Tourmalines are a particular favorite of mine because of their incredible range of color. Just like garnets and sapphires, they come in a huge range of hues from pink, red, green, blue and not just blue but a screaming neon blue from Paraiba State in Brazil. This is an amazing color and the first time I saw one, my breath was taken away. Yes, a Paraiba Tourmaline is breath taking away awesome!
On the Mohs scale of hardness, tourmalines are a 7 to 7.5. They are generally stable to light and are not affected by exposure to chemicals although heat can inflict some damage. In addition to Brazil, tourmalines also come from Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and North America just to name a few countries of origin where they are found.
Speaking of awesome tourmalines, I have been designing and working with some delicious watermelon tourmaline slicers. There is one pendant and two pairs of earrings. One pair of earrings features just triangular shaped tourmalines. The other pair is accented with two beautiful white sapphires. There are also a couple of pearl knotted tourmalines with pearls as well as one pair of earrings with hot pink tourmalines. They are all one-of-a-kind designs.
For a designer, tourmalines are a lot of fun to work with because of their range of colors and their elegant beauty. There will be more joining the watermelon slicers as I am continuing to research suppliers who can provide the third party certification that ELJD requires now for fair traded and fair mined gemstones. The current small collection will be available only at the Sedona Arts Festival from October 9-10, 2021. A few of the pieces are featured here in the blog image.
https://sedonaartsfestival.org