A cool Aqua Flower Glass pendant looks like a flower floating below the cool water. The pendant is accented with white carved Coral, white Shell heishe beads, aqua millifiori and cat-eye beads and crystals. This 21 inch necklace is finished with a Hook and Loop clasp. The set is finished out with matching French Hook drop earrings using similar flower under glass drops.
Corals are marine organisms typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps. The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans, which secret calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. Coral tissues become colorless as they reveal the white of their calcium carbonate skeletons, an event known as coral bleaching and most corals are found in the white form. Other colorations also exist depending on chemicals and algie in the water in which they grew. Corals are highly sensitive to environmental changes. Scientists have predicted that over 50% of the world's coral reefsmay be destroyed by 2030; and as a result most nations protect them through environmental laws, especially the black corals. To overcome the shortages for jewelry and other ornamental uses, coral farms are now being developed and used for non-ocenaic purposes. Currently many species of Corals, especially reef building varities, are being considered "endangered" and are under consideration for banning for use in jewelry and other decorative uses, following in the footsteps of Ivory. Sponge Coral, however, is not on the endangered species list, plus it is a sustainable product. Sponge Coral is a farmed product and thus is not removed from the Coral Reef and does not cause the environmental damage associated with traditional corals.
Millifiori is a glasswork technique which produces distinctive decorative patterns on glassware. The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words "mille" (thousand) and "fiori" (flowers). Apsey Pellatt was the first to use the term "millefiori", which appeared in the Oxford Dictionary in 1849. This type of bead was called mosaic beads before then. While the use of this technique long precedes the term millefiori, it is now frequently associated with Venetian glassware. More recently, the millefiori technique has been applied to polymer clays and other materials. Because polymer clay is quite pliable and does not need to be heated and reheated to fuse it, it is much easier to produce millefiori patterns than with glass.
Shell and Crystals are also used in this set.
