Reply #5: When I had gotten tired of the hardware store brass and steel wire--

[eridani]

--I got the more expensive copper, silver and gold stuff.

About 15 years ago, my husband got me a couple of polished fossils, which I kept in the jewelry drawer until the rat inspired me to gry to do something with them. The first one is in copper, with a suede leather thong.



The second one I wrapped in silver wire, and added regular black obsidian and snowflake obsidian beads. Blew the extra money for sterling spacer beads instead of just the plate.



Last summer at a local craft fair, I met an amateur geologist who had gotten into lapidary work and had a really nice selection of focal pieces from $5 to $8. He also had necklaces that he had made for sale, mostly with Swarovski crystal. To me the stones said "earthy", not "sparkly," so I stuck with the focal pieces. I used a couple of types of jasper with the gold-wrapped picture stone.



Also gold-wrapped the tigereye stone, and used black tigereye beads and yellow tigereye chips for the necklace.