These earrings were a wonderful challenge for me for a few reasons. The first was color matching the really unique look of these stones. I wanted to highlight the darker tones in it, but they were difficult to isolate. I also wanted to have some small nod to that gorgeous orange. I think I succeeded almost perfectly with the darker tones, but the lighter color match wasn't quite as good. I am still very happy with the overall look but I think the 15/0s that I was able to source have just a bit too much yellow in them compared to the stones.
Miriam Jasper is also known as Calligraphy Stone, Elephant Skin Jasper, or Arabic Stone. (There are tons of other cool ones but these are my favorites.) It gets its unique striations from fossilized shells, vegetation, and bones. This stone is only found around the Himalayan mountains. Miriam Jasper is highly recommended for meditation as it is credited with aligning chakras and cleansing the spirit. This power is attributed to its ancient origins and the way it was formed with the creation of the Himalayas.
I really enjoyed working on these pieces I liked making a bit more of a complicated border for the stones. Usually the more complicated the stone the more simple I make the setting but when I had these ones in a simple setting the setting just disappeared. Not in a good way, it was just overpowered. So I kept adding to it until it all felt cohesive. I really do like how they came out in the end.
