Recent content by BWeaves

I thought the first trip was the trip of a lifetime, but this second trip surpassed it. A big thank you to Dr. Michael Stoltz, who took a week off from his medical practice to chauffeur us around and act as local tour guide. I told him everywhere my Dad wanted to revisit, and he found those...

And this is the Mahnmal (Holocaust Memorial) in Fürstenau, Germany. (There are several places called Fürstenau. Dad's is the one 5 km from Höxter.) The Mahnmal is located infront of the church where they were deported from, and also right across the street from where his house used to stand...

We also went to the Gallery of the Masters, Dresden, Germany. I took photos of portraits with pearls. Not pearls, but this one made me laugh. Tell me you've never seen a woman naked, without telling me you've never seen a woman naked.

More . . . A baby rattle!

More natural pearls from the Green Vault in Dresden, Germany. Also coral, mother of pearl, and nautilus shells.

If you remember back in 2018, I joined my Dad on a trip back to the tiny farming village he was from in Germany. He had been deported to Nazi concentration camps when he was 10, and he was the only family member to survive. He was invited back many times and did not want to go, until 2018. He...

My 3 strand choker I designed back in 1986. PP helped me lengthen it from a high dog collar to a choker length. Dog collar is the actual name for those Edwardian chokers that sat high on the neck. Two pendants from Kojima that I wear on my own earring hoops. Summer Rainbow and Winter...

Sarah had several of those chokers in different colorways, and I love the one that JEG bought.

I usually wear what I'm going to wear, jewelry wise, and wear it for everything, so I'm not bringing extra stuff. I've also used that slightly grippy matting that you put in drawers, laid my jewelry on it, and rolled it up and put it in a shoe sock. I wouldn't store my pearls that way, but it...

Mabe pearls are normally made by placing a shape, like a half dome, against the inside of the mollusk's shell and letting a thin layer of pearl nacre build up over the shape. When the pearl is harvested, it is cut out of the shell and the shape is removed. The empty space is filled with resin...

Flat clasps with gemstones or designs on the "top" always flip over, because of gravity. I really don't understand why clasp designers don't add some weight or volume to the back of the clasp to prevent this. Or make the clasp double sided. Well, I do know. It makes the clasp double in...

Perfect travel pearls. One of a kind, blue and white, baroque Tahitian strand from PP I bought at my last Ruckus. The orbit clasp is easy to sleep in on a plane, and the colors go with everything. Mikimoto earrings are also easy to sleep in on a plane. I want to say they are very secure, but...

And extra thanks to JEG for arranging reservations and transportation! Here's some of my photos from the event and the following day when the old Ruckus crew descended on Kojima. The speakers. At Kojima.

They look like baroque SS pearls to me, too. Great price. Cute clasp. Enjoy!

Per Jeremy, the new PearlsAsOne course has new information, since it's been 10 years since the course was first offered and freshwater pearls in particular have changed a lot. There's more and better videos. The course was originally designed for jewelry sellers, but morphed into pearl...