Tangerine in Jewelry

No, I have not gone fruity, that is Pantone's color of the year or the season...as I am sure that any of you who make jewelry or anything crafty, already know. It is a great color - it is orange, but it is not ORANGE.  In other words, it doesn't scream at you.  In the right tones, it is very wearable and does not make you look like a Halloween pumpkin, unless you wear too much black with it, and that might confuse some people.

The trouble with tangerine, or orange,if you prefer...especially if you make jewelry...is there are not allot of choices out there.  There is sun stone which is a great subdued orange, but it is moderately pricey and is hard to find in large pieces...and I would assume, if you did find large pieces, that you could remove the "moderately" from that pricey label.  There is carnelian, which I love and use allot of, but there is no way that one would assume that dark carnelian, the kind that I like, that anyone  would ever, willingly use "tangerine" to describe it.  To me, good carnelian is burnt orange, bordering on the red...nothing whatsoever to suggest tangerine.  Then there are various colored sapphires, and here we are looking at definitely pricey, for very small stones.  Last but not least are man made stones - Swarovski crystals and cubic zircons.  I use Swarovski and rarely use CZ's.  I don't use CZ's because it is hard to find them in bead form, they may have holes, but they usually have the pointed backs of  fine stones and I don't care for that look in strung jewelry.  I ordered some hyacinth Swarovski crystals this week and they are going back - they scream ORANGE at me, and although they are pretty, they are not what I am looking for.

The last time that I visited the shops that carry my jewelry,  and they are all very au currant with their products and colors, because they are all very high end types of boutiques.  I saw lots of tangerine...and yellows...and touches of red..at times, I felt like I was in a 1960's time warp.  I even saw some of those paisley type prints that we used to wear...I guess all things do come back if you wait long enough.

As many of you know that follow this blog, I am doing allot of my work with resin right now and I really enjoy it.  I love the bright colors that you usually cannot find in gemstones, and right now, I love the fact that I am able to get some tangerine choices.  The following are available at my Artfire shop:

I have one on my bench right now that is  the above orange and bright pink - granted, it's an acquired taste, but I loved it in the sweater set I saw in one of my boutiques and the owner said that if I made it ...she wanted one to go with the remaining sweater sets.  The market here still stinks, but people seem willing to buy less expensive if they really set an outfit off  and the price  is right around $100.00.  So that is what I have been trying to do and so far it seems to be working.  I do feel very lucky that I have been able to meet the need for tangerine.