Everything's Coming Up Rosy

One of my favorite gemstones is rose quartz. This beautiful mineral is just one of several varieties of quartz, which is the second-most abundant mineral on earth (feldspar is first, if you were wondering).

Pure quartz is translucent and colorless, while other varieties such as rose quartz, amethyst and citrine get their color from traces of other minerals within their crystal structure. Mineralogists are still debating over which minerals give rose quartz its pink hue. Possible contenders include titanium, manganese and iron.

I really don’t care where the color comes from; I just think it’s pretty.

My parents gave me my first piece of rose quartz jewelry, the silver bracelet below, on my 21^st birthday. I picked it out at Ed’s House of Gems in Portland, Oregon. That was many moons ago. Much, much later my dad bought the rose quartz pendant and gold chain for me from a museum gift shop.

Not only do I love these pieces because of the rose quartz but because of the memories they evoke.

I’m linking to Pink Saturday. C’mon over!

Till next time,

Ba-da Bling, Part II

Join me for another trip to the Smithsonian's Gem Gallery, where we can find more fantastic jewels.

Sapphire necklaces by Harry Winston (left) and Cartier (right)

The Hall Sapphire Necklace on the left, designed by Harry Winston, Inc., features 36 sapphires totaling 195 carats, set in platinum and accented by 435 pear-shaped and round brilliant-cut diamonds, totaling 83.75 carats.

The Bismarck Sapphire is named after its former owner, Countess Mona Von Bismarck, an American who married into German nobility in the 1930s. The 98.57-carat sapphire is mounted in a platinum necklace set with 312 baguette and round brilliant cut diamonds and accented with 8 square-cut sapphires.

The egg-sized Logan Sapphire brooch

This huge sapphire weighs 423 carats(!) and is one of the largest faceted sapphires in the world. It is surrounded by 20 round brilliant diamonds.

Emerald and diamond brooch

If you're tired of wearing sapphires all the time, emeralds are another good choice. This emerald, weighing more than 75 carats, once adorned the belt buckle of a sultan. It was reincarnated into a brooch with 129 diamonds.

Emerald necklace

Perhaps you'd like to make a bigger statement. How about this Art Deco piece designed by Cartier in the late 1920s? Twenty-four baroque-cut emeralds are set with smaller emeralds and diamonds in a platinum setting.

Yellow diamonds by Cartier.

Designed by Cartier, Inc. in the late 1980s, this necklace has 50 starburst-cut fancy yellow diamonds with a total weight of 244.10 carats. The matching ear clips contain 25-carat fancy yellow diamonds surrounded by 16 baguette and 4 pear-shaped colorless diamonds, totaling 26.80 carats for the pair. The ring is a 61-carat fancy yellow diamond.

The Chalk Emerald Ring

Donated to the Smithsonian by the Chalk family, this emerald weighs just under 38 carats. It was once part of a necklace owned by an Indian maharani. It was recut by Harry Winston, placed it in a ring surrounded by 15 carats of diamonds.

These jewels are gorgeous, and they do sparkle, but I'll have to be content just to look. And I'm OK with that.

I'm linking to Smiling Sally's

One Thing and Another

Here's a Nifty Craft Project from Ginger



 Isn't this a great idea for a jewelry organizer? Go to Gingersnap Crafts to see how she did it - without spending a cent!

Ginger is one of the many creative bloggers out there on the Interweb whose talents I envy and admire. I copy many of their ideas and tutorials into a folder for future use. Yes, I know I should be using Pinterest, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

I did manage to make a craft that was extremely time-consuming and complicated and expensive and...OK, I'm lying. I made an origami bookmark corner courtesy of Fabric Fascination. It was so simple that I figured I could handle it, but I won't bore you with a picture.

My goal, and I do have one, is to take the time to complete some of the great projects that I've found in Blogland. I'm going to start with baby steps, but eventually I'm going to make a quilt!



Aroma-Scope Smells of Disappointment

I saw Spy Kids: All the Time in the World this morning with my youngest son and four of my grandchildren. We paid an additional three dollars per ticket for the 3-D and Aroma-Scope version (touted as 4-D) because I thought the kids would get a kick out of it.

The young ones liked the movie well enough, and the rest of us appreciated the nod to the old Spy Kids movies (which were vastly superior to this one). The 3-D was OK, though not in the Avatar class, but the Aroma-Scope was a huge let-down. 4-D, hah!

Along with our 3-D glasses we were given scratch-and sniff cards with eight numbered squares. When a number appeared on the screen we were to scratch the corresponding number on the card to experience the smell of what was being depicted on the screen. The smells were supposed to range from bacon to dirty diapers (oh, joy), but each square on the card smelled like air freshener - the same air freshener.

Aroma-Scope smells, all right, so save your money and wait for the DVD. Your nose will never know the difference.


Thank you to all my new blogger friends who've taken the time to visit me and leave wonderful comments. And special thanks to my first followers, Beverly and Montanagirl! I'm starting to feel like a real blogger!