Crushed Stone Pendant

This Instructable shows you how to take natural and raw gemstones and turn them into simple pieces of really pretty jewelry. All the pieces shown use peacock ore, opals, and/or pyrite.

Metal tags/stamping blanks

Crushed stone (I used peacock ore and pyrite)

Jewelry findings (jump rings, necklace cord, etc)

E600/jewelry glue or cement

Metal hole puncher (or glue-on jewelry bail)

To help your adhesive material stick to the metal, you can scratch it up with sandpaper.

You can also add texture to the metal with jewelry hammers and gently hammer the metal until you are satisfied with its' appearance.

This is the stage when you would put your hole in the metal tag, if you're not using a jewelry bail.

I have a variety of peacock ore, opals, and already crushed pyrite. So I started with crushing some of the peacock ore to make smaller pieces, it's very soft and easy to do. Then I picked out which pieces I wanted to use and placed them on the metal to try and get an idea of arrangement.

When I have an idea of how I want my stones laid out, I put a layer of jewelry glue/cement on the metal and start piecing in the stones using fine tweezers. I do this until I have the pattern I want or the entire metal piece is filled. In the pictures above I started with some big pieces of opal and surrounded them with smaller pieces of peacock ore.

I add in more adhesive where I think is necessary. After an hour or two of drying, I check to see if the stones are set or loose or if more stones need to be added in and I make the necessary adjustments.

After the pieces are tried, I add jump rings and then whatever type of cord I want to use---leather usually looks pretty nice.

If you don't punch holes in the tabs, you can glue jewelry bails to the back of the pendants.

Natural crystals and gemstones can be delicate, you don't want to wear these pieces to sleep. You also don't want to wear them in the shower or get them wet as it could cause damage to the raw stones or the adhesives keeping them in place.

If for some reason you need to clean the piece, use a soft polish cloth.

Also, avoid extreme heat and humidity. It could also cause damage to the stones and adhesives.