The high jewelry collection by Chanel is truly breath taking. The videos on Chanel’s website showing the artist first drawing the designs and then selecting the stones is wonderful to see. I do a similar process with my designs. I draw the basic idea first and then select the stones and start working. Many times the designs change as I’m working on them and end up being different from my original idea which I love because of the creative process makes the pieces so unique. Sometimes I select the stone first and then either draw the idea or just work on it right away. I love wire wrapping because it allows me to change the designs as I’m going. For example today I was working on a piece that started with just a beautiful big faceted chocolate chalcedony focal bead that I wanted to wire wrap in 14K gold filled wire because I love the way the gold looks agains the brownish colored chalcedony. I wanted add an additional element to it so I decided to add some small 3 mm spessartite gemstones that are gorgeus deep yellow color. I wire wrapped them around the top of the chalcedony bead and the end result was so beautiful. Working with wire allows me to change the designs and create really organic designs because of the way the wire handles. I’ll be sure to add the piece of jewelry on the website soon. I paired the beautiful wire wrapped Chalcedony gemstone bead with 14K gold-filled wire and the combination is beautiful. It brings all the fall colors together and looks rich and warm.

Here is another video courtesy of Refinery29 and Chanel showing how their metalsmith works on an absolutely stunning piece of jewelry.