Druzy Jewelry is all the rage these days! The sparkly stones provide the much desired flash of more expensive, flashy gems for a fraction of the cost!
What is a druzy?
Druzy is the glittering effect of tiny crystals over top a colorful mineral. It is beautiful when used in making jewelry. One of the perks to druzy stones is that they are not as expensive as big faceted gemstones and they have sparkle and great color and it can be cut into various shapes with ease. The druzy quartz gems grow slowly over millions of years and are found as the very last layer of growth on agate or another colorful base. It does not always refer to quartz, druzy is any kind of mineral found in a plate-like form, such as garnets, calcite, dolomite and malachite. Common colors are white, yellow, brown, red, and orange. Druzy style beads are great for centerpieces in pendants. While they look sparkly and delicate, druzy quartz is a fairly durable gem.
Courtesy, whatisdruzy.com
As a jewelry artist, it's a constant challenge balancing what you want to make and design, and what your audience wants/what's popular.
After a few attempts and failures, I came up with my own design for making druzys.
My design incorporates recycling silver and a simple wire wrap. It also uses REAL GENUINE semi prescious stones verses the alleged "stones" you get when purchasing at your favorite retail outfit (often they are a concoction of plastic and glass, claiming to be real). The other benefit of mine, is if you practice the benefits of healing crystals and stones, these pendants give you an alternative to towers, etc, in that they can be worn daily, providing maximum benefit.
You might recognize some of these stones from previous pictures in my name that rock contest. Since then they've been broken into smaller pieces for the benefit of making druzy pendants.
Following is the process I go through to create the finished product which is what is pictured at the very top of this post.
The first step in my process, is cutting a piece of recycled silver from a silver bowl I picked up from a local thrift. I find one of the best makers of silver plates and bowls, is Oneida, and I actually have a few of this same bowl that I use in my jewelry making.
After removing a chunk of the bowl, for easier work process, I cut smaller pieces from the chunk to use as the backs for my druzys. I then size up a piece of silver with my selected stone.
I then cut that piece of silver small to an estimated size and shape to fit my selected stone. I basically just eye it, and go for it.
A piece of peacock ore sized to a piece of finished silver, and glued. (Due to the contest I'm running, I do not reveal the types of all stone I'm using).
I use tin snips for all my cutting. You can get a good pair at your local hardware store. I find that local stores have better quality snips compared to national big box retailers, and can even making cutting easier on your hands. After extensive use, though, you will need to take your snips apart and sharpen them. Some hardware stores can even do that for you!
I have 2 different styles of snips, the ones above, and a pair with a longer blade. I also have a pair of super industrial strength scissors that's great for cleaning up what I call cliff hangers which happens sometimes while cutting with snips, and a clean cut isn't made and it leaves left over "frayed" metal along the edges. (These scissors are actually carried by Harbor Freight).
After cutting the smaller piece, I then use sand paper to dull all edges of the silver.
Ask the hardware sales person for sandpaper that's specifically made for sanding metals, otherwise you'll be sanding forever!
Once all edges are smooth, I then figure out the best fit for the stone on the piece of silver. Then comes gluing. I use a generous amount of E6000, based on the size of stone and silver, and then place the stone on the patch of glue. I usually apply the glue to the silver, making a nice little bed of glue. Let dry overnight.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2 ON MAKING A DRUZY PENDANT, MY WAY.
All photos are mine
Rock on! Meow!