Last year I ordered some different shaped sized amber cabochons from one of my gemstone suppliers, I was leaving the selection in the hands of the picking gods, w.r.t. what I was going to receive.

Sometimes I get some crazy ideas, when it comes to ordering cabochons, and in this instance one of my suppliers was offering 5 pieces of amber for £12.

The problem is that it is completely pot luck what you receive!

All I knew was that they would be between 12mm and 20mm in size!

When they arrived in the post a few days later, I was both excited and apprehensive, and when I opened the package these babies were inside:
 

From my previous posts, you will know that I have already turned the oval amber cabochons into 2 pairs of cufflinks, so I thought my luck again and ordered a second set of allsorted shapes.

This new selection contained a brandy coloured oval amber cabochon, which I thought would make a gorgeous ring or pendant.

For weeks I toyed about with what I anted to turn this Amber cabochon into, and finally settled on creating a stylish stamped pendant:
 
As I wanted a more contemporary feel to this pendant pendant, as you will know I love the idea of a geometric shape for the cabochon to sit on and settled of a diamond, with a simple stamping design to compliment cabochon, with a 3mm sterling silver bezel strips:
There were a few hiccups with the stampng, but after a few goes I was happy with the placement of the design stamp on the sterling silver pendant back plate.

The next thing was to decide how I was going to add the chain to the pendant and decided that i would dolder a jump ring to the front of the back plate as part of the design and then drill a hole through it.

This is where the solder gods come into their own as you remember all the rules of soldering to minimise your frustration and get it right first time!

Soldering the bezel strip on to the back plate was a synch, but trying to get the jump ring to do the same was another matter.

After numerous goes, I decided to ditch the idea, and decided to just drill a hole through the back plate, to feed a jump ring through.

It was shile I was going through this process that I had another look at theAmber cabochon and noticed it had a few inclusions, when held up to the light, and I thought wouldn't it be a great idea if I could add a bit of light to the pendant.

I decided to drill and then saw an oval shape on the pendant back plate, so that you could see the effects of the amber inclusions, when held up to the light.

Added a sterling silver jump ring, which I then soldered closed:
 
Into the pickle, before polishing, which is the next thing I really need to concentrate on next.

My designs are always fluid and so I was playing around with the idea of oxidising the pendant before setting the Amber, to make the stamping pop, but I did not want the design to detract from the amber inclusions, and decided against it in the end.

Last thing to do is to set the Amber cabochon:

 
Personally I think this understated Amber pendant is gorgeous, elegant and stylish, but clearly I'm biased, so what do you think?

I would really love to hear your thoughts, so post something in the comments below:

Until next time

Joolz xxx

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April 22, 2021

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