Selkie Abalone & Suede Necklace

So, in keeping with my sudden photography incapability, I took something like 50 photos, none of which I really like, and got 3 for the website of this suede and abalone shell necklace:



It's named Selkie, after the mythological seal-fairies of Celtic folklore said to live off of the islands of Orkney and Shetland. Female selkies had the natural form of a seal and could magically shed their seal skins to take human form and walk on land. They were very beautiful and shy, but if a man could trap a selkie woman and take her skin from her, he could trap her with him and and make her his dutiful wife...until she got her skin back, at which point, she would escape back home to the sea, leaving the man to pine away and die. Male selkies were less kind, being the veangeful sort who preferred to stay in the sea and seek retribution for the "indescriminate slaughter" of seals. Selkies were called Roane in Ireland, and there's a lovely little movie based on the story, called The Secret of Roan Inish. It's rather slow-moving, but very pretty and a nice little grownup fairytale film. The shade and softness of the suede I used for this reminded me of seal skin, so when I was trying to think of a nice girl's name that involved the ocean, Selkie seemed an obvious choice. The abalone chips are mostly cream and shades of brown, but there are also nice flashes of iridescence in them as well, ranging from soft peaches and golds to blue-violet and indigo. It's a good summery necklace, 16" long, with sterling silver findings, and a sterling silver extension chain can be added.

This necklace was really hard to photograph, and the only time I was ever able to get the color accurate (not too red or green) was in the larger pop-up image you get when you click the image from the shop page linked above. That image also has pretty decent detail of the color in the beads, though not all the iridescence can be seen, since the beads are all at different angles. It captures it fairly, I guess; every bead doesn't show the shine, but I tried to get a good mix of flash and non. If you want tons of color in your necklace, this is not the one for you. If, however, you want a natural necklace which also has some color to it, this is a good choice, and it moves nicely from sand and surf to a candlelit dinner at your favorite westside restaurant.

Now if only I could find the cool pair of smokey quartz earrings I made, so I can take their picture...look for those, the necklace version of the Anna Swarovski crystal jean jewels, and a necklace of faustite, Swarovski and pearl to match the Calliean apple-green turquoise and Swarovski crystal earrings. Those should be fairly easy to capture...I hope. Crystal can be difficult to capture well. I'm looking to get those all on the site this week, and then there's a rose quartz necklace with mother of pearl teardrop pendant, a lapis lazuli and cinnabar necklace, a cool leather and airbrushed wood "surfboard" necklace perfect for the beach, and a bunch of new bracelets of semi-precious stone, including rose quartz, mother of pearl, lapis lazuli, and tourmaline. Tourmaline necklaces, too. Oh yes - and the Beatrix necklace, at long last! :) I'm also about to launch a line of chakra jewelry (lots of work and thought going into that, so if you have any ideas or want a piece of your own, let me know!

ttyl; I have to find those darned smokey quartz earrings. :(

Jenie