Jewelry Design Indulgences

We’re always spinning plates and gems in the studio; we go from processing rough, to polishing stones, to jewelry making, and all the points in between. During the process of creating the gems, they often give you a tip as to how they’d like to be set. Often, they’ll even call out to other stones that they’d like to hang out with in the jewelry setting. It feels like a true indulgence to ‘play dress up’ with the different stones, changing pairings and switching interesting possibilities, until the perfect union happens. Here we have a Priday Thunderegg Agate paired with an Oregon Fire Opal, topped off with a little melee Cubic Zirconia. The different hues, glows, and sparkles assemble for an incredible, wearable piece of art.

how is it made?

Would you like to watch some of the things we do here at the Ozone happen live? We have been creating our own livestreams (every Friday Night at 6pm PST) but also taking part in group ’studio’ livestreams where you can watch a number of artists creating their lapidary, silversmithing, and other art forms live! You can ask questions that are answered in real time, get great tutorial or studio hacks, and work along side other artists for inspiration. Of course just watching is thoroughly interesting, especially if you’re curious about how some of these things are made.

Never Enough Cuffs!

We blasted through the last batch of cuffs pretty quickly, so we’ve cooked up another fun batch with new stones that you haven’t seen come out of the Ozone yet (and of course some of our favorites too!). These embossed copper cuffs are sporting Aquamarine, Copper bearing Dolomite, Black Sunstone and other fun new stones. Plume Agate, Labradorite, and Gemfield Chalcedony are some return favorites that will be dropping into the STORE for the next couple of weeks.

Microzone

It’s important to take a really close look at gems to see what the quality of the material is as well as the finish. This is a great excuse to go deep into the beautiful worlds that reside inside the stones that can only be seen with magnification. Here we have an Oregon Sunstone with Schiller. The red sprinkles are actually copper platelet inclusions that can give the gem body color and cause the gem to glimmer like it’s full of tiny confetti. This particular bicolor Sunstone has an unusually large inclusion (that big red dot!) that makes this stone particularly unique. This wonderful gem is still awaiting its perfect setting, what would you do with it?

Next body of work

It’s inspiring to be working with new materials. During the mining season we’ve accumulated lovely rough to create gems from and we’ve received some wonderful material through the mail as well. There will be Oregon Fire Opal, Gemfields Chalcedony, Fire Agate, Oregon Sunstones, Garnet, Silver Ore, Copper in Dolomite, Labradorite, Charoite, Amethyst and more dancing together in upcoming pieces. We’ll also be working on Tourmaline, Aquamarine, Nevada Variscite, Turquoise, Gary Green, Petrified Woods and Moss Agates among others, to work some fresh colors into the warm fall tones. Keep an eye on the store and the Collections page to see the latest emerging from the workbench.

We Care!

We’ve been sending out these sweet packages with wonderful jewelry items and there’s one question that keeps coming up; does packaging have to equal waste? We’re combating the trash cycle with some hand made, super functional packaging items to not only get your jewelry to you safely, but also help you to keep your jewelry organized and stowed in style! Check out the BLOG for more information about the cool, new packaging!

We’d all love to hear from you, Contact Us with any inquiries of comments you may have and sign up for the mailing list so that we can keep in touch. Cheers!