JTV Blog

JTV's Learning Library Presents: Play of Color Opal from Wollo Province, Ethiopia

A new opal deposit was discovered in 2008 near the village of Wegel Tena in volcanic rocks of Ethiopia’s Wollo Province. Unlike previous Ethiopian opals, the new material is mostly white, with some brown opal, fire opal, and colorless “crystal” opal. Some of it resembles Australian and Brazilian sedimentary opals with play-of-color that is often very vivid.

Find out more about Play-of-Color Opal from Wegeltena, Wollo Province, Ethiopia in this educational article from the Gemological Institute of America. Read More

More Opal Education found in JTV's Learning Library: Opal Varieties, Ethiopian Hydrophane Opal Honduran Black Opal, Mexican Fire Opal, Opal Market Report 2011, Opal Gemopedia,

Shop Opal: Shop opal gems and opal jewelry

I hope you've enjoyed this snippet from the many online articles in JTV's Learning Library. We're adding new content all the time so check back often to see what's new.

- Jill, Editor, JTV Learning Library

Jewel School Newsletter November 2011: Crystal Christmas Tree Earrings, December's Jewel School Guide

The Jewel School Insider with Julie Evans, Buyer for Jewel School

They’re here! The holidays are so colorful, lively, and brisk we can wear all those sweaters with snowflakes, Santa Claus, and poinsettias appliquéd on the front. We don our best glittery looks and know they are perfectly acceptable any hour of the day.  Holiday dressing has no rules!  If you’ve got it, wear it, because it can only stay at the front of the closet for 30-45 days before going into hibernation. I do hope you put on the sparkle for the holidays!    

Swarovksi Crystal Christmas Tree Earrings Kit

The Jewel School project this month is a pair of must-have earrings made of Swarovski Elements crystals into beautiful Christmas trees.  The project is easy to do and we’ve put all the pieces you need for the earrings into a kit. That makes them good for gift giving projects for older children to create for a grandmother or favorite school teacher. Swarovski Elements make a statement anytime you wear them!  I’m also including the project list and the directions at the end of the newsletter, compliments of Swarovski.  Get the complete set of instructions and product list at the end of this newsletter.

 

Jewel School December 2011 Special Guests

Jeff Banks and the Jewel School team are bringing some of your favorite designers for December.  It is an all-star cast!  Some of the Jewel Schoolers met these experts in person here at our Jewel School Customer Workshop October 27-30.  There’s more about the workshop and photos on down in the newsletter. First, here is our lineup for December:

Thursday, December 1: Double the education when Barbara Carleton returns with her unique jewelry designer software that will whip your inventory into an organized plan ready for designing and selling.  And Dale Armstrong brings her fabulous wire wrapping kits for you to create your own signature wire wrapped designs.  We’re adding a new CZ gem Dropz kit for sparkle and flare.  

We all know Dale Armstrong is a great instructor by just watching her videos but take a look at this picture.  She is on her knees so her students at the Jewel School Customer Workshop can see up close how to make one of her unique wire wrap rings.  

Sunday, December 4 and Monday, December 5: Join us for a huge event as we celebrate our one year anniversary with Jackie Truty from Art Clay™ . We're featuring new and exciting kits that are great for the beginner or the expert ready for the next level in jewelry making.  Watch for the new copper clay kit, new glass kit, and a special offer on 50 grams of silver clay at 2010 prices!

In the photo, Jackie has the class under her spell at one of her many ArtClay classes at the Jewel School Customer Workshop October 27-30.

Thursday, December 8: There’s more! Stephanie Eddy will be introducing the new ½” Lazee Daizee tool which will allow you to make new projects, and she's bringing back her popular book featuring instructions for great designs to spark your imagination.

Sunday, December 11 and Monday, December 12:  Special Guest Anie Piliguian will be in the house  featuring the Jool Tool, a multi-functional tool that features the safest sharpening tool in the industry.  

December 11: Visiting us is Wyatt White with his patent pending banding plier tool and wire kits. We’ll have other exciting wire kits in the same show.  Wyatt was ever so busy at the Jewel School Customer Workshop.  His classes were always full and afterwards the students were walking around wearing a beautiful bracelet of Swarovski Elements. 

He has a knack for keeping calm and working with every student that needs a little help. As you can see in this picture, he loves sharing his skills with Jewel Schoolers.

Sunday, December 18: Just a week before Christmas, Fernando DaSilva will be joining us. His sharp eye for design is apparent in the wire mesh and fashion jewelry making kits he will be showing.  Fernando's got your number for fashion, color and design. In the image below he is sharing the beauty of his designs with  the Jewel Schoolers.  He’s so much fun and enjoys being with customers.  So do we, Fernando!

The Jewel School Customer Workshop is over for this year but we have many fond memories of laughter, hugs, lessons, suggestions and much more.  It was a pleasure for all of us to spend four days with you and we appreciate you taking the time to come visit with us. We’re looking ahead to 2012 but there are no dates yet. For me, the workshop was validation for everything I do here at Jewel School.  It is truly a labor of love and we are blessed to have so many wonderful jewelry makings in our extended family. There are  many more pictures from the workshop and will add them later to our Facebook page!

How to Make Swarovski Elements Christmas Tree Earrings

Get the Jewel School kits on jtv.com: item numbers JLW6020 and JLW6021

     1. String onto one headpin the Swarovski Elements Crystal beads in the order shown in the photo.

     2. Turn loop on headpin.

     3. Open loop on bottom of ear wire, attach to loop formed on headpin and close loop to secure.

     4. Repeat steps 1 - 3 for other earring.

Happy Holidays to All! 

- Julie Evans, Jewel School Buyer

 

 

JTV's Box 19 on 11.19.11: A Treasure Trove of Loose Gemstones

Special JTV Announcement: Coming on 11.19.11

JTV's Box 19

As the world's largest retailer of loose gemstones, Jewelry Television and JTV.com constantly scours the globe for the best gemstone deals the world has to offer. JTV has done its best to negotiate prices that allow us to offer our customer unprecented savings opportunities, and on 11.19.11, we will present Box 19 to you!

This gemstone lot is composed of hundreds of thousands of carats of loose gemstones--including  product from Thai Gem, Gems TV, and several other now defunct international companies--and arrived in a huge crate numbered 19 (hence our name for this product, Box 19). When we opened the crate, we discovered that several of the packets inside were mislabeled. For example, some packages simply labeled "citrine" actually contained five different gemstone types! As we dug deeper into the assortment, we found both genuine untreated and treated gemstones, as well as synthetic and simulant material. It is simply too time consuming for us to sort and price this inventory individually, so we are offering up this lot in three different parcels, JTV.com item numbers BOX1950, BOX19125, and BOX1940 to our customers. 

Tune in to Jewelry Television or shop JTV.com on 11.19.11 for your opportunity to own part of this quality assortment!

Jewelry Television Presents the 70ct African Queen Ethiopian Opal Museum Quality Gem

Jewelry Television Item number XTG3324 has a price tag of $49,000.00. An extremely rare 70+ carat amazing quality Ethiopian opal, the likes of which JTV--the largest loose gemstone retailer in the world--has never seen! See (or buy) the African Queen Ethiopian Opal here on jtv.com before it debuts on air!

Full details about the 70+ Ethiopian Opal available here on jtv.com

JTV's overseas expert gemstone buyer, George Williams tells us that he has never personally seen an equal quality, dark-based opal from the Welo district that is over 10 carats in size. This is one is a whopping 70+ carats! George first saw this incredible opal at the recent 2011 Hong Kong Gem & Jewelry Show. Named the “African Queen” by the vendor, this opal's regal beauty definitely puts it into a class all its own! We believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to share this caliber of Ethiopian opal with our JTV customer, and to give one extraordinarily fortunate collector the opportunity to own such a world-class gemstone. The African Queen Ethiopian Opal has traveled thousands of miles to be here, so don't miss its television debut during Jewelry Television's Holiday Opal Fest, coming up tomorrow, Saturday November 5th and Sunday November 6th.

The African Queen is a hydrophane crystal opal that has even, brownish-amber body color. Some opals with similar body color have even been marketed as “chocolate opal” in the past—a perfect descriptor for this magnificent gem! The presence of iron oxides is believed to responsible for the African Queen’s rich, warm base color. Completely natural and untreated, the African Queen’s darker base dramatically enriches the play of color within the stone, making the colors more "vivid" than they would be on a white or clear crystal base.

This stone is of monster size, specifically 31x27mm! Although its exact Ethiopian mining location is unknown, opals of this size are definitely out of the ordinary. In Ethiopia’s Welo district (the source of our wildly popular Ethiopian Opals), opals weighing 3 carats and below are the norm. There is only a very small percentage of opal gems produced that range between 3 and 25 carats. A stone this size--plus its dark base--set it apart from the crowd. What a superb addition the African Queen would make to your gemstone collection!

The African Queen’s patterns are also refreshingly different and offer a unique change of color and pattern on both sides. If you are that customer who decides to set this collector gem into jewelry, we suggest choosing a mounting that allows the opal to move (swivel) to take advantage of both sides.
Thus far, our buying team is only aware of two other opals comparable in size and quality that have come from the Welo district, whereas Australia’s Lightning Ridge area has produced many hundreds. There have been some nice opals produced in the 15 to 35 carat size range, but nearly all are white or crystal based. The larger, darker based stones aren’t nearly this dark, nor of the quality, nor have the brilliance of the African Queen Ethiopian Opal!