JET Jewelry on Etsy Team

 Hi! I'm Bob, one of the two people behind Jewelry24Seven!

Improving our Etsy shop and our website is a constant, ongoing process that takes up a major part of my time every day. I have been working on both lately; trying to spend some time on each every day. I am currently taking new photos - or editing existing product images, writing new descriptions for the Etsy shop or the site, working on our website's structure and on-page SEO, and - of course - dealing with customers on a daily basis. Many of our sales are for custom made items sold through our website. A lot of those are custom fit silver chains, but many are rings, pendants and other jewelry items that people request by email. So I'm a busy guy!

My favorite part of this business is still making jewelry. I just LOVE spending time at my bench; after all, this is why Terry and started this business in the first place. We're both very creative people, and we truly appreciate beautiful jewelry of all kinds. So we spend as much time working on new things as possible. I recently bought some fabulous gemstones that have fueled my creative energies and  I've been busy making really fabulous things with them ... some aren't for sale yet, but will be soon ...

This is a very cool boulder opal pendant I made two weeks ago. I used gallery wire to make the bezel and also to decorate the bail. This Australian opal is found as veins or matrix running through the host rock. Because the opal veins are too small to cut into solid opals, they are left in their natural state; in this stone, the background color is a fabulous, earthy medium brown that makes the stone look almost like an aerial or satellite image of rivers and lakes crossing a desolate area devoid of vegetation. The opal is lighter colored and it is beautifully accented by the brown background color, making it really stand out!

Here is another boulder opal pendant, made in a different style which I think accents the shape of the stone in a really fabulous way. This stone has a reddish - brown, almost deep brick color with electric blue opal veins running through the host rock.  I made a simple serrated bezel for this one; used a piece of sterling silver tube for the bail, and accented the top with two pieces of large silver shot framing a 6mm faceted smoky quartz stone. This is a really beautiful piece and I'm quite sure it will make someone VERY happy! I do have more of these fabulous boulder opals, and will be making new pendants with those very soon ...

This opal ring was made with a different type of opal. This is black opal from Lightning Ridge, Australia ... the stone is technically a natural doublet because the opal is a thin layer that was in a seam between the host rock. One side of the ironstone was ground off, exposing the opal. The other side has a layer of ironstone that was left attached, which strengthens the stone, allowing it to be set in jewelry. The background color of this opal is a bluish tone. The entire face of this stone has bright multicolored flashes - green, red, blue, yellow, purple and orange. I made the setting with serrated bezel wire, and gave it a twisted wire accent. I used a fabulous cast shank, which I oxidized, to bring out the pattern.

I also have more of these opal doublets ... but they're larger and will probably be pendant stones.

I love showing off my jewelry ... and could easily spend hours writing here. But I do have lots to get to! As most JET members know, working at home is a blessing ... and also a curse. We tell people we work at home and the reaction is usually like ... "Wow, I wish I could do that" or maybe "You're lucky cause you can work when you feel like it". Nothing could be further from the truth ... Actually, because home IS your workplace, you never leave it at the end of the day. When I wake up the first thing I do is check my email; and guess what ... it's the last thing I do before calling it a day.

Time to get back to work.

Thanks for reading! Bob:J24-7