Welcome to Tom's Cool Jewels

I hope you enjoy your visit here. My passion for rocks, lapidary, faceting, and jewelry making grew out of a life long love of nature and getting out in the woods of the White Mountains in northern New Hampshire. One day while walking down a rail trail I saw a beautiful green glassy glimmer on the side of a piece of the crushed stone of the old railroad bed. It was about the size of my thumb nail. I had no idea what it was, but I thought, wow! I need to do something with that stone. 

Thus began my journey into stone cutting and polishing. You could say finding that green stone unleashed a monster. I started to educate myself about gem faceting. The very first thing I learned was you do NOT facet stones by tapping them gently with a hammer and chisel until... voila! Oh no! Gems are ground and polished. They are ground and polished on special machines. They are machines that are very expensive! 

So I spent a long time saving my pennies and pouring over the listings on ebay until one day about 5 years later, I found a used machine I could afford. Then I spent several more years grinding beautiful quartz crystals into sand as i learned how to use the faceter. 

This is a faceting machine, a precision grinder made by Imperial Gem Instruments.

Of course there have been side trips on this journey. First there is looking for stones. I can't think of a better way to spend my summer days than going out and hunting for rocks. Then there is cutting and slabbing the rough stones into smooth slices. This requires MORE equipment, naturally. Saws with diamond wheels and grinders for shaping and smoothing. 

Oval made of local quartz crystal

 With all this collecting and stone cutting, it doesn't take long before one amasses quite an inventory of cut polished cabochons and faceted gemstones. What was I going to do with all of them?

New Hampshire quartz in a cushion cut

 I can only give away so many at Christmas time. Buying settings for them becomes exceedingly expensive. So I reasoned, if I could make facets on a stone, I should also be able to make my own settings for them. The metalwork proved to be considerably harder for me than the stone work. So I took a class. 

Serpentine cabochon from near Quarryville, PA

Thank goodness for the Littleton Studio School in Littleton NH, and instructor Jean Matray, who taught me the basics of bending, shaping, and soldering metal. There I got my start, and now a year later I still go to my Tuesday night open studio at the school, even though I have a pretty well equipped shop here at my home in Jefferson. 

The green stone that started it all. Prehnite

So what I do is hunt for pretty stones, here in New Hampshire and elsewhere around the country, and I turn them into wearable pieces. I harbor a delusion that I will be able to sell them and become fabulously wealthy. I will depend on you, my faithful reader, to help me realize that fantasy. Anyway, have a look at the page links to the left where you will find some of my work. I can do custom crafting of jewelry, faceted gemstones, and cabochons. I would love to hear from you. Send me an email. Also, if you have been following this blog for awhile you will likely notice some changes from the last time you visited. 

I know that jewelry is an extremely personal thing. I suspect a piece of jewelry finds its wearer as much as the person finds the jewelry. There is something about a piece that reaches out and grabs you. This means it's probably a pretty hard sell to convince someone to buy jewelry through an online shop that only has pictures and descriptions. I want you to feel secure buying anything from me. I want you to know that you can try any piece for a month and return anything that doesn't feel right for you. More over, you can tell from the website that I am NOT a huge impersonal business. You will always be able to reach ME if you need to communicate about something you purchase here.

I can accept payment in checks, money orders, PayPal, credit cards and bitcoins. Bitcoin has become another absorbing interest for me, but that is a separate story. Suffice it to say, I want to see more people use bitcoin so I will do whatever I can to help make it a secure, safe, convenient payment  method. If you are interested in using bitcoin, I encourage you to look at my jewelry shop on OpenBazaar, if you use it. My handle there is @TomWoods_nh_jewelrymaker. One easy way to find my offerings is to search in OB for #TomWoods. Of course, if you DO NOT have OpenBazaar, we can always exchange bitcoins privately. Just email me and we will make arrangements.

 Thank you for coming to my blog. I hope you enjoy visiting these pages.