Scrapite! What the heck is that?!

Greetings, and thanks for visiting my blog!  Today I want to talk to you about a neat new material I found at the Mesquite Gem and Mineral Show back in November.  Due to the virus-that-must-not-be-named, pickings were a little slim (that’s a long blog post in and of itself!), and my friend and I despaired of finding any worthy offerings for my upcoming jewelry designs.  Well, lo and behold, we found a familiar vendor and she did not disappoint!  Feast your eyes upon some of the new cabochons I found: scrapite!

If you look closely, you’ll notice that there seems to be a lot of different gemstones all stuck together.  That’s exactly what scrapite is!  Stone cutters (or lapidarists, if you’re feeling fancy) take their leftover cuts and crumbs and pour a black epoxy self-leveling resin over them, then leave the mixture to cure, cut it into slabs, shape, polish, and voila!  A new cabochon is born!  Check out this beauty!  I’ve labeled a few of the included gemstone varieties.  Can you find more?  

The best thing about this product is that no two are ever alike AND it minimizes waste!  Gemstones aren’t getting any cheaper, especially with all this you-know-what floating around and gumming up the supply chain.  It also conceptually matches my approach to jewelry, which, as I’m sure you’re aware, involves recycling old musical instruments.  

I’ve already made up a piece of clarinet jewelry with one of my scrapite cabochons.  It will be available starting February 1, 2022 (or January 27, 2022 if you’re an e-mail subscriber!)  Once again, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for further adventures!