These last few months I have been working really hard on creating my first stone setting piece. Our tutor Michelle gave us the option to submit our piece to The Scottish Gemmological Association s’ competition, GemSet15. The competition is for all jewellery students across Scotland, including University students. Considering I have only been doing jewellery for 6 months, and this is my very first stone setting piece, I didn’t have high expectations. Nevertheless, I worked as h...ard as I could on the piece and I am stunned to find out I have won 3rd in Scotland!

As many of you will know, my health has been far from great and I have faced many challenges with this project. Almost everything that could have went wrong, went wrong. I struggled my way to college on crutches, I went in every extra day I could manage and I was still working up until the very last minute. I have overcome these problems to gain more skills and experience than I could ever have hoped for.



My piece of jewellery was inspired by bioluminescence in the insect kingdom. I researched many jewellers from the Art Nouveau era to influence the style of my piece. It is comprised of polished and oxidised sterling silver, photoluminescent pigment, resin and 3 cubic zirconia stones. One 20x15mm pear cut stone, and one 2.5mm round brilliant in each end of the T-Bar catchment. If you ‘charge’ the piece under direct, natural or artificial light for 1 hour, it will glow vibrantly for 10 hours. It is intended as an eveningwear piece.



