Aquamarines and a butterfly

I finally finished this piece and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Made up of aquamarine nuggets and a painted bone pendant, the strand is approximately 18" long (without the pendant) and the pendant itself is 1.5" x 1" decorated with a picture of a delicate butterfly.

As I mentioned before, the aquamarine nuggets were really tricky to work with because of how they are all shaped so organically, sloping on one side and angling on the other. The stones themselves are interesting because of their wide range of colors, from blue to green to brown.

Aquamarines originally got their name from the Latin words meaning "water of the sea", which I think is a wonderful derivation. It is a variety of the stone beryl, and it usually has a delicate blue or turquoise color that is suggestive of seawater. The colors of the stones I have in this necklace could probably range from the color of seawater to the color of a river after it rains. Aquamarine is also the birthstone of the March babies, including that of my cousin.