Pollen earrings with zircons
Pollen earrings with blue topaz
Setting the stones was a bit tricky as the ear wire needed to be soldered to the back of the earring and fixed securely into the shellac so that it wouldn't break off.
Shellac (that brown material) is amazing stuff. It's a resin scraped from the bark of trees in India and Thailand after being secreted by the female lac bug. Because shellac comes in thin dry flakes, someone told me that they were beetle wings. I felt a bit guilty about that so was glad to discover it was not true. I heated my shellac flakes with a flame and dripped in onto a piece of wood, pushing the earring into the substance as it cools and hardens. It's vital to get a secure unmoving fit so that you can put the required force into setting the stone from all sides without slipping and damaging the stone. It dries hard like toffee so it can be brittle and chip off but I've got some new wonder plastic- based stuff to try out, which may mean leaving the lac bugs to their secretions...