Hi again,

In my last blog I wrote about my own crash course in Amber (once again, my thanks to Tammi Johnson for her help and advice). If you want to know more about Amber, take a look at my previous blogs or drop her a line to tamber12@aol.com

Now I am moving on to talk about the new range of silver pendants we are launching to bring a new dimension to the Corazon Latino range for 2008.

These fantastic pendants are handmade for me in a small village on the Baltic Sea by a craftsman with a love of amber & 30 years experience in silver smithing. Every piece is based around high quality natural Baltic amber, which washes ashore there, and is collected and polished to bring out its natural beauty. Rather than treating or backing the amber is most jewellers do, I decided to create some unique pendants which allowed the amber to sit within its own silver cage so that the light would shine through it and you would be able to see it in its natural “organic” state.

There are 4 basic designs, but every pendant is slightly different because it is made AROUND the amber, and every piece of amber is unique both in shape, size and colour.

The 4 designs are grouped into pairs, hearts & swirls (I have yet to come up with a better description). In each design there is a simple version and a more ornate version so that you can choose how much silver you want compared to how much amber.

Dorado & Cybele are the 2 heart shaped pendants, while Apollo & Caliban are the 2 swirly ones. They can be worn on our Orbit or Elara Chokers, a velvet or satin ribbon or a simple silver chain. We are offering a simple choker length (41cm) chain as an option with the pendants at the bargain price of £5 – The chain is not for sale alone as it is basically a service for people buying the pendants. If you are looking for a chain like it, you should be able to buy an identical chain in any jewellers for around £15)

So having decided on the design, now the question is what colour?

The amber used for these pendants is natural. It has not been chemically or heat treated, and is only polished to bring out the natural colours of the amber. So you will not see Pale green amber or honey amber sparkling full of sun spangles as these are not naturally occurring.

Our amber comes in 3 basic colour ranges:

Milky: This is amber with a very high concentration of air bubbles, which means it is opaque and has colours ranging from pale cream to golden butter (often with some variation across the piece). It isn’t very common, and was not something I was familiar with until I started working on these pendants. Now I think it is beautiful (particularly against dark skin or a tan)

Forest: This is in fact, a pale, almost clear amber which has 50 million year old leaves and other plant material trapped inside which create a deep forest green colour and speckled appearance. It looks lovely on pale or dark skin and really sets off the silverwork. Amber with so much plant matter inside is quite rare so pieces in green are limited. (If we don’t have one in stock we can order one for you and should be able to get it to you within 2 weeks).

Honey: This is the most common amber. Colours range from pure clear honey to deep cognac with variations in each piece depending on the amount of air bubble, natural sun spangles and plant debris trapped inside. Some unusual pieces are part milky, part honey, with shading from transparent to opaque across the piece.

We have taken a number of photos of each pendant with various different coloured pieces of amber. You can see them by clicking on the view more images link underneath the model shot. These should give you a steer as to the possibilities available.

So what to choose?

Well, every pendant is unique, and when one is sold, a new one will be made to take its place. To help you get one that suits you best, we have created a simple way to shop: First, pick the design you like, then choose the colour range you want (Milky, Green or Honey). Then finally decide if you want to add the silver chain to your order. When you get to the checkout, there is a comments box after you complete you address detail etc… If you want to specify a more precise colour (for example “I want pale milky” or “I want darker honey”) you can do this there. You can also mail us with questions or more specific requests. When we get your order we will choose the best piece to meet your request, and when it arrives you will know there is no other one like it in existence.

Most amber websites have a huge range and try and get amber that is very uniform for each design. There will still be natural variation but most pieces of a particular design will be pretty similar. This isn’t the case with ours. So far I have seen 50 different pendants and no 2 are the same. An upside or a downside? Only time will tell. My hope is that there are people out there who are prepared to take the “risk” in search of something truly unique. My problem is I now want a minimum of every design in every colour range.

Too much jewellery too little time!

Hi,

Over the past 6 months while I have been working on the new range for 2008, I have been having a crash course in Amber. Researching on the internet, talking to various experts and of course talking to my own artisan. I have always loved Amber and I wanted to add some into the range, but rather than just buying standard designs from a wholesaler which are already available from dozens of sites, I wanted to design some unique pieces. Before I even started I thought I should find out a lot more about Amber so that I could make sure the designs not only delivered impact in the silver work, but also did real justice to the uniqueness of the amber. So here’s what I learned.

So, what exactly is Amber?

Amber is the fossilised resin from trees which graced the earth anywhere from 2-125 million years ago. It is not sap. Sap flows through the centre of the tree providing nutrients to the tree. Resin flows under the bark and protects the tree when it is damaged by insects or loses a limb during a storm. Millions of years ago, huge forests covered much of the earth. Resin from these trees flowed down the trunks trapping leaves, dust, pollen and insects. Over time the forests died and were buried, and the resin became fossilised. As the earth has been eroded these amber deposits have been exposed and because amber is so light, much of it was washed into the sea where it then floats ashore. One of the greatest regions for sea amber is the Baltic, where is washes onshore in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and is worked by skilled craftsmen with generations of experience.

So, what colours is Amber?

Amber comes in a huge variety of colours. The colour variations are determined by a number of factors including the mineral content of the soil, exposure to oxygen during fossilisation, the type of tree the original resin came from, and the number of air bubbles trapped with the amber.  In fact no one is quite sure why some rarer  coloured ambers have turned out the way they have. As a general rule, most Amber is almost clear, but the air bubbles and other matter trapped inside the amber change it’s texture and the ability of light to pass through it, fooling the eye and creating different “Colours”

Amber can be completely transparent and almost clear (having no air bubbles) or completely opaque and pure white (having up to 900,000 air bubbles per mm2) with every variation in between. The natural colours in between range from palest honey through to deep red brown in the transparent ambers and pure white to deep buttery yellow in the opaque or milky ambers.