Lavender Drops - Ethiopian Opal and Lavender Bloom Sterling Silver Crystal Necklaces

Ethiopian opals with sterling lavender blooms casted from the real plant 💜
Left: Sold
Right: Smaller opal, green/blue body color, 30” delicate chain (can change chain length) 

🖤 This piece is made with sterling silver 🖤
A trade as old as time, silversmithing is a complex but beautiful process. Rather than “sculpting” with metal as I do with the Tiffany method, silversmithing involves using sheets and wires of silver to create layers and structures. Each and every piece is meticulously planned, laid out, and formed. It’s an extremely time consuming process involving stages of heating and cooling, hammering, shaping, sawing, filing, sanding and polishing; and while one piece can take upwards of 10 hours, it’s such a breathtaking form of alchemy.

Sterling silver is a ✨precious metal✨ and will last for generations. It’s also one of the most hypoallergenic metals available. All jewelry made with this method will come with a sterling chain included. 🖤
(Substituting the sterling chain for a stainless steel one will lower the price, message me if you’d like to swap)

Lore & Magick:

The Roman historian, Pliny the Elder, described opalus - the Opal, as a precious stone containing the fiery flame of the carbuncle (Garnet), the resplendent purple of the Amethyst, and the sea-green glory of the Emerald - all shining together in incredible union and exquisite pleasure. It was considered by all in the ancient world to be the most bewitching and mysterious of gems, worn for its virtues of soothing and strengthening the sight, healing diseases of the eyes, and capable of providing great luck, as it possessed all the virtues of the gemstones whose colors reside within it.

In the metaphysical world, Opal acts as a prism within the aura, bringing a full spectrum of Light energy to the system, soothing and clearing the emotional body, and boosting the will to live and the joy of one’s earthly existence. It enkindles optimism, enthusiasm and creativity, and allows for the release of inhibitions inspiring love and passion. Opal enhances cosmic consciousness and stimulates flashes of intuition and insight, yet is a protective stone for deep inner work, meditations, and lower world shamanic journeys.    

Opal is most known for its ability to bring one’s traits and characteristics to the surface for examination and transformation. Just as Opal absorbs and reflects light, it picks up thoughts and feelings, desires and buried emotions, amplifying them and returning them to the source. While magnifying one’s negative attributes may prove to be uncomfortable, it allows for understanding how destructive these emotions can be and assists the process of letting them go. Opal also illuminates the positive actions and emotions of the self, enhancing the good and true, and fostering one’s highest potential. It is a karmic stone with a reminder that what one sends out will return.

Of the three basic types of Opals, “Precious Opal,” also called “Rainbow Opal,” is the rarest, mined in a limited number of locations worldwide and produces brilliant flashes or streaks of iridescent color when turned in the light, a phenomenon known as “play of color.” The color is not due to any pigment in the stone, but are optical effects created when the microscopic spheres of silica hardened in an orderly grid-like pattern, similar to layers of ping-pong balls in a box. The spacing between the spheres causes light waves traveling through Opal’s internal structure to diffract and break up into the colors of the spectrum. The size of the spheres and their geometric packing determines the color and quality of the diffracted light, and the value of the Opal.

(Source: crystalvaults.com)