Peridot: The August Birthstone

The August birthstone, peridot, is a beautiful bright green gemstone also known as olivine. Its use is ancient, and the peridot has been confused with the emerald. The ancient source of peridot was from Saint John Island in the Red Sea, also known as the "Serpent Island" (apparently the miners had to fight snakes during their work) and therefore, peridot is often thought to protect against snakes. Today, much of the peridot used in peridot jewelry comes from Arizona.

Peridot is often associated with wealth, likely a modern view of the gemstone. For those who believe in the power of gemstones to effect change, the peridot is credited with increasing energy and strength, and protecting the wrists, lungs, and sinuses. Emotionally, it is said to relieve negative feelings, prevent nervousness, and dispel anger. Insomniacs would do well to wear peridot to bed at night since one of its benefits is to encourage sleep. Many also believe that peridot possesses the power to help heal hurt feelings, so if you believe in the Victorian sensibility of letting gemstones send a message, peridot jewelry is a gift that for the person whose feelings you've wounded.

In addition to being the August birthstone, peridot is also the gemstone for the 16th year of marriage and the gemstone of Saint Bartholomew.
Peridot is a gemstone that I like to work with when I can find it in a decent size. It is extremely difficult to find peridot nuggets - or any form of peridot bead over 5mm in size. Gem quality peridot is especially beautiful, clear and bright, a green that zings when it hits your eyes. Peridot looks great alone or when combined with one other or several gemstones. The first peridot bracelet has just a hint of amethyst suggested by the lampwork bead, a peridot coloured lentil with a purple design on it. The amethyst accent is repeated in the gemstone clasp of the bracelet (see second picture).
Rose quartz and lampwork beads enhance the next peridot bracelet, and freshwater Biwa pearls and intricate sterling silver dominate the next bracelet.
Smokey quartz combines with peridot and lampwork in the peridot necklace with a rather large faceted peridot in its gemstone pendant. Below, peridot earrings boast bezel set peridots in one pair, and larger peridot nuggets in another.

If you've never worn peridot, give this pretty gemstone a try - it's as satisfying to wear and as becoming as emeralds!

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Wrapped morrisonite

Here is the first cab I made, wrapped in sterling silver. I think I'll keep this one for myself, to look back at my ever first :)














Also made a new small cab, a variegated jasper, cute and small. Really neat colors in it, red with blue and some bits of silvery at the top. Wondering how I'm going to wrap this one...

First cab reworked and a new one, serpentine

I reworked the first cab as there was a crack on it, so I had to grind away at the rock until the crack. Now it's a bit smaller and actually I like it better too.




Here is a second cab I made today. It's a brown serpentine from Cyprus, which is so abundantly found here on the island. It is quite a nice one, light brown with dark spots on it. Can't wait to wrap it and see the final result :)

My first cab

Finally I got the Ameritool cabbing machine today, it was released from being hostage at the post office after I paid 80 Euros fees. Couldn't wait to come home from work and start playing with it. I've set it up, took a piece of morrisonite that Amy sent me a while ago in box with other rocks, and started grinding away at it.
First of all, I have to say that working on the machine is extremely relaxing, very quiet actually and really rewarding when you see the piece of rock starting to shape and smoothen up. So now the last doubt about buying the machine is gone as well, as I truly enjoyed polishing up this stone.
The result is not something spectacular, but it's special to me, as it's my first cab :)

Results of the second stage tumbling

After over 2 months since I started tumbling rocks, they went through 6 weeks of stage 1 and 2-3 weeks of stage 2. Here are a few pictures. The rocks are not very clean, I'll clean them up well when I have enough for stage 3, the pre-polishing stage.

Some citrine, amethyst, red jasper, a few tiger eye,rose quartz and at the right top corner of the first pic there are some serpentine, with nice green and black dots on them. Cyprus apparently is relatively abundant in serpentine, and I had no troubles finding these pieces on the beaches here.

Reading a good thriller

For me reading a good thriller, mystery is like immersing my soul into another dimension, losing myself and becoming totally captivated in another world.
This is what happened when I read No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay, a thriller which starts with...
You wake up, your house is empty, your family has disappeared...
And then the story builds up from this strong premise. The idea is pretty scary, if you think about it, and I thought about it quite a lot these days while I was reading the book. Couldn't wait to get home from work to get the book in my hands. The ending didn't disappoint, I even shed a single tear (call me sentimental). I don't want to give away the plot, so I'll only say that if you like thrillers by Nicci French, Harlan Coben and the like, I'm sure you will love this one as well.

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another.....

This rhodochrosite bracelet really cheers me up, and wow! do I ever need cheering up! While I usually don't get into personal issues here on the jewelry blog, this last week (and it's been some kind of month, too, but that's another story) has really been rough.
Orders, orders, orders, and I have lost the person who does the packing/wrapping for me. Unfortunately, I'm not the fastest wrapper/packer in the world, so I'm behind on getting orders mailed out - tomorrow I plan another marathon day to catch up finally.
On Tuesday of last week, I ate some lemon frozen yoghurt. Sounds delicious, right? But even though it looked as though it could have melted and refrozen and there was a slit in the top, it was late, and I wanted, really wanted, that lemon yoghurt. Food poisoning is not fun. I had salmonella once in India, and this ran a close second to that and lasted almost as long. This food poisoning, like salmonella, makes you feel bad all over; all you can do is lie as still as possible - not that easy since no position is really comfortable and you feel too bad even to read.
In addition to everything else, Startlogic, the company who hosts my website, has put in a new server that is supposed(!?!) to be wonderful. Today, my site has been offline almost all day. In the last 2 weeks, my site has been offline more than it had in the 4 previous years totaled. I still can't check my e-mail through the site at this moment, and just when I thought it was back on, it's down again! Sometimes I hate "improvements."
But I do like the bracelet above (there are 2 different views of it) made with rhodochrosite, rubies, and the lampwork of Lynn Nurge. I've also been looking at a lot of Georgian and Victorian jewelry; the ruby bracelet below features rubies and tuquoise, a combination I found in a Victorian brooch and liked. The colours complement each other very well - I can't wait to try the combination with gold.
Aquamarine is featured in the jade earrings in the shape of lilies. A small smooth nugget of aquamarine forms the stamen of the lily. The earrings hang from sterling silver posts with a good-sized white freshwater pearl cabochon. Very elegant earrings.

The tiger-eye bracelet below features a focal carved oval tigereye surrounded by genuine aquamarines, a large aquamarine slab, and once again, the lampwork beads of Lynn Nurge.
Now if my website will just stay online, I'll be able to get these posted!
And keep your fingers crossed for me that this week will be a significant improvement over the last one!

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