Using a pearl as a briolette stone
For those that are looking for how to wrap a briolette stone, consider using something like this instead. Rather than a briolette, a top drilled pearl has been used in place.
Top drilled pearls are becoming quite easy to find, particularly in my favorite supply place: eBay. Yes, I have much better supply places as a bench jeweler, but for the most part, I do pick up so many of my supplies there.
The more expensive pieces and the higher quality pieces I generally purchase at my jewelers supply houses, but for the most part, so many of the parts that I buy, I can purchase cheaper in bulk on eBay. Keep that in mind if you are making jewelry as gifts this Christmas. I am and I just stocked up on new bits and bobs, parts and pieces for all my planned pieces. Now I have little bits of jewelry parts spread all through the different parts of the house as I walk around working on my Christmas gifts.
Anyway, back to this piece. Briolettes are slowly getting played out. Not to say they are not still beautiful, because they are definitely still that. It is just that it is time to expand beyond just a briolette.
This pearl is a great beginning. It is the same style as the gorgeous single briolette pendant, down to the wire wrap and everything. But instead of the briolette, the pearl has been drilled in the style of a briolette (top drilled) and hung as if it were a briolette stone. Nicely done.
If you cannot find a top drilled pearl, you can actually purchase an undrilled pearl and take it to your local jeweler and ask the bench jeweler to top drill the pearl. Make sure to specify to top drill so that they know not to center drill. If you feel like you might not explain it well, simply print out this picture and take that in to show the jeweler. The drilling is an extremely simple thing, and should cost you next to nothing. There should only be a minimal charge for time. And most jewelry stores will sell single pearls too, so if you want to get your hands on a nice quality single pearl to make a pendant necklace like this, you could make it a single stop shopping trip.
The wire that you use to wrap and create the loops (making basic rosary loops) is always available in different diameters, in addition to different metals (gold, silver, copper, all types of base metals and even platinum if you have the chump change for that at almost $1,500 an ounce these days) so you can easily find the right wire to fit the drilled hole. If you feel like it, there are even different color base metal wires available at the craft stores now. You could have a lot of fun mixing and matching colors pearls and colored wires for some amazingly different pendants.
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