Night Stone Jewelry

Well, it’s been a long while actually since I posted. Lots of jewelry has been made in world and I’m going to start posting more of those as they come along.
For now, the two most recent. I’ve decided to use names of stars (the Astronomical kind) for naming my jewelry, so some names you see might seem odd, but hey, it’s different.

First off is the Acamar cuff/bracelet. this is a basic cuff with a nice piece of turquoise inlay. For sale in world for L$100 FREE for a week! (starting 08-06-08, ending 08-15-08)

Next up is a beautiful opal inlay dragonfly pendant. I enjoyed making this one and it came out just wonderful. Price: L$275

I’ve got plenty more, and will post them as I go along, and am constantly working on new stuff as well. Thanks for staying with me through the drought.

Night Stone Jewelry is now offering two more pendants in world that use textures from real life opals.
the first is a stylish pendant with a single round opal in the center. In world price is going to be L$185. The second is a more rectangular pendant with both an opal and a diamond. Price on this one will be L$125. Each of them uses a texture image from a real life opal. The first pendant gets its opal from #0096CP, and the second pendant #0081.

Am adding some pieces in world for jewelry sales. They all feature opals which were cut by myself and then photographed and applied as textures. This is a 3 opal ring:

Will sell in world for about L$175 right now.

If it’s not obvious by the dates, I’m in a bit of a lull right now for cutting. Am finishing up that machine I am working on (will post pictures when I am done), and haven’t felt much like cutting anything until it is complete. Might have a Lightning Ridge opal soon though. Depends on if I get to it anytime soon. The rough has some color but has a lot of inclusions.

Anyway, I have a friend in Australia whom I know as Karmalene. It’s not her real name, but is her Second Life® name. She’s been on my friends list for a long time now, and have always enjoyed her company. She is looking to get addictedstarted with opal cutting. She’s talked to me at length about it, and is looking forward to her first rough to work with.
I find it interesting how these little bits of rock can create not only an addictive like desire to work with them, but also create bonds between people as well.
Then there are the bonds with the opals themselves. I feel sometimes like they are my children or something. Someone expresses and interest in buying one and suddenly you find yourself wanting to say “oh, you know, that one isn’t for sale, I decided to keep it. Just forgot to take the tag off”. Of course this is somewhat counter productive, but still, I think it’s because each one is unique.

Am looking into getting some Idaho opal soon. Not sure how soon I’ll be able to get it, but hopefully by this summer. The rough that I have that a friend gave me is fun to work with and has enough color that you can create some interesting stuff with it.
This one appears to have a lot of cracks, but is actually a decent stone. Will likely attach it to a base to make a bolo-tie from it. I have a couple pieces of the stone that this came from left, so should be able to make another one or so.

As Spring moves on towards summer, it’s been nice to get outside and enjoy some sun, but I know as soon as the grinder I’m making is done, I’m not going to want to see sunshine unless I have some opal in my hands. Just the way I am I guess.
As my friend Robin had mentioned, the name “Night Stone Jewelry” doesn’t just work because some opals are called “Night Stones”, but also because I do most of my cutting at night and in the wee hours of the morning.

This is targeted more towards those of you who might be interested in cutting some rough on your own. I’ve run across a few sites that sell opal rough, and have experience with a couple that I’d like to put here for information.

First off, Village Smithy Opals
I can’t say enough good about these guys. I’ve ordered a few times from them, and the quality has always been great except on one occasion when I bought some Turkey Ridge rough, and Steve was very helpful in getting that rough exchanged for the parcel from 12 Mile Field that I’m going through at this time. Getting some really great stuff out of it.

Next: Coober Pedy Opal
This site was recommended by a friend, and while I’ve not had a chance to order from them yet, their product looks great and they have a good variety.

Last: Australian Opal Mines.
I have had *one*, ONE decent stone from the nearly $250 in rough I’ve ordered from this sham of an outfit. I would strongly suggest steering away from them at all costs. There is a rule for opal rough, the rule of 3rds. 1/3 of your rough will cut great, 1/3 will be okay, and 1/3 will be low quality and may not cover intitial cost. I’ve seen this in action before, but AOM was a different story in general, and I am confident that the material I was sent was chosen because it was known that I was not an experienced cutter, however I am not that inexperienced, and I have a few friends who have years of time at the grinder.

There are other locations where you can purchase rough as well as finished opals, however I would caution against places like ebay and Opal Auctions, as you don’t know who is selling the opals, and often sellers have multiple names they sell under, which is deceptive in my opinion. Recently I received some rough material there that, after receiving it, it became clear that the photo’s in auction had been staged cleverly to hide that one of the pieces was completely worthless. Lesson Learned: if you can’t see *every* side of a piece of rough you are interested in, don’t buy it. Obviously this cannot apply to large parcels where there are 10 stones or so, but this was a parcel of 4 pieces. My bad on not catching the photo-setup, but live, learn, and try and caution others.

#0104CP12m 9.5mm x 9mm x 4mm. 2.35c A circular free form white base opal with mostly red coloring which isn’t all that visible and only covers about half the stone.

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#0105CP12m 8.5mm x 6mm x 3mm. 1.20c. This oval shaped pendant opal has a milky look to it, but form various limited angles has some nice green color to it.

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#0106CP12m 8mm x 6.5mm x 2.5mm 1.05c. Now this opal is pretty. This one started out as a piece of rough that I wasn’t sure I’d get anything out of, but kept cutting away at it. A stray inclusion cost a bit of the size and so it has turned out to be a pendant stone. A multitude of colors from almost every angle. This one will make a beautiful pendant.

#0103CP12m Size: 13mm x 9mm x 3mm. 2.75c. This pretty green opal is quite deceptive on color, as it’s color depends a lot on light. In brighter light, it’s mostly greens with some blue, but in other various situations, the colors can be yellow, orange, red, as well as purple, blue, or sky blue even. Colors are visible from almost all angles in various patterns. Not the most perfect cut, but a beautiful stone.

note: yes, the numbers on them are getting cryptic. It’s how I track where they are from. This one in particular comes from rough opal that was mined in Coober Pedy on what is said to be the “12 mile field”, thus the “CP12m”, if I knew the global coordinates I’d probably use them too.

Had to make a quick video so the colors show better and you can see just how much color it has.
Video of 0103CP12m - 2.1mb file
Flash plugin may be required to vew

#0101CP. 1.60c, 10mm x 10mm x 2.5mm. this roughly triangular shaped semi-crystal opal has some inclusions in it, but the color is beautiful. The predominant color is green, with a small amount of blue as well, and the green is stunningly bright from several angles, which is why I’ve put two pictures of this one here. This is the first of the latest batch of rough I have received. 3 Ounces of really nice material from Village Smithy Opals. The rough that this opal came from is from Coober Pedy, Australia, and is marked as having come specifically from the mining area known as “12 Mile Field”. I’ll let this one go for $20 + shipping, however it will likely end up in a wire wrap pendant as it seems it would go very well in such a setting.

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#0102CP. 1.10c, 8mm x 5.5mm x 3mm. this opal has some minor inclusions which are not readily visible. The dominant color is red, with some blue and green as well. Color is visible from almost every angle, but brightness is low. Still it is a very pretty stone. Will sell this for $15 + shipping

…when you want to change clothing in RL and think you can change your skin too

Well, here’s another two free form opals cut from the rough I bought from Muray. Typical of all the material I received, it had spectacular color on the sides of the color bars, but didn’t face up very well at all. So I worked at them a bit to see if I could get some benefit from that angular issue

#0099CP 3.15c, 12mm x 7mm x 5mm. A roughly triangular shape with green and red. Green is the primary color viewed face on, but when turned towards the side red jumps out quite nicely. Not a bad pendant stone, but definitely needs to be set high to show off the beauty of it’s colors.

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#0100CP 4.95c, 14mm x 8mm x 5mm. Yes, I’ve now reached 100. A bit of a milestone..er mileopal. I’ve cut more than 100 opals, however this is the 100th opal that I have weighed/measured and considered selling. This was cut from the exact same piece of rough as the #0099, and exhibits the same qualities, only has a bit more green fire when viewed face on.

Prices on both pending while I decide if they will get mounted as pendants or not, however feel free to make an offer