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Dimare Abalone Jewelry - By Bruce Wanliss
Welcome to the website of Dimare Jewelry! Dimare Jewelry is your source for Mother of Pearl jewelry, Abalone shell jewelry, Turbo and Conch shell Jewelry.Each piece of Mother of Pearl Jewelry and Conch shell jewelry is handcrafted and handmade from the finest shells and set in gold or sterling silver.
The first abalone shell I took from the ocean mesmerized me. I had shucked the meat and looked into the underside of the shell to discover some the most beautiful colors I had seen in nature. The smooth texture where the animal grew up, gently rubbing the inner part of its home and polishing it to a fine sheen, almost defied speech. At that moment I knew I was part of nature and had to showcase this species in fine silver or gold Abalone Jewelry to share with others not as fortunate as I was.
And so began the slow learning process of grinding, shaping, polishing, cutting and assembling my abalone jewelry. Very little literature was available and only the bad side effects repeatedly warned me about working with this shell. The dust, if inhaled for continuous lengths of time can be toxic and in some cases have caused death to the unfortunate crafter. My mother of pearl and ablone jewelry pieces are self made, by this I mean that in each shell there is some characteristic I notice, be it in color shape or both. Each is an individual and has no comparison to another piece. I can make an exact replica of the shape but never the color. So in most of my abalone jewelry and mother of pearl jewelry pieces you will notice a slight variance of color.
Times have changed and technology improved. Trial and error, much time and money spent in researching the methods and species of ablone shell from around the world have brought me to five types of shells I use in my jewelry.
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