#the cracked bead

[thecrackedbead]

Bulging beads and flowers

So I've been playing around with my Toho Challenge 2023 kit as I have tentative plans to enter into the contest. I have no real expectations of winning, but why not try?

The given inspiration for the challenge is Robert Frost's poem Nothing Gold Can Stay and thus gold is a primary colour theme in the kit.

Thoughts on the poem

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay

- Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

Given that the Toho beads - not the Czech faceted or two-hole triangle beads - are supposed to be the star of the show, I am rather dubious of the bright white, pink and green beads provided. I find myself suspecting that someone behind the challenge noted that Robert Frost was a respected poet, saw the word 'gold' in the title and thought "This is how we show we are super cool, super meaningful and super incapable of reading comprehension!" The poem's themes of change and fading glory seem lacking in the colour scheme provided. True, the gold colours appropriate for its association with autumn and the death of summer but the these ones...? Shouldn't there be some orange and red? Maybe black?

That being said, I also suspect I am being pompous. Poetry is open to interpretation. White is associated with death in many eastern cultures and is the colour of winter. Also for "Eden [to sink] to grief", there needs to be something bright and joyous to sink from. There's also my design taste is likely tainting my assessment. I like contrasting dark and light colours while green and pink beads, particularly blend together.

Flowers and failure

For those who follow my blog, you may have noticed that I've played around with making leaves with the kit as falling leaves and autumn go together. As of yet, I haven't produced any that I really like. However in the past, I have made flowers and sunflowers are found in autumn - so why not? Thus like a Canadian Goose flying south for the winter, my experience with would work as a guide for current project.

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The noble skyrat that is the Canadian Goose. Yes, it has to be a specifically Canadian Goose. As a Canadian, I am required to establish my identity every five minutes lest the the Americans annex us. (Picture by Tom Koerner/USFWS, found on Wikipedia)

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Only problem the challenge encourages the participants to use as kit's beads as possible. This doesn't seem too bad until one takes into account, that the beads are a mix of round beads in 8/0 and 11/0, triangles and demis, I did NOT have experience mixing bead types and sizes like that and the patterns I looked to help almost never used such mixes either.

That Canadian Goose I spoke of so proudly? It would be trying to navigate when

All the landmarks had been destroyed by a combination tornado, earthquake and volcano.

Its internal compass was been damaged by a severe brain injury.

It cannot see due to an eye injuries.

Its head has been crushed (as indicated by #2 and 3).

It is forced to use a map made using the imperial system.

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Pretty much a depiction of the just stated list. (Bloody explosion by Omarvero Imperial unit farm map from Units Index. Horrific editing done by myself. Please don't judge the sources by my work; the originals are way better.)

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Bulging beads and sunflowers

Method-wise, I was primarily using peyote stitch in the round with bits of RAW (right angle weave) as well as square and brick stitch thrown in. I was improvising as I went as no beading program that I am aware of allows for variation in bead sizes. (Most don't even acknowledge the existence of demis.) This mean that my work was very prone for for their to be sections of bare thread when one hasn't added enough beads or beads bulging when one has added too many. I strongly recommend avoiding the former as much as possible as bare thread is very prone to catch on things, break and ruin an entire piece. As for the former, it could be a good thing as the bulging makes one's work 3D. With the flower pedals, I really liked he effect and tried to master it.

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Here's a case of a sunflower pendant where the bulging was used to make pedals

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Unforunately there was a problem with this. While the things 3D is that, while such methods make the result more organic (like the pedals in the picture above), the result is less predictable. Things would rarely bulge in a different or a different amount than I wanted.

Solutions?

After LOTS of fiddling, I found three things that sometimes worked.

Sew it to a backing - Shown in example #1 below. Sewing the right beads at the right spots gave the piece proper structure. The circled brown beads were particularly important to sew down at the right place.

Use quadra lentil beads - As shown in example #2, I used the 4-hole quadra lentils in the challenge kit. I found that I could use them to make a flower pistil with two layers of beads, one directly under the other. This provided enough stiffness to guide the flower's shape.

Experiment...a lot - You can see a result of this in #3. I was lucky and stubborn enough to eventually stumble onto a combo that turned out right.

Example #1

Example #2 - A pendant

Example #3

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What next?

I think leaving #1 as a pendant with a simple cord would be the best combination. I could crochet a bead rope for it instead but I think the result would be too busy. At the same time, I believe the cord wouldn't impress the judges.

#2 has potential. Maybe as part of larger piece?

Ironically of the three flowers, #3, the one that does not resemble a sunflower, is the one I'm most inclined to submit. My idea is to turn the design into a pair of earrings. Go figure. Admittedly, I'll have to make two new ones as I need a set and submitting an earrings which you bled on is a major faux pas.

[thecrackedbead]

Adventures with thrift beads... - 5 dubious cons and 8 equally dubious pros

I like to keep an eye on places like Craigslist, Facebook marketplace and thrift stores for unwanted beads and badly made jewelry to turn into something new. For example...

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I was so proud when I tracked this down. Ironically, I only kept 20% of them.

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It can be an time consuming hobby. Not merely because of the shopping. For me, the shopping is the relatively easy part. (Emphasis on the 'relatively', I'd probably save money renting a tow truck and a harness when I go craft shopping.)

So what are the harder parts?

1. You get what you get.

Sometimes nothing there suits your taste. Sometimes everything does (see tow truck and harness).

2. Sometimes the person or store are selling an item for way more than it's worth.

*cough*ValueVillage*cough* Even though the bracelet is broken and they sure as he'll aren't going to fix it and when you offer to buy it for a discount because of this, which is still more than its worth, their manager throws it in the @$%$ing garbage because god/goddess/gods/celestial force/flying spaghetti monster forbid the item sold at less than $10.

3. Little to no planning ahead.

As per #1. Having a pattern won't help you if you can't find the right item. You have to tailor the designs or create designs based on what you find. This means you often have to spend a fair bit of time more time on designs made from thrifted items than you would otherwise.

4. Hard to make multiples.

You often cannot make tons of multiples of a product as there may not be enough of a thrifted component. Timewise, it is much faster to make ten items of the same design than ten things of ten different designs.

You may say, if I like a design why don't I go out and find more of said beloved component?

To this you replay, I didn't ask you bloody know-it-all for advice in the first place... also I couldn't find/afford/was too lazy to trackdown more of it.

5. Overall...

It seems like a business plan from The Bad Flamey Place, n'est pas?

So why do it?

1. It is possible to save a lot of money.

When crafters are destashing, sometimes wish they wave a wand, mutter 'Evanesco' and make all the extra stuff disappear. They'll end up giving things away or sell things for a fraction of what it's worth. The faster it disappers the better as if they're anything like me, they don't want to look too closely, lest they second guess their giveaways and violate the laws of physics by somehow ending up with more stuff than they began with...

(...Though if I think about it, mass and energy can be changed from one to the other. So perhaps the energy from exhaustive attempts to purge beads got converted into more beads?)

...Add to this estate sales and thrift stores may not know what they have in the first place.

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...Definitely not familiar. From HumorFlow.

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The core of My Hoard of Doom (TM) was bought when I wanted a few tools for jewelry making from Facebook with little thought to the stuff that came with it. Sure, I knew that there were a few beads as part of the deal, but there weren't many clear pictures of them. I figured that they were the cheap kind. It quickly became apparent that few was actually 'few' when I hauled out two mall but heavy moving boxes, and cheap was 'cheap' when I spent most of the night googling at their contents.

I ended up with a whole lot of semi-precious stones, aquamarine, tiger eye, carnelian, amber, unakite, peridot, quartz, tons of jasper, a few moon stones, opals, etc. In short, I estimate that I spent $100 on what was likely more than $1000 new. Keep in mind, this is an extreme case of thrifting success but it can happen.

2. You can make money on your finds without making jewelry

As people who sold the beads and other jewelry items for below market price, it is possible to sort through your finds put them in groups and sell the groups, bit by bit recouping what you spent plus interest. (Warning: This works best if you live in a city with many potential customers. Even then, this can take a fair bit of patience and you'll likely still sell them for much less than what they are worth.) Personally, I advise against having this as you main reason for thrifting beads as there's no guarantee. If you are buying someone's stash of beads, you should mainly like the. Sift out and attempt to sell the ones you don't as an afterthought.

3. It forces you to experiment with new styles and learn and approve new techniques.

Alright, alright, you may not feel this a good thing. However, logically know you know it is. Like when you struggled through learning to read rather then continuing to eat paste.

God/goddess/gods/cosmic force/flying spaghetti monster knows I had no particular plan to start working with large beads at that point in time. Until The Hoard of Doom™ came into my life, I did seed beading with a miniscule of dabbling with larger beads but my wire work and knotting abilities have improve immensely since I was buried under a landslide of them. Did you know it is possible to be absolute crap at opening and closing jump rings? I did not. I did know I wasn't good at them but it wasn't until I crawled into a toilet, that I realised I came from the sewer.

Tangentially, having a lack of materials makes you more creative with them.

4. You can learn from other people's work.

When working with thrifted jewelry, whether you're planning to rip apart a piece for beads, remaking it or bringing it to its former glory, take a moment to really look at it and think. What don't you like about a piece? What do you do? If it's broken, how did it break and can something be done to stop this from happening again? What methods and materials do you think were used to make it? It can give you ideas of what to avoid and ideas for the future.

Crystal Cluster gave me ideas of what to do with crystal and chip beads. In fact, prior to purchasing it, I thought crystals were not and never would be my style. Remaking Catching Pearls and Iron taught me that inconsistent bead sizes don't massively affect the outcome of bead netting and that am never, ever working on something made with such thick monofilament again. (My poor, poor beading needles.) Stretched out elastic bracelets are why I use beading wire or thread instead of elastic. (Fiy: I'm told it is possible to keep the elastic lasting way longer if you roll it off and on your wrist but I'm a lazy bastard.) Sure you can, and I recommend, looking at pictures of others' work; however, you get a much more visceral experience when holding a piece and people rarely highlight their mistakes when taking photos of their work.

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Catching Peals and Iron might look pretty but the sacrifices involved...

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5. You can rescue lovely jewelry.

Thrift stores in particular often cannot tell the difference between a well-made item and badly made costume jewelry. I found Crystal Cluster selling for $2.99. Another one of my current projects, which I am tentatively calling The Three in One Bracelet (I'll post later), is made from a set of simple but elegant bracelets whose elastics were breaking.

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Crystal Cluster. Not yet for sale as it requires some repairs.

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6. Recycling is good for the environment.

Hopefully a no-brainer.

7. Hunting is fun

It can satisfy a deep instinct too. Couple problems here though. As I don't own any guns, bows, traps or likewise and the local constabulary had some words with me after they caught me running downtown hurling my umbrella at pigeons...

So, beads it is!!!

7. The obvious reason

As crafters, our dad isn't our dad. He isn't a mailman or repairman either. He's a magpie and for us everything is beautiful.

Original artist unfortunately unknown. Found at Know Your Meme.

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[thecrackedbead]

Presenting 'A Reflection on Asymmetry'

A new product at my store.

So I had a few beads lying around in my place...

...Here my mum would raise an eyebrow and say, "A few?" in a tone that mothers everywhere use when discussing a dirty bedroom or convey that a person that has enough piercings to be mistaken for a cyborg is perhaps not the best one to date....

So, okay, okay, I have TONS of beads lying around my place but I had about two handfuls of green jasper beads which isn't a massive amount where larger beads are concerned. I had accidentally acquired them along with the rest of my Bead Horde of Doom™ when purchasing them a bunch of second-hand jeweler's tools and the seller had insisted I take two boxes work of beads as well. A fair number of those beads and a few tools I have resold to the point that I have made much more than than I bought them for and I was all for selling the jasper as well. I like a degree of consistency and symmetry in my work and the jasper beads were anything but. Except...

...Green is my favourite colour. To me it is the colour of life. (Red is too but when red is splashing around, something tends to be horribly wrong.) It makes memories of hiking under the gorgeous cedars of Western Canada rise to the surface and I am soothed.

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Alas, I did not take this photo. The image is from istock.

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In addition, part of the reason I picked the Cracked Bead as my handle and my shop name is because I am trying to accept my imperfections along with the fact I deal with mental illness. If you can't fully get rid of your mental illness, you might as well embrace it. Thus what to do with a bunch of oddly shaped beads? I couldn't see myself making them into earrings and bracelets just didn't interest me for them so how about a necklace instead?

With a swish of my magic beading needle, my jasper, pewter and glass beads swirled around in a extremely magic cyclone of magicky stuff and assembled into the brilliant and beautiful necklace shown above.

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From @memegenerator

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Why are you looking at me like that? I don't care what the image says. I didn't most absolute, definitely did not, never EVER scrawl on it!

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QFrom @loisalexa.

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Seriously. Magic exists!!!! That's what made thee necklace. It's obvious.

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From memegenerator.

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...Alright. I screwed up a lot first. I am not very experienced making necklaces and had countless screw-ups before I produced the above. The reality is that they sat with the rest of the Horde of Doom™ for months with as much clue what to do with them as the Wile E. Coyote has the ability to catch the Roadrunner, while my sensible stuff bugged me to either use them or sell them.

Eventually I was organizing the Aforementioned Horde™ and found myself looking at them. I starting sorting them into vaguely similar piles based on how rough or smooth them were then into size. I stared at them a bit, went back to cleaning up (I informed my mother of this later, but she was extremely a touch skeptical.), then returned and played around with rearranging them. It occured to me as I did so that I could give a feel of symmetry without the beads actually being symmetrical by having beads that where roughly the same size, colour and texture mirroring each other.

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Have a weird shaped bead that nothing else looks like? Don't toss or hide it. Embrace it instead and put it in the front as seen in the prototypical arrangement displayed on my messy bed exquisite, clean and organized 'work table'.

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It didn't go well. I blame my magic beading needle crapping out on me...or the fact that I have little to no experience making necklaces. I broke a few of my first attempts by my doing the 'horrible and inconsiderate and strenuous' thing of putting them on and made a few more that resembled a four-year-old's macaroni art. At least my new flush cutters got a good work out during those days. Plus, if I am more painfully cheerful, "failure is a sign of a life well-lived. " (Brandon Sanderson) You can't learn to walk if you aren't willing to fall-down a few times.

Remnants of attempts 1-4. Mistakes were made, but that's okay. Really and truly and without sarcasm.

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Finally, I came up with the final one and I truly and sincerely love it. So much that I had to remind myself fervently that I cannot make a decent online business if I keep all my products. As things stand, I am looking for more of these funky, weird beads so I can do more with them.

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The necklace 'A Reflection on Asymmetry is for sale at my Etsy store.

[thecrackedbead]

New arrival in the shop...

Gold and Green Dangling Hoops - Etsy

This Dangle & Drop Earrings item is sold by TheCrackedBead. Ships from Canada. Listed on Jun 20, 2023

[thecrackedbead]

More experiments with the Toho Challenge kit...

I'm continuing with my experiments. This time focusing on leaves rather than sunflowers.

Honestly, I'm pretty much tossing all my bead weaving knowledge in a blender and hoping something pretty comes out. It doesn't help that with particular kind (what is the proper name for this anyways?) is the sort I'm least familiar with. I'm good with brick and peyote stitch as well as looming. This not so much. Fiy: These are by far the nicest of dozens of experiments while the others were taken apart.

A key frustration for me is that, other than some size 8/0 browns, the kit's seed beads are all pastels. So it's easy for them to visually run together or fade into the background. I'm trying to compensate but using the empty space between sections of beads as an unofficial colour to provide contrast.

#4 above is still in progress and I'm trying a different method than the others and working outside in rather than vice versa.

[thecrackedbead]

I meant to do that - Or the making the 'Frosted Leaves' necklace.

I...uhm...er....sort of meant to do that. Yep, I totally had the whole thing planned out. Yesiree. I Meant To Do That.

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The before and after pictures of 'Frosted Leaves'. A great demonstration of my definitely, totally screw up-free design process.

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The start

Don't understand what I'm talking about?

Allow me to backtrack to a few months ago. I often get ideas from thrift store jewelry. Sometimes I leave the jewelry but take pictures. Sometimes I take them home and reuse the materials. Sometimes I take them home and do repairs.

The last of these was my plan for the necklace which I'd recently picked up for $12.99, or rather $9.99 as gotten a couple dollars knocked off when I had pointed out the frayed thread wrapping some of its cords, the broken clasp, the missing leaves and the split rings, attaching the aforementioned leaves to the main necklace piece, which were so warped and badly made that caught on *everything* (my poor shirt/pants/tablecloth/etc 😭). I'd replace the feathers with ones from The Hoard of Doom™️ and replace the frayed cord with something like dyed-leather.

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The evil split rings.

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So I got to work, cut off and dispose of the old clasp and the evil-fabric-destroying spring rings and put the intact findings in The Horde™️ to be reused or given away later.

The Screw-ups Things I Totally Meant to Do

I don't know exactly why I thought it was a good idea, but I started out by attaching non-evil split rings to the main piece's connector loops. As these ones where solidly made, it was taking a bit of fiddling to get it properly attached and...

*pop*

...the loop broke off. Fiddlesticks!

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Whoops.

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I took a breath and figured I could break off the opposite loop, to keep things symmetrical. It popped off easily enough.

You'd think I'd be sensible at this point and switch to open jump rings for the other loops as the former were putting too much stress on the piece. Yeah, about that...

*pop*

Darn it to heck!

Surely now I'd be careful and I was. This time I managed not to twist the loop off when I put the split ring on, but I did bend it a touch. So carefully I grabbed my pliers to gently bend out back into p...

*pop*

Sigh.

Yep, this was clearly all part of my magnificent plan.

Regrouping

At this point, I had a bit of a hissy fit and the remaining necklace pieces were thrown into my pile of half-finished prototypes and there it sat for a month or so.

Eventually, I returned to the pile and was tossing things there into the giveaway, finish and take apart piles. As such, I found myself reexamining the necklace. I still liked the shape and detail of the main part. Carefully I removed the other loops and filed down the remains. The silvery colour of the base metal revealed and the ease at which I did this told me it was pewter. It tends to be soft. No wonder the loops has broken so easily.

I was also left with shimmering patches of gray where the loops were once attached along side the bronze surface metal. This initially annoyed me but...hadn't I made a bracelet with gold-plated beads that were supposed to look good both with gold colour and the underlying brass should the gold wear off? I could play with the idea again.

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The bracelet mentioned. First, the gold-plate is still on the beads. Second, it has largely worn off.

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Having the silver only in one area wouldn't work; so, I attacked other areas with my file to spread it out.

Ideas disgarded, idea claimed

At this point I revisited by original idea of using the original beads and some leather and remaking the original look. This crashed and burned. Multiple times. Generally shortly after take off.

I'd get out the original beads and some cords of different and my eyes would start burning as soon as I set them next to each other and that would be that. (Maybe I should have said burned then crashed?). I eventually removed the original beads from the equation as the changed colour scheme of the main piece no longer fit.

I fiddled around with leather cord, twisting and braiding it. Better but not by much.

In the end I when with my fallback rule: 'Keep it simple, stupid.' I tracked down beads that for the new colour scheme, silver with faux glass opals, bronze with bronze glass beads and more bronze plus blue with impression jasper. I used the variety of sizes of jasper beads to hold the main piece in place and keep things from being *too* simple. I finished things off with using bronze-plated pewter bead caps at the ends and, in keeping with my earlier chose attacked them with a file to reveal some of the silvery pewter beneath.

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My bead type and size choices.

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You can see where I used the larger beads to hold the main piece in place.

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So what happened to 'I meant to do that'?

They say, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." They say, "There's a point in every artwork where you can see the final product."

In this case, 'they' were right. The necklace and it's stupid *pop*ing and my own artistic sensibilities kept me from making any progress. At the same time, those enemies were key to making something I like better than anything I planned or what I imagine the necklace originally looked like. They forced me to wait until I could see the final product and what I was meant to do.

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The final product.

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[thecrackedbead]

Those damn gold-plated beads - Or designing the 'Fire on a Winter Night' bracelet, necklace and earrings

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The full Fire on a Winter Night set of jewelry. Bracelet, earrings and necklace.

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I have issues with metal-plated beads and findings. I hate that they're everywhere, I hate that they are frequently poorly labeled, I hate that they cause allergic reactions and I definitely hate when they change colours was as the plate is sloughed off due to wear and the wearer's own body chemistry and the base metal is revealed.

The last of these happened over a month ago when I made a lovely bangle bracelet. Purple, blue and black crystals framed by pearls and little golden beads. I was feeling proud of myself and so I put it on for the day, came back, looked at it to see if anything had come loose and found I had lost most of the gold-colour of my beads.

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My unnamed bracelet. Unnamed because the damn 'gold' beads screwed up my design. I don't even have a picture of the original colouring. Maybe I should call it the Damn Stupid Beads bracelet?

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As of late, I have been selling, recycling and giving away most of my plated silver and gold findings. I had probably a thousand of the gold-plated beads and so I considered the last of those option but, given how quickly his had happened, the gold plate must have been as thick as a paper shield is protective. If I gave them away, I had a sneaking suspicion that the next crafter would notice the same problem then toss them. This seemed like such a waste. Surely I could find something to do with them but what?

Something stirred in the back of my mind, then slithered through the webs of memory to purchasing a bracelet which I call Age with Glory. It too had faded beads, silver-plated to my gold but despite this, I liked it.

In fact, I liked it more because of the fading. So I wondered if I could mimic the effect?

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The Age with Glory bracelet. Designer: unknown. Maker: unknown. I'm afraid the discolouring doesn't show up well in the picture. I promise you it is much more obvious in person.

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Making the prototypes

The bracelet

Looking at my inspiration, it seemed clear to me that the lynchpin of Age was the large glass beads. Within their depths contained all the shades of orange and yellow that were found on where the silver beads' plate had sloughed off and the brass beneath was revealed. As I knew that when the gold came off, my little beads they would turn shades of red, orange and brown, I headed off to my local bead shop and hunted down lampwork beads in that colour scheme. These would become the basis for the rest of the bracelet's colours.

Coincidentally, I also had many of the exact same silver-plated beads found in Age in The Hoard™. They needed using up and if they faded? It would add to the design not subtract. I also had some raw brass beads kicking around and its colours made me think that if the gold beads ever become completely not-gold, the brass beads could act like a homage to the past. Finally, I sorted through my crystals, thinking something yellow would work. Instead, I stumbled across a set of black crystals in an array of size. They'd been sitting there for ages and figuring that the lampwork beads had black in them. So why not?

There wasn't any great mystery to my stringing method. I used stainless steel memory wire to create a wrapping bracelet. (FIY: NEVER use silver or gold-plated memory wire. The plating will run away screaming when you get a tool anywhere near it.) There were few repeating clusters of beads, I made a rule where no two beads of the same colour could be next to each other and tried to limit the brass and lampworks used so I wouldn't run out then was mostly random.

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The bracelet prototype. In the first photo, the gold-plated beads actually look gold. In the second photo, you can see the colour change due to time.

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The earrings and bracelet

From here the other two were easy.

The earrings were made by moving around the beads until I found something I liked. (Sometimes I think designing is more chance than any sort of creativity or intelligence.) Then when I came to the necklace, I was running out of lampwork beads at this point, I ended up making one a focal, thus excusing myself from using more in the necklace lest I show it up. All I needed to do from there was layout the beads in a way I liked and string it up.

Earrings, bracelet and necklace prototypes

The final designs

Honestly, I would have happily made my prototypes my final designs; however, I was running out of the silver-plated beads. This of course was a good thing, right? I was trying to get rid of all my plated beads, right? Naturally, I was going to celebrate and move on to another design to use up my gold beads, right?

So, I...

...uh...

...er...

...sort of bought more silver-plated beads.

I guess the the road to Hell isn't paved with good intentions but rather beads.

The final designs.

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Other thoughts

Since I often get my beads via thrifting, I'm sure there's more of metal-plated beads on their way. Thus, it is good to know that I have at least one idea of how to turn that ilk into something I can work with.

Why work against flaws when you can turn them into features?

Now available:

The Fire on a Winter Night... Bracelet prototype Earrings and necklace set. Full necklace, earrings and bracelet jewelry set

[thecrackedbead]

3-to-1 Bracelet an Upcycled Product | Etsy Canada

The 3-To-1 Bracelet is made from a set of three bracelets whose elastic bands had broken. Opposed to simply restringing each on with elastic

The 3-To-1 Bracelet is made from a set of three bracelets whose elastic bands had broken. Opposed to simply restringing each on with elastic, only for them to break once more, the three were combined to make a single sleek coil bracelet that's memory wire backbone is far more durable than elastic and due to its coiling nature, can fit wrist sizes of young teenagers to large adults. The bulk of the beads are chocolate jasper and antique bronze with the brighter colours being a mixture of glass, unakite, sodalite, quartz and more semi-precious stones.