Treasure Necklace...

I’ve been having such a wonderful time dreaming up creations that I think mermaids would wear! I imagine floating markets where the merfolk can barter and trade for landlocked materials. In my mind, it’s a bustling place with many languages and interesting characters.
This dainty necklace is an asymmetrical design that still looks good even if it shifts a little. I think of it as a treasure necklace; I have little containers that I add to of things that I think look nice together. This necklace is made up of freshwater pearls in all different sizes, shapes, and colors. It also includes dreamy moonstone and glowing opals. It’s a softer palette for me: creams, blush, and dove gray. This would look great on its own or layered with other necklaces.

One of the most common misconceptions about pearls is that they start out as a grain of sand. But mollusks are filter feeders designed to expel any unwanted irritants like sand. Natural pearls usually are the result of parasites. I guess it doesn’t sound quite as romantic. LOL! It’s kind of like learning that some figs are pollinated by wasps that can’t escape and are broken down by an enzyme. Sometimes pearls develop by damage to the mantle of the mollusk. But most pearls nowadays come from small bits of mantle tissue implanted (without or without a small bead or armature) in the other part of the mollusk. A sac forms around the foreign object and layers of nacre secretion form around it.
On paper, it doesn’t sound massively appealing. Words like “sac” and “tissue” and “secretion” don’t do them any favors. But when you hold a pearl in your hand and see it for yourself, you can get lost in the rainbowy luster. Good pearls flash with color and brilliance. To me, this is a quiet alchemy. It symbolizes the transformation of something miraculous and otherworldly. I paired the pearls with a few opals. One of the secrets of opals is that they need water to form. Without water, the silica in sandstone couldn’t be filtered out to form the opal deposits. I think about these sort of things when I’m making jewelry, especially mermaid jewelry.