There's a moment every summer when the light changes — softer in the morning, golden by evening — and I find myself reaching for warmer colors, richer textures, anything that catches that light and holds onto it a little longer. That's exactly the feeling I chased when I made this pair of earrings.
Each one carries a small constellation of natural stones: the cool green of peridot, the quiet lavender of amethyst, the warm orange of carnelian, and a touch of citrine's honeyed glow. At the very bottom, a faceted champagne cubic zirconia drop catches the light like a drop of dew at sunrise. It's a color palette that doesn't try too hard — it just feels like late summer, like a garden at golden hour, like the kind of jewelry that goes with everything from linen dresses to your favorite worn-in jeans.
What I love most about designing with mixed gemstones like this is that no two beads are ever quite identical. That's the beauty of natural stone — every chip of amethyst, every carnelian round, has its own personality, its own tiny imperfection that makes it real. I hand-forged the little copper medallions myself, hammering and shaping each one, then set them against sterling silver so the two metals play off each other — one warm, one cool, both a little imperfect in the best way.
I also wanted these to actually be wearable, not just beautiful sitting in a jewelry box. So even though they have that lovely, dramatic chandelier movement, they're genuinely lightweight — the kind of earrings you forget you're wearing until you catch your reflection and do a little double take.
This is really the heart of what I love about mixed-gemstone jewelry right now: it's having a real moment, and I think it's because it feels personal in a way that matched, uniform pieces sometimes don't. A necklace or a pair of earrings that combines several stones tells a small story — it doesn't ask you to match your entire outfit around it, it just adds warmth and a bit of unexpected color wherever you put it on.
If you're building out your jewelry box for the season ahead, I'd gently suggest leaning into pieces like this — things with a little movement, a little imperfection, a little story behind them. They tend to be the pieces you reach for again and again, long after the trendier stuff has been pushed to the back of the drawer.
























