BEAUTY AND THE BEADS

There are many qualities of turquoise found in the American West. The most expensive is Sleeping Beauty, which is close to Persian turquoise in clarity and color, free from imperfections and copper matrixing. These beads are not Sleeping Beauty, but very close to it. The color is spectacular evoking the azure of Western skies. I had bought these interesting pendant maybe two years ago at a gem show and never had anything to put it with. I thought that all lapis would have been too dark and the variations in the pendant would have been lost. On these wonderful turquoise and lapis bead, the pendant shares the spotlight. Set in filigree silver, the center stone is lapis lazuli, opaque and glowing set off by faceted, transparent gemstones like garnet and amethyst.

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU, KID

Each of these fascinately chubby little ovals looks like an eye -- the Eye of God. The first time I ever saw anything like it was in a sardonyx ring my father had. When I bought these beads, pleasant memories of Daddy's jewelery came back. These particular stones each have the Eye of God front and center. I would think that wearing an entire necklace of here's lookin' at you beads would be a very powerful talisman of protection. And. . . they're pretty.

Price: $100.

FEMININE FRIVOLITY

Kunzite is an amazing stone. In its gemstone mode, it is clear and found in a color that is hard to describe. Is it pink? Is it lavender? Is it an elusive combination of both? These stones are kunzite in the raw, hewed into cubes and displaying all the roughly feminine qualities of the stone -- delicacy and elusiveness. Like a sugary Christmas candy. I tried to civilize them somewhat by paring them with rhinestone-circled roundels. This piece is an absolute conversation-starter. A fairly new gemstone, kunzite was discovered in California and named by a turn-of-the-century (the 20th) jeweler and gemstone specialist named George Frederick Kunz. Kunzite can also be found elsewhere such as in Afghanistan where the colors tend to be more violet than pink and often have flashes of green. In gemology, this phenemenon is called pleochroism, which means "multi-coloredness." Most kunzite is light in color which makes a strongly hued kunzite rare and therefore more expensive. Price: $400.

SEASIDE SPLENDOR

The sea has given us yet another treasure. Pearls, for sure, but tiny little peach-tinted freshwaters coupled with uniform rounds of Angel Skin coral, finished off with peach-tinted moonstone rounds. And that's only the torsade which displays the piece-de-resistance -- a spectacular faceted peach quartz pendant set off in sterling silver. Again, this is a necklace of pure serendipity. I buy these pieces, pendants that are by themselves a little odd or maybe hard to match and then, visualize them in a special setting. This was a fairly large pendant that needed something substantial, which dictated a torsade, but a delicate one. What a wonderful surprise for hot summer nights and sunny summer days.

SONG OF A SUMMER NIGHT

How sweetly this piece sings of festive summer nights, great tans and white shirts and strapless dresses. Just the right length (a nice circlet to sit round the neck, not too tight, not too long), this is a special piece created from faceted Swarovski crystal roundels and a sterling-silver-clad piece of carved dyed blue quartz the exact same color. I had kept the pendant for a long time never knowing whether to tone it down on pearls or wait for just the right thing. Then I was noodling on eBay one day and saw a fabulous strand of Swarovski roundels, a string of which made quite an impression on me. Hopefully, it'll make an impression on whoever sees it, finished and gleaming. . . some romantic summer night.

SPRING FLING

I ordered these prehnite beads from China thinking I could get more of them, but when I couldn't I thought: How can I pair these with something that will make both look good. I had a handful of these wonderful sand-blasted aquamarines left and let them sit together on my bench to sort of get acquainted. . . and they loved each other! The prehnite is like I like it -- filled with what looks like dry leaves but are really rutiles of another material captured for life. The aquamarine begs to be stroked. I threw in some figured vermeil beads as front accents and a vermeil clasp to complete the perfect spring and summer necklace.

GEMSTONE SUNSHINE

This bracingly colored orange crystal and citrine necklace is more than eye-catching. it demands attention. The silver filigree setting for the large faceted citrine quartz provides an interesting counterpoint to the simplicity of the Swarovski roundels which I set off with teensy smooth carnelian beads. It's like wearing gemstone sunshine around your neck.

OPERA LENGTH ELEGANCE

There is nothing simpler or more elegant than a single strand of beads. These are more than just simple. They're Botswana agate, polished to a spectacular shine and strung opera length to look great with a turtleneck or a pristine white shirt. The colors are earthy -- tones of rust, brown, black, beige, gray, cream -- and the Mother Earth patterns are varied and interesting. Rugged but sophisticated at the same time, Botswana agate is like a gemstone Jack-of-All-Trades -- it can be worn with anything, anywhere and still be appropriate.

COGNAC NOT FOR DRINKING

What color are these spectacular beads? Brown or rust just doesn't cut it. Root beer, maybe? The color of a smashed beer bottle? Certainly not elegant. But cognac, deep golden brown, and satisfying may do it. I love these beads. They're substantial, faceted to catch a subtle ray of light and set off by the vivid turquoise, albeit veined with deep copper. Glass may keep the price of this beauty down, but certainly not its elegance and impact.

BEASTLY SOPHISTICATION

Here's a conundrum: How to feminize the primitive quality of these Chinese turquoise slabs without over-shadowing how wonderful they are, how individual and full of character. The brushed silver hearts were a subtle and female way to tame these beasties. The contrast of the laser-blasted hearts against the nubby, tactile slabs of turquoise is eye-catching but not so blatant as to ruin the balance of the piece. I've always loved how rugged the turquoise was and how imperfect with its copper matrixing and irregular surfaces. They go together rather nicely. . . yes?

MOONLIGHT AND MADNESS

I've seen moonstones that are round but very rarely square. And these are definitely that. A set of two strands designed to nest, one in the other, and hand down the decolletage like an elegant strand of pearls. Only these ain't poils, Madge. They're something a lot more fun. They were so oddly carved, little rectangular and square boxes of moonlight, that I thought they'd just love to shine, albeit with great subtlety, all by themselves.

CONFETTI: A CELEBRATION OF EXTRA STONES

What do you do when you've got all these left-over beads? After five or six years of making jewelry, I had two huge baggies or odd stones, not enough to do an entire piece. . . or so I thought. I call this Confetti because that's exactly what these stones look like scattered against each other. I didn't plan, I just strung and used this wonderful antique 40s rhinestone clasp to hold it all together. if you look closely, you will see what's left of all the turquoise, red jade, coral, moonstone, pearl, malachite, crystal, rose quartz, apatite, etc. stones I'd been saving. It's a great celebration of color, a precocious howdy-do of a piece, to be worn with great joy and a whole lot of panache.

SUMMER COOL LIKE TINTED ICE

As cool as a blueberry Popsicle, these beads are frosty, like aqua ice. They're sand-blasted, matte finished aquamarine, not cookie cutter matched but certainly smooth and tactile. I love how subtle the surfaces are. I wanted to keep this piece low key and vivid at the same time, playing off texture more than shine, so I didn't put any metal like silver or vermeil with it and kept the crystals away, choosing instead to play up the seaside quality with beautiful, deep blue lapis lazuli rounds.

CARIBBEAN QUEEN

Chalcedony is a gorgeous stone. Like its cousin, the onyx or the sardonyx, it is strong enough to be incised and/or carved into beautiful shapes. These aqua flowers have been carved from Peru Chalcedony, luminous, translucent and vividly colored as the Caribbean. I used pearls from a classic 40s necklace (they're probably glass but they have a fabulous luster), a lovely peachy coral close to the color of angel skin and then these lyrical flowers, incised with petals and carved from Peru chalcedony. The clasp is made from the same material. I bought it a few years ago and finally found something to use with it. All in all, this is a glorious piece, frolicsome, girlish and unique.

SPARKLING GOTH

This was a very interesting pendant and a difficult one to work with. It came to me at a gem show. I don't know why I bought it but there was something mysterious about it. The photo really doesn't so it justice. But it starts out looking like black onyx and I'm sure it's some kind of agate or man-made facsimile of same. But if you look really closely, you'll see the inherent and mysterious sparkle that veers toward purple. When I finally found the perfect match, they were an odd shade of Swarovski crystal bought on eBay. I used accent beads that had the same iridescence as the pendant and came up with a piece that is Goth to the core. Morticia would flip for it.

When I bought these stones, the sales tag said they were green amethyst, but I knew better. They are prehnite and quite recognizable by the rutiles (the black lines) within the faceted gems. Rutilates, or shards of mineral, can show up in any number of stones. Golden rutilated quartz has shards of gold in them and is very pricey. These beads were a very fair price and with their faceted, they have quite an un-earthly glow to them. I mixed them with deep ebony Swarovski crystal and finished them off with a sterling silver clasp.