the way a single branch reads against an open sky.

Why this one is one of a kind

A rainbow moonstone never flashes the same way twice, and neither do the stones that sit beside it. The bullet moonstones came from a collection I will never make again. The cluster was wound by hand, stone by stone, up one side of a base I fabricated for this piece alone. It cannot be repeated, and that is exactly the point. It is one moment of light caught at the throat, and it belongs to one person.

Choker earrings (mate to the Moonstone Choker)

These were the most fun to engineer. My first instinct was a stacked cluster with a single bullet moonstone at the bottom, but it felt like parroting another design, so I started over. Instead I fabricated a gilded arch that mirrors the choker's own line, and built the gemstone cluster right into it so the design follows the curve of the earring. I soldered the post toward the center of the arch rather than the top, so each earring curves out to follow the curve of the lobe, an engineering choice as much as an aesthetic one, for balance and comfort on the ear. I drilled holes along the arch to hang a single moonstone bullet at the bottom and to anchor the cluster into the metal, then filled the center with small flat pear briolettes and tiny sparkling sapphires for depth and shine. The result echoes the modern, architectural feeling of the choker exactly.

Questions

What makes rainbow moonstone flash color?

Moonstone is a feldspar, and its glow, called adularescence, comes from light scattering between microscopic layers of two feldspar minerals, albite and orthoclase. Rainbow moonstone is actually a variety of labradorite whose internal layers act like a prism, splitting light into blues, yellows, oranges, and purples. No two stones ever catch the light the same way.

How is rainbow moonstone different from classic moonstone?

Both show adularescence, the floating sheen that drifts just below the surface. Classic moonstone glows a soft white to blue, while rainbow moonstone, technically a labradorite, throws a fuller spectrum of color.

Is this choker one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. It was wound by hand, stone by stone, on a base fabricated for this piece alone, and some of its stones came from a collection that will not be made again. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

Stay Close

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The Stone That Sat in My Drawer for Years: An Amethyst Stalactite Necklace

Some years ago I walked out of one of my favorite gem shows with my budget already gone.

The show is held at a place those of us who go every year just call the Holidome. I was leaving a little reluctantly, the way you do when you are not ready for a show to be over. On my way out I passed a strand of stones unlike anything I had ever seen, and I stopped. I had to have them. I bought them on the spot with money I did not really have left to spend.

Then they sat in my drawer. Year after year, while a few of their siblings found their way into other pieces, this strand mostly waited for a design worthy of how strange and beautiful they were. This necklace is that design, finally.

What an amethyst stalactite slice actually is

The stone at the heart of this necklace is an amethyst stalactite slice, and it is one of the most unusual stones in all of fine jewelry. Instead of a single clear gem, you get a tiny sealed landscape: a concentric eye of banded agate at the center, ringed by a halo of pale purple amethyst crystal, often finished with a rim of sparkling raw druzy. People look at them and see different things. An eye. A flower. A small planet.

Andrea Li

Gemstone Profile: Amethyst Stalactite

A one-of-a-kind slice · the flower in the stone

The Formation

Formed over millennia in volcanic pockets and mineral-rich caves. A unique stalactitic crystal growth, drop by drop.

Anatomy

A distinct core, often agate, followed by concentric bands, then radiating layers of amethyst crystals.

Color & Luster

Ranges from ethereal lavender to deep violet, with natural color zoning. A bright, vitreous luster.

Rarity & Unicity

A rare and coveted formation. Cross-sections resemble a natural flower or starburst. A one-of-a-kind natural design.

Symbolism

Commonly associated with clarity, calm energy, and deep grounding. Considered a stone of time and growth.

Learn more at andreali.com

Andrea Li

Gemstone science: a geode, sliced

Amethyst stalactite slices come almost entirely from the ancient volcanic geodes of Uruguay and southern Brazil. Silica-rich water seeps into a pocket in cooling basalt and, drop by drop, builds a hanging stalactite the same way a cave stalactite grows. The center fills first with microcrystalline agate, the banded eye you see. Around it, larger amethyst crystals grow outward into the open space, building the purple halo. Slice the finished stalactite crosswise and that whole hidden history is revealed in rings. Amethyst is simply purple quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation, and it sits at a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. Because the pattern forms entirely by chance, no two slices are ever the same.

Building a piece around the stone

I chose one slice from the strand and turned it on its side to run horizontally, like a small landscape, for a bar-style necklace.

I do not bezel a stone like this. I wired a small 24k gold vermeil structure by hand to cradle the slice and to give me something to build on. Then I grew a gemstone cluster up and out of that armature, the way crystals themselves grow, so the cluster seems to spill from the raw amethyst edge rather than sit politely beside it. I left that raw druzy rim exposed on purpose. It is the most delicate part of the stone, those tiny crystal tips, but hiding it would have hidden the entire reason to use the slice.

They belong in a pastel collection because the stone is already pastel: a washed lilac crystal wrapped around a smoky agate eye. I do not have to add drama to it. I build a cluster of coordinating soft stones around it, anchor it with a single flat green rutilated quartz teardrop, and let the slice lead.

One thing I have learned the hard way: widen the hole through the slice before you start. I thread my own wire through that channel several times to lock the vermeil structure in place, and it fills up faster than you expect. The first time, I left myself almost no room to pass the 12-gauge head pin that connects the chain, and I had to ease it through with patient, firm pressure and a little water to lubricate the channel. Now I make the room up front.

The chain had to earn its place

A pendant with this much presence needed a chain that could hold its own. Anything delicate would have looked apologetic next to a stone like this. I had a large-link 14k gold-filled chain in my stock that balanced the weight of the slice perfectly, and I finished it with a large toggle clasp in the same confident scale. The chain is part of the statement, not an afterthought to it.

Why this one is truly one of a kind

The slice was unrepeatable before it ever reached my bench. The eye at its center, the rings around it, the depth of its purple, all of it was drawn once by the earth over millions of years and will never be drawn the same way again. When I build a cluster to match one, I am matching a composition that cannot recur.

That is the whole idea behind this collection, which continues the pastel work I began with Tamar. I buy the stones I fall for, and I keep designing until each one has found the single piece it was always meant for. This geode waited years for that piece. It was worth the wait.

Previous work with Amethyst Stalactite:

Questions

What is an amethyst stalactite slice?

It is a cross-section cut from an amethyst stalactite, a formation grown drop by drop inside ancient volcanic geodes, mostly from Uruguay and southern Brazil. Each slice shows a banded agate eye at the center, ringed by a halo of pale purple amethyst crystal, often finished with a rim of raw druzy. Because the pattern forms entirely by chance, no two slices are ever the same.

Is amethyst durable enough for everyday wear?

Amethyst is purple quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation, and it sits at a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale, durable for regular wear. The exposed raw druzy rim is the most delicate part of this stone, so it is best treated gently.

Is this necklace one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. The slice was unrepeatable before it ever reached the bench, and the cluster is matched to it alone. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

Stay Close

Love what you see? Keep finding us.

Google now lets you choose your favorite sources so they show up labeled in AI search answers. If you enjoy discovering handcrafted gemstone jewelry here, add Andrea Li Designs and we'll be easier to find next time you search.

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How a Name Comes to a One-of-a-Kind Piece: The Fairy Dynamite Story

I have named hundreds of pieces over the years. This one refused to let me.

So I did something I had never done before. I showed it to the people on my email list before it was fully finished, and I asked them to name it for me. That is a vulnerable thing to do. The name is usually mine to give, the last quiet decision I make at the bench. Handing it over meant trusting that the people who follow my work would see in the piece what I saw in it. They did, and then some.

This is the story of how that necklace came to be, and how it earned the name it carries now: Fairy Dynamite.

A piece that picked up where the last release left off

The investment I make in my art is more precious than paint and canvases. Gemstones are sold in strands. Creating a lush palette for a new collections requires multiple strands. I work hard to honor the full use of each tiny treasure that ends up on my studio desk. I call this using the ‘whole buffalo’, much like the Native Americans who honored the life sustaining yields as a result of their hunting practices. When I buy gemstones for a collection, I am not finished with that collection until I have found a home for nearly all of them. This necklace is proof of that habit. It picks up exactly where my last pastel release left off, and it began with two components I had already made and set aside.

The two clusters at its heart were originally built for an ear cuff. Each one stacked a large, simple-cut blue topaz with geometric Australian opal briolettes, piled one on the next like stones in a river cairn. They were beautiful, and they were wrong for that ear cuff. Their chunky weight clashed with the delicate frame I had designed, so I used tiny opal rondelles and cascading gold chains for that piece instead. The two heavy clusters went onto my desk, where they sat and waited until I could find a design that honored how substantial they were.

Building the necklace around them

The answer was to return to the thing I do most naturally: my signature asymmetrical gemstone clustering.

The chains came first, and they were the real spark. I had an organic-shaped pearl chain whose knobby, irregular rhythm matched the cairn-like stack of the Australian opals almost exactly. The moment I held them next to each other, the necklace existed in my head. I added two 24k gold vermeil components as the connection points that carry the main cluster out to a pair of those chains.

Then came the part that is never optional. Once a cluster is built, I go back in and strategically add stones so the whole thing flows without any visual stutter. I built up the joins between the original cluster and the new main cluster, and I threaded tiny Australian opals through the design as single points of cohesion, small echoes that tie one area to the next.

My plan had been to simply attach the two pearl chains and stop there. I have a very hard time doing anything standard. So I added gemstones along the chains to break their monotony, and then the chains read as too heavy. To put the air back in, I added a single gold circle link. That link is what I call a Marilyn: one unexpected element that breaks the pattern and makes you look twice. Every piece needs one.

Around that blue topaz and opal core, the finished cluster gathers aquamarine, amethyst, kunzite, mystic labradorite, and keshi pearls, the soft pastel family I keep coming back to.

A note on the stones

Moonstone is one of the soft, glowing stones running through this necklace, and it earns its place. Its dreamy sheen has a name, adularescence, and it comes from the way moonstone is built in microscopic layers of two feldspar minerals. Light enters, scatters between those layers, and floats back to your eye as that glow that seems to hover just below the surface. No two moonstones scatter light in quite the same way, which is exactly why they belong in a piece that exists only once.

Andrea Li

andreali.com

Guide to Moonstone Varieties

Grey, Peach, and Rainbow

Grey Moonstone

The lookA misty, smoky adularescence, the blue sheen drifting through a cool grey body.

Color range

Associated withCalm and clarity, new beginnings.

StructureMonoclinic feldspar.

Peach Moonstone

The lookA warm peach glow, soft apricot tones lit from within.

Color range

Associated withEmpathy and growth, feminine energy.

StructureMonoclinic feldspar.

Rainbow Moonstone

The lookMulti-color iridescence, the whole spectrum flashing across a clear body.

Color palette

Associated withIntuition and creativity, protection.

StructureTriclinic. Technically a labradorite.

Embrace the magic of natural stones

andreali.com

Handing it to the community

When the necklace was nearly there, I sent it to my list and asked a simple question: what would you name her? I made it easy to answer. No external poll, no form, just hit reply.

I was not prepared for what came back. Names arrived full of imagination and personal meaning. Jenny Blanchard, who would end up naming the winner, wrote that the piece gave her "the sensation of being from another world where fairies are busy at work." Other subscribers reached for mythology, for wine, for gratitude, for the night sky. Every single name came with a little story about why.

So I sent a second email. I listed every name that had been submitted, each with a short description so no one felt left out, and I let the community vote.

Fairy Dynamite

They chose Fairy Dynamite, a name Jenny submitted.

It fit better than anything I would have landed on alone. From across a room the necklace looks delicate and a little innocent, all soft blues and lilacs and pearl. Up close it is anything but quiet. It explodes into color and texture and weight. Delicate and explosive at the same time. Fairy Dynamite.

The part that mattered most

After the vote, I did not simply move on to the next thing. I wrote fifteen personal thank-you notes, each one from my own inbox rather than an automated send, and each one spoke to that person's specific submission. Then I made something for every contributor: a custom Andrea Li Designs certificate naming them, the piece, its stones, and the exact name they had submitted or voted for. Sixteen people, sixteen certificates.

I did this because these were never entries in a contest to me. They were people who handed me their imagination, and I wanted them to hold something that said so. The replies that came back told me it landed.

A name, and a piece, that are truly one of a kind

Fairy Dynamite is one piece in the collection I am releasing this fall, the next chapter of the pastel work I began with Tamar. Like everything I make, it exists exactly once. The stones in it will never gather in the same way again, and the design will never be repeated.

There is something right about a one-of-a-kind piece being named by the people who will remember it. The reason the world treasures a singular jewel is the same reason I make what I make. It will only ever be itself. And now it carries a name to match, given to it by the community that watched it come together.

Fairy Dynamite earrings

(mate to the Fairy Dynamite necklace)

These echo Fairy Dynamite in miniature, built with the same stacked gemstone clustering and pearls drawn from the hand-bailed chain, so the intricate language of the necklace carries down to the ears. Each one is anchored by a teardrop aquamarine that gives the pair a polished, finished close.

Questions

How did the Fairy Dynamite necklace get its name?

Andrea invited her email community to name this one-of-a-kind piece, then chose from the replies they sent. The winning name, Fairy Dynamite, captures the way the necklace pairs delicate, fairy-like sparkle with a concentrated burst of energy.

What gemstones are in the Fairy Dynamite necklace?

Its asymmetrical cluster gathers Australian and Ethiopian opal, blue topaz, aquamarine, amethyst, kunzite, moonstone, sapphire, spinel, and mystic labradorite, finished with keshi pearls and set in 14k gold-filled and 24k gold vermeil.

Is it one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. The piece exists exactly once, and its stones will never gather in the same way again. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

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Multi-Color Sapphire Briolettes: My Quiet Constant

There are two stones I reach for in almost everything I make. One is the pearl, and most people expect that. The other surprises them: a tiny multi-color sapphire, often no bigger than three millimeters, tucked so far inside a cluster that you might never know it is there. But I know. Aside from pearls, a sapphire briolette is the one material that runs through nearly every piece that leaves my Denver studio.

I did not set out to make sapphires my signature. I went looking for something small. I wanted a faceted stone tiny enough to nest between the larger center gems in my clusters, in enough colors that I could always find one to echo the heart of a design. For a long time, that stone did not exist in the form I needed. Then I found it, and I have not stopped buying them since.

The Materials

The stones come from Gem House USA, a vendor based in New York with mines in India, which means the precise origin of any given briolette is honestly a little ambiguous, somewhere in the long history of Indian corundum. What matters to me is what arrives: faceted sapphire briolettes around three millimeters across, in what feels like every color a sapphire can be. Blue, of course, but also pink, yellow, green, violet, peach, and the soft in-between shades that do not have tidy names. They are one of the more precious stones I work with, and having them in nearly every piece quietly raises the whole register of the work.

A Little Sapphire Science

Sapphire is gem-quality corundum, a crystal of aluminum and oxygen, and it comes in every color except red. Red corundum has its own name: ruby. The color is written by trace elements caught in the crystal as it grows, with iron and titanium turning it blue and chromium pushing it toward pink. That range is exactly why sapphire suits the way I design. Whatever color sits at the center of a piece, there is a sapphire to coordinate or complement it.

The other reason is durability. Sapphire is a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale, second only to diamond, and just as important, it is tough rather than brittle. It resists chipping and cleaving in a way softer stones do not. At three millimeters, in a cluster that gets worn and bumped, that toughness is not academic. It is the difference between a stone that survives and one that does not.

The Colors, and Where They Come From

Sapphire takes its color from whatever trace elements were caught in the crystal as it grew, which is why the range runs so wide. Here is how I think about the ones I reach for most.

Color	What gives it the color	How I use it
Blue	Iron and titanium	The classic. Cools and anchors a warmer center stone.
Pink	A trace of chromium, where more would make a ruby	Softens or warms a palette without going loud.
Yellow	Iron and color centers	Adds light, sits beautifully beside golden and honey stones.
Green	Iron, often color-zoned	Earthy, pairs with mossy, olive, and aquatic centers.
Violet	Vanadium, sometimes with iron and titanium	Bridges cool and warm in a single hue.
Padparadscha	A trace of chromium with iron	The rare pink-orange glow, used sparingly as a highlight.
Colorless	Pure corundum, with no coloring elements	A neutral sparkle to bridge two stronger colors.
Parti	Zones of different trace elements in one crystal	A single stone that does two color jobs at once.

At the Bench

Here is the small, specific thing that made me fall for these stones: the holes. Each briolette is top-drilled, with the hole running through the narrowest part of the stone, right up at the point. On these, that hole is sized almost exactly to my 26-gauge wire. That sounds like a trivial detail. It is not, and it is exactly why the hardness matters so much. Drilling through the slender top of a briolette would crack a brittle stone, but sapphire takes it without complaint. When the wire passes cleanly through, without forcing and without play, the connection sits true, the stone hangs the way I intend, and the cold connection holds. A briolette whose hole fights my wire is a briolette I fight all day. These do not fight me.

So they have become the connective tissue of my clusters. I build a piece around a larger center stone, then I nest these tiny sapphires in around it, choosing colors that pull from the center or set up a quiet contrast. Because color leads my design more than any single stone does, the sapphires give me an enormous palette to reach into. I can warm a cool center, cool a warm one, or build a whole gradient out of stones I could lose in my palm.

They are always on my shopping list when I go to the gem show. Not as the star of anything, but as the supply I cannot work without, the way another maker might restock solder or wire. I buy them by color, by the handful, because I know every one of them will eventually find a home between two larger stones.

Why They Earned the Staple Spot

Pearls earned their place in my work for their lustre and their softness against metal. Sapphires earned theirs for the opposite reasons: they are hard, exact, and endlessly variable in color. Together, those two stones are the only true constants across collections that otherwise share very little.

What I did not expect when I started using them is how much they would do invisibly. A piece reads as more considered, more luxurious, when there is a real sapphire nested in it, even a small one, even one the wearer has to go looking for. The value is not loud. It is just there, the way good materials are. If you are curious about the other stones I build around, the gemstone guides walk through each one, and the most famous sapphire of all, the Star of India, is a star sapphire with a story worth knowing.

In Almost Everything

Because every cluster I build is one of a kind, no two arrangements of these sapphires are ever the same. The stones are a constant; what I do with them never is. So if you have worn one of my pieces, you have very likely worn a multi-color sapphire without knowing it, a tiny, hard, brilliantly colored thing doing quiet work between the stones you noticed first. Aside from a pearl, it is the closest thing I have to a signature.

Questions

What colors of sapphire does Andrea Li use?

Every color. Andrea works with tiny multi-color sapphire briolettes, around three millimeters, and chooses the color to coordinate with the center stone of each piece.

Why does Andrea use sapphire briolettes in her clusters?

Three reasons. Sapphire is hard and not brittle, so it survives being top-drilled through its narrow point. The drilled holes fit her 26-gauge wire almost exactly, so the cold connection sits true. And it comes in every color, so there is always one to coordinate with a center stone.

Are sapphires durable enough for everyday wear?

Yes. Sapphire is a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale, second only to diamond, and it is tough rather than brittle, so it resists chipping and cleaving even at a tiny size.

Is a sapphire the same as a ruby?

They are the same mineral, corundum. Ruby is red corundum. Every other color of corundum is called sapphire, which is why sapphire spans blue, pink, yellow, green, violet, and more.

What is a sapphire briolette?

A briolette is a faceted, drop-shaped stone. These are top-drilled, so they can hang or nest from a wire, which is how Andrea sets them between the larger stones in her clusters.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

Stay Close

Love what you see? Keep finding us.

Google now lets you choose your favorite sources so they show up labeled in AI search answers. If you enjoy discovering handcrafted gemstone jewelry here, add Andrea Li Designs and we'll be easier to find next time you search.

Add Andrea Li Designs as a Preferred Source

One click. Works across Google Search, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.