First Day of June, the Month of the Pearl!

This was my favorite gosling of the day (for those without IG):
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They have so much character. My husband once presented me with a dozen fuzzy African goslings :)
 
MSC, what is going on with the goosling? You know, I have to know the before story, the current story and the after story, right? ;) I wanted to be a wild life vet in my teenage days and ended up working in Japan (got an offer too good to refuse) so I never went to college until I was older. Your life looks so appealing to me! Oh, and I am going to have to find some of those baby Vietnamese akoyas!!! I love that necklace!!! And one last thing... you make a lot of jewelry, and nice pieces too! Where do you get your inspiration?
 
I just bought these Catherine Cardellini pearls for my niece for a 21st present this month... except they're so gorgeous, I'm not sure if I can bring myself to pass them on! Just giving them a little daylight and appreciation here:

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I was inspired by some of the other recent pictures to try layering them with some (fake!) tortoiseshell beads and team with some souffle earrings.

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Quite lovely, Lizard. I can see why you're reluctant to pass them on! Now I'm inspired to try layering pearls with some of my vintage Bakelite collection :)
 
Right, now I have to dig out my Mom's amber necklaces and try them with pearls.

You are all so inspiring!
 
amti said:
MSC, what is going on with the goosling? You know, I have to know the before story, the current story and the after story, right? ;) I wanted to be a wild life vet in my teenage days and ended up working in Japan (got an offer too good to refuse) so I never went to college until I was older. Your life looks so appealing to me! Oh, and I am going to have to find some of those baby Vietnamese akoyas!!! I love that necklace!!! And one last thing... you make a lot of jewelry, and nice pieces too! Where do you get your inspiration?
Click to expand...

Thanks, amti!! I love what I do for a living, though I can't say it's an easy life, especially financially. Society doesn't really value this sort of work, at least not in a way that translates into a comfortable salary. The majority of professional wildlife biologists I know hold a second job out of necessity. So, some aspects are definitely wonderful and others are not, like most career fields. In the photo, we were doing annual goose banding. We had rounded up a raft of geese on a pond and corralled them in a temporary pen. We had a large team of people, 20+ and we hit 4 sites that day. I think we processed over 200 geese that day. Basically, we sex, age, and band all the birds in processing line. We try to be efficient because it's all very stressful on the birds, so we want them in and out quickly to minimize stress impacts. This was the tiniest of all the goslings and was soooooo fuzzy with down! I insisted on being the one to hold it and them got crapped on, literally. LOL. Totally worth it!

Thank you for the compliment!! I take inspiration from just about everything: feelings, travels, work, people, pieces I admire, the materials. Sometimes designs come together quickly, other times it can take months or years. I think most importantly, I don't try to control the process, I just let it happen. Probably not much of a helpful answer there!

Lizard that is a gorgeous necklace and your niece will certainly get a lot of enjoyment out of it. The luster is beautiful!
 
So not exactly what I've been wearing but instead designing:

I've found some really cool moonstones in peach and gray (that most have been spoken for). I did a design peach colored pearls and moonstones, a deeper brownish orange of hessonite garnets (the client seemed to love it) and I did gray moonstones, rock crystal and london blue topaz.

I kept a few moonstones for myself...no clue what to do with them just yet. Maybe white SS keshi and Tahitian keshi. I also have a design idea in my head for my "bluer" Labradorites (which I love) but none of the pearls I own are the right type of blue overtone.

I saw a Lady on the train wearing what I am assuming is either smokey quartz or swarovski crystal, but it was contrasted with rose gold colored metal and deeply teal freshwater pearls, the contrasts of brown an teal were stunning. So I got a few ideas in my head.


This is MY month though :). Decent quality natural Alexandrite beads are just too expensive. I am cool with moonstones, but hey this is a pearls site.... ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
I've quite a few black, red spinel and keshi pearl pieces that Im kinda stuck on lately, one I really like wearing. I feel kinda boring though I seem to be stuck in a black spinel phase.
 
Wow interesting...Opens up an endless possiblity of designs for small pearl pendants...I'm thinking drem catcher or infinity loops or abstract!!!
 
Thank you for the background MSC! That does sound like such an amazing job! The closest I got to banding geese was banding chickens...not quite as fascinating. My dream was to go to Africa and be a wildlife vet there- not a glamorous lifestyle to most, but it was what was planning to do. It is a shame people don't value the environment and treat it with care, and that you and your fellow colleagues aren't compensated according to the importance you play on the environment. I do hope that changes over time, but I have a feeling something drastic needs to happen before that occurs.

Lizard, you did a wonderful job with the necklace. I love the design you've made and think it adds interest to the pearls.

BPD... you didn't think we'd let you post without showing pictures, did you??? ;)
 
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