Seems my creations travel to some great states and countries!

Talk about procrastination - years ago I said I should put up a map of the World and put a flag on each location where I have shipped a piece of jewelry. In going over my records, this past year I have shipped jewelry to California, New York, Oklahoma, Arizona, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Maryland, Iowa, Florida, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Texas, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia and even across the street from my home! How's that for some flags!!! I love it. Thanks to all who have supported the cause.


My most recent being this turquoise concho leather cuff to Sydney, Australia.

Now how is that for some travel time!

These cuffs have been quite popular for me. Guess I better get to it and make some more. 

Turquoise Concho Belt Project

A few years back, my husband wanted a turquoise concho belt. I thought about the project and wiped my brow after several hours of considering all that might be involved in its creation. After a couple of weeks of contemplation, I jumped in. Believe me, it was not just a "snap of the finger"! It was definitely an engineering feat, too.


First, there was the selection of the turquoise I was going to use. I figured there would be at least 14 to 15 conchos and a buckle based on his waist size. He wanted something along the conservative line with the turquoise as the main attraction. Okay.... So after digging through all my turquoise rough, I finally came up with a turquoise nugget about the size of a small grapefruit and decided to start slabbing. Well, after the slabbing process, my blade bit the dust and as fate would have it, I did not have another so I had to order one. Actually, that was a good thing because it gave me the chance to lay the slabs on top of a black leather strap and figure out how I was going to trim the cabs for the conchos. The photo below is what I ended up with after my blade arrived. I forgot to take a photo of the nugget I slabbed, but it was similar to the nugget in the upper left corner. The piece in the lower right corner would be the stone for the buckle. I believe the turquoise is from the old Santa Rita Turquoise Mine out of New Mexico.

With this process done, I started the grinding and polishing process and this is what the stones looked like.  At this phase, I started making the bezels for the stones.

Once all the bezels were made, I started making the shanks for the backside that would be soldered onto silver sheet.

After soldering the bezel to the plate, I hand sawed the silver sheet to follow the shape of the specific stone and soldered the shank to the backside. After this process on each concho, I went through the polishing process, then set the stones.

The buckle was a challenge, too, but it sure turned out pretty!

Below is a photo of the buckle and all the conchos for the belt.

It was hard to get a photo of the complete belt, but here are a few.

And there it is in all its glory. It is a family heirloom!