Mini Marvels - Jetflair

It's Mini-Marvel time!

Jetflair, the designer behind Distinction Jewelry, knows the benefits of showcasing fabulously gorgeous gemstones behind simple, elegant designs. Her shop is FILLED with absolutely amazing set-jewelry and beaded pieces featuring beautifully cut stones as well as funky inspiration pieces. She's definitely a source of inspiration and someday, when I grow up, I want to be able to make beauties the way she does!

I asked her to talk a little about herself and here's what she had to say:

Thanks for doing me the honor of featuring my work on your blog! I am fascinated (or to put it perhaps more honestly, obsessed) by gemstones; in fact sometimes I think I continue to persevere in the hyper-competitive jewelry market simply to have a valid excuse to work with an amazing variety of pretty rocks.

There are two main types of stones you’ll find in my work: faceted gems and gemstone cabochons. Faceted gems are the beautiful sparkly creatures you’re used to seeing in fine jewelry stores, traditionally cut from transparent gems. Cabochons are often cut from those same stones, but more commonly are hand-cut to show off a remarkable variety of patterns and colors occurring in opaque or translucent stones not traditionally seen in jewelry. These are usually one-of-a-kind and collecting them is truly addicting.

I tend towards two broad styles in jewelry design; minimalist presentations that highlight the natural beauty of the stone by allowing it to take center stage, and thematic or graphic designs which use stones as design elements in, for instance, a desert landscape or a star constellation. I have never been able to draw with a pen and ink, but I can do so in gems and metal.

My primary inspirations couldn’t be more different; one is raw reality as found in the naturally occurring art of nature, and the other is fiction. I am drawn to nature’s extremes and natural power. Lightning. Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Deserts. The wonders of outer space. Portraying them using materials created by natural forces seems only too fitting.

Being as I’m a total geek at heart, I also find ample inspiration in the fictional worlds of my favorite characters and stories, especially those from my favorite TV shows like Firefly, Stargate Atlantis, Flashpoint, and Numb3rs. This makes designs like my popular Galaxy Series pendants and bullet shell casing jewelry a natural fit for my work.

One pendant I made recently involved melting down sterling silver in a small crucible and plunging a piece of real iron meteorite into the molten metal. Letting it cool created a unique pendant quite literally forged from the fires of earth and space.

It thrills me to sell my jewelry online; my work is being worn in exotic locations across the world, by celebrities, and in most states in the US. I love writing foreign addresses on envelopes, and one day I’d love to have time to compile a world map showing where my pieces have gone. It’s almost like vicarious travel!

Looking forward to the future, I’m interested in exploring more methods and designs like crushed stone inlay and acid etching. I will also be testing out the idea of using custom-cut stones to increase their usefulness in “drawing with gems.” But more than anything, I’ll be following my obsession with pretty rocks.

It's my honor to have found such fabulous people to be around to learn and grow and laugh with...:)
♥