Charming 18" Little Dog Necklace Handcrafted for Everyone to Love

Beginning:

Whatever clay artist created the four special beads and put them together as a set must know how much people love their dogs. I think that is why two of the blue clay beads are hearts. (Of all colors, blue represents the most receptive and compassionate of emotions.) Blue is associated with deep feelings and the archetypal Feminine,which is one reason so many onion domes on temples in the Eastern Hemisphere, be they Eastern or Russian Orthodox Christian or Muslim are blue. It IS the first color of love.) (Onion domes have a distinctively feminine shape in their curves.)

I know you can see that thick (and monetarily valuable) gold filled wire at the top of the pendant. Every time I look at these pictures it seems more visibly dominating than it did the time before. I'll let you have it like is, but I'd prefer to use much thinner wire and apply it to the pendant in a way that makes it not show.

For the strand of beads I decided the turquoise blue heart stones were perfect since the theme is "Love". I spaced them with two sided pressed Czech glass hearts. One side of them is shiny opaque copper tone. The other is a clear peach tone. Because of these lovely glass hearts, I didn't need to use any metal until I got to the clasp on each side. Once I did reach that point, I attached a 24K gold over Sterling Silver (vermeil) clasp. You can tell it's not an ordinary gold plated alloy clasp. You can tell it's precious metal. To be congruent, my artist's signature dolphin bead is also vermeil. The only other metal in the neckace is the stainless steel in the beading filament and that pendant attaching wire.

With the matrix the blue hearts look like genuine turquoise to me but I'm sure they aren't: All genuine turquoise is very valuable, and it is all very expensive. I couldn't afford to buy stones this big if they were actually turquoise, but if I could, I'd have to charge nearly two hundred dollars for the necklace, not something people tend to do for cute "whimsical" jewelry.

I'm not sure what the stone is, but I assume it is howlite or magnesite. Fortunately for all of us who cannot afford the ever more expensive true natural turquoise, the artisans in the East who dye white beads to look like these do a really good job. They also stabilize the stones for hardness. And the stones ARE genuine to begin with. Usually they are genuine magnesite or genuine howlite.

I have a way that shows the basis for the way I value dyed magnesite, dyed howlite, and genuine turquoise that I'll share. It's instructive and includes attachment to meaning, no small topic:

My best friend here in FL has ONE necklace. It is her multi-strand turquoise blue colored beaded beauty. She got it a long time ago. I cannot imagine seeing Connie without that necklace beautifully draped down her chest. She wears it every single day. It's a kind of signature for her, and it keeps her wardrobe simple.

Connie's great or great-great grandfather is responsible for some of the first REALLY huge orange groves in Florida. As a result, though we don't discuss this, Connie is a very wealthy heiress. She could easily buy the best turquoise in the world.

I wanted to see hers up close, so I asked if I could hold it: "Sure".

I loved the weight, the hue and the slight matrix of her stones. I could see why genuine turquoise is so much better than the dyed white stones I'd recently heard were being pawned off as turquoise. Connie's strands were impressive, as was the fact that in all the years she'd been wearing her necklace,the turquoise didn't look like it could have faded at all. I figured that was why Connie wore it every day, too. I was thinking in a shallow way, "even a true hippie like Connie wants to advertise her wealth. Connie would know that the kinds of people with whom she went to boarding school in the NE would know how valuable that necklace is while the rest of us would just think she was hip. Smart as a whip", like I always knew.

As I was examining the necklace Connie blurted out, "You know, that isn't real turquoise. It's one of the white stones you can get pretty cheap in Hong Kong. They dye the white beads to make them look like turquoise. The natural stone that is dyed to look like genuine turquoise has matrix lines in it that run almost exactly as they do in lots of turquoise. It's either howlite or magnesite or both that have these lines. Only trouble is sometimes they are more blackish than brownish. It makes it very easy to counterfeit turquoise. I'm glad my seller was honest. It wouldn't have made any difference, though. I'd still have purchased this necklaces."

Shocked, I responded, "But why, when you could have had genuine turquoise?"

"Because it's the most beautiful necklace I'd ever seen up to that point, and in the time since I bought it, I haven't seen anything I like more."

I guess I got a little pushy and I shudder to think maybe insulting, because I offered, "I could make you a necklace just like that one with real turquoise if you give me the money to buy the beads."

"No way, Pamela. I love this necklace. Don't let this jewelry stuff you're getting into corrupt you. I couldn't stand to see you turn into a snob."

It's only turquoise I'm discussing. Likely all artisan jewelers are using color stabilized stones of other types, not always, but at times. For example, I listed a beautiful pair of deep red Jade (from Jadeite) briolette earrings recently. It is expected that those stones are dyed. No artisan jeweler would think otherwise, and few would shy away from using this jade in their work.

My intention here is not to disparage genuine turquoise. I love the blue varieties from Tibet and the SW United States. And there is no implication that I think people who are purists about buying and wearing genuine turquoise are snobs. I don't. I think they know what they want. I'm glad I had this opportunity to affirm my appreciation for dyed howlite and magnesite, too, though, when it comes to me from honest people.

Thanks for coming to my shop.

Item ID: 2104