Earlier today I put up quite a few new Crystal Formations photos for you. There are smallish ones, like you see on the right, and larger ones so that you can get a good look. I hope you enjoy them.

I’m updating the blog here to the newest version of the WordPress software. If the blog seems slow or strange it may be that it’s in the m iddle of updating. Please be patient

Thanks!
 

New Goodies

Yep, fun new stuff is up at CrystalsAndJewelry.com for your viewing and shopping fun.  There are new and back in stock tumbled stones, for one. And more jewelry has been added to the Jewelry Clearance, as I’m getting ready to make a number of changes in the site and goodies I keep in stock. So whether you’re a crystals and stones fan or a crystals and jewelry fan, there’s something for you in the new goodies. 

Stuff 

The "Stuff" part is personal stuff.  Yesterday, I had great plans for getting a bunch of made to order jewelry out and getting stuff I had ready for the site uploaded.  Then my shoe slipped off and tripped me. Down I went on one hand and one knee.  (The other hand and knee were propped on the edge of the bed where I was trying to catch myself.) I’m extremely protective of my hands, since it’s almost impossible to make jewelry without them. So I went to get an ice pack on my injured hand immediately, and that’s the way I stayed all day yesterday. Today I have a couple of stiff fingers and an achy wrist, but no swelling or anything alarming. So I think I’ll be fine, just a little slower than I’d like.  That brings me to this

Tip for Jewelry Artists: Protect your hands at all costs! If something happens in spite of your best efforts, stop everything to take care of your hands. Go to a doctor or the ER if there’s any question of a broken bone, even. It pays to keep your best tools in good shape.

Here’s the question that showed up in my email box:

Q: “Do lab created gemstones have same healing effects as the natural gemstones?”

A: The short answer is: In some cases. The longer answer obviously must be a little more complex.

First, a little info on lab created stones and their real and simulated counterparts. There are 3 basic types of gemstones in this sense: Real/Natural, Lab Created, and Simulated.

Real/Natural - These are the ones that grow in the ground, “manufactured” by nature. Natural stones are often enhanced with various treatments to make them more appealing or have deeper coloring, etc.

Lab Created - These are gemstones that are grown in the lab using the same chemical composition as the real/natural stones by simulating the heat and high pressure that grows the stones in nature. They are identical to real gemstones as far as color, hardness, composition, luster. Lab created stones, though, do not have inclusions normally, the way natural stones do, which can make them look “unreal” sometimes.

Simulated - These are gemstones that similate a real stone. They are made to look like the stone they simulate, but they seldom have the same composition and hardness, and may differ in other ways as well.

Real/Natural stones have similar energy, as in crystal healing, when they’re the same types of stones. Of course, within each type of stone there are variations in each individual stone. This is the same in the way that no two humans, snowflakes, cats, or anything else are precisely alike, even within the same type of being. Crystal healing lore and properties are generalizations based on the traditions that a stone has been used for in healing, as well as the energies of the type of stone. For instance, citrine is said to bring success — that’s a generalization because most natural citrines are seen to have these energies. It’s also possible, though, to encounter a natural citrine, though, that has greater energies of diminishing mood swings, another energy of citrine, than success energies, even to the point it may seem to have hardly any success energies at all.

Lab created stones in my experience have greater variations within type of stone. I have encountered lab created stones with great energy, some appearing to me to have the same energy as the natural version of that stone. I have also encountered ones that felt dead as doornails or that seemed to have totally different energy than a natural stone of the same type. My personal experience and thought on it is that lab created stones have to be judged individually and don’t generalize as well for crystal healing energies.

Simulants, the third type of stone are ones that I’ve found pretty consistent. They almost never have the same energies as the real/natural stone they mimic. One reason for this may be that different types of stones are used to mimic other types. For instance, purple cubic zirconia is often used to mimic amethyst, which is only mimics in coloring but not in composition or anything else. The only way I would use simulants in healing is for color energy healing, not for crystal healing per se

Please keep in mind that this is my experience and vewpoint on crystal healing energies. Many healers categorically exclude lab created stones and simulants from the idea of having healing energies.

I’ve adored Ornament magazine in print for a good while now. Last night a friend gave me a link to their website.  I didn’t even realize they had one! I’m not sure how I missed that, but I’m glad I’m not missing it any more.  If you ever need inspiration for making jewelry or some great eye candy or articles, it’s a great place to visit.

Argentium® is tarnish-resistant, not tarnish-free or tarnish-proof, contrary to what some sources have said. I’ve read many places that Argentium® sterling silver is tarnish-free. One supplier I use even went to far as to guarantee their Argentium® wire would not tarnish.  I happen to like them a lot, so I clued them in to this fact:  It’s not impossible for Argentium® to tarnish.  In spite of its high tarnish-resistance, it will tarnish under certain conditions. Yep. It will. I know. After all, I’ve been working with it for about a year and a half. It’s pretty easy to keep it from tarnishing, though.

Tips for keeping your Argentium® sterling silver free of tarnish:

• Buy only activated Argentium®. That’s Argentium® that’s been prepared properly to bring the germanium oxide to the surface, which is what protects it from tarnish. Fortunately, now that Argentium® has been around a while, most Argentium® that’s out there is activated.
• Buff and polish Argentium® with polishing cloths, buffing wheels, etc. reserved for it.
  The copper in traditional sterling or other alloys can be embedded in polishing cloths and such, and  can impair the tarnish-resistance of the Argentium®.
• Tumble Argentium® with shot and a tumbling barrel reserved for it.
• Store Argentium® away from other metals.
• Use Argentium® findings and beads in your jewelry if possible.
  They’re harder to find than traditional sterling silver, but they won’t accidentally contaminate your Argentium®. And you can always make your own if you can’t find ones you like.
• If you plan to sell your Argentium® sterling silver jewelry as tarnish-resistant, inform your buyers.
  I supply a free jewelry care tip sheet with Argentium® info and tips on it with the jewelry I sell.

Argentium® sterling silver is great stuff.  It doesn’t tarnish easily, and with just a little care you can keep it tarnish free.

I got new crystals and new jewelry up. Woo!

Now, I just have to brag on this one piece, Sacred Song. I am sooooooo crazy about the stone in this one. It’s an AWESOME gem silica with malachite designer cab. Ignore the white spot — that’s just the lighting flashing off the insanely glass-like polish it has. I guess I’m just not a good enough a photographer. Ah well.

Isn’t that a gorgeous stone? Go to the pendant’s page and see the enlarged photos too. Yummmmm. I loved this stone so much that even though it was a not-at-all-cheap one that as a business person I should have set immediately and sold, I have held on to it for months, almost a year. So much for my business acumen! hehehe I’ve had the stone sitting on my jewelry desk (in a protective baggie of course) so I could just stare at it. I didn’t want to let it go! Finally, though, I got a strong sense that it was time. I guess this baby is ready to go on to it’s own home now. I’ll sure miss him. He’s so gorgeous and has such inspirational energy.

Oh, tumbled charoite is back in stock too, Chuck has informed me. Woo hoo! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get hold of that stuff? Sheesh. One of the really crazy things about selling crystals and stones is just trying to find decent ones. And then there’s the chaos when you get sent the wrong size or just plain cruddy stones. Then it’s back to the wholesale supplier to go, “What the heck is up here?” and try to get it all sorted out. Sometimes dealing with all that can take hours, which seems a little silly to us, but that’s the way it goes. Don’t take it that I’m saying it’s the supplier’s fault. Sometimes it is, in which case pffffffft on that. Other times it has to do with the materials that are being mined at the time, or the folks who are doing the tumbling. There are so many factors that go into it that it can be just mindboggling.

Now I really must go send out a newsletter. [ shameless newsletter plug ] Join up at the bottom of most any page on CrystalsAndJewelry.com if you want. I’m not sure I’d allow someone to boil me in oil before I’d give away my email list, but almost. [ end shamless newsletter plug ]

I’m still here!  I moved CrystalsAndJewelry.com to a new webhost last night, and it may take a day or so for the whole internet to catch up to the fact. But don’t worry, I haven’t vanished.  If you send me an email and it bounces back to you, it’s just gotten caught up in the move. Please just re-send it to me.

Oh! there’s also new jewelry. Yummy!  I adore the one with the rainbow moonstones. Ah well, I can’t possibly keep everything Gabrielle and I make. hehehe

If you don’t back up, you may crack up.  Having duplicates of all your business data is critical! And having back ups of your personal data is probably just as important to you. It is CRITICAL though to have back ups of your business data. Critical. CRITICAL! Got it?

This morning Chuck called to tell me his hard drive croaked. Ack! Don’t we all hate that! Yes, he hates it, too. By the time he called me, he had already been to the nearest computer store and bought a new hard drive and was getting ready to install it. Fortunately, Chuck is business savvy and has an external hard drive that all his business data is backed up on daily. So what data will he lose? None!  He’ll lose some time and money to replace the internal hard drive that croaked, but he won’t lose any important business information! Yay! And because he can put it all back together quickly, it will only cost a day or so of other work. Since he was totally caught up with shipping for CrystalsAndJewelry.com, that means that even orders that came in last night should ship out on time, or maybe a day late. If he’d had to try to rebuild all his business information, there’s no way that could have been the case. So let’s all give Chuck a big cheer. Yay!

If you’re going to do business of any kind in today’s world, it’s super super super important to make daily back ups of your business information.  Don’t be lulled into thinking things like, "Oh, my computer is new. It will be fine," or "I’ll get around to it one of these days."  Most people seem to like to learn the hard way that one day it won’t be fine, and if you haven’t gotten around to it you’ll be up a creek.  I learned the hard way myself.

Fortunately I got to learn the hard way about backing up my info long before I had my own jewelry business, back when I was a network admin. (Yes, I was a geekette once upon a time.) And boy have I been glad of it!  I have been the back up queen ever since. Currently all my business data is stored on a mirrord hard drive pair (a RAID), and three - yes 3!!! — back up hard drives. One of those back up hard drives is external so that in case of a fire I can grab it and run.  Plus, I make regular CD back ups.  Am I paranoid? Maybe. Maybe not.

When I moved up to  New York for a couple of years, of course my computer and business info moved with me. At the time, even Chuck thought I was a little over the top having all my information on three hard drives.  It turned out I was not the least bit over the top.  During the move, two of those hard drives were damaged!  So when I got there, I had lost 2 of my back ups, but I still had one complete copy of all my business information!  Yay for me! Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you have too many back ups either.

No matter how inconvenient or expensive it may seem, it’s MORE than worth it to back up your business information. These days, an external USB hard drive is cheap enough that most anyone can get one, and many have a one touch back up feature.  Or back up to CD’s, or secure web space. But back up your business data somewhere. If you don’t, it’s almost certain one day you’ll be sorry.

Yes, new jewelry is up! Hot damn! I posted a number of Gabrielle’s pieces with her lucious gemstones and some with Swarovski crystals, because for the month of January, all of hers is on sale! I have more here, photographed and ready for me to get my rear in gear to get them up.

WHY aren’t they all up yet, you ask? Don’t! hehehe I made the “mistake” of upgrading my blog software to the newest version — more secure n all that — and the danged thing has been giving me fits ever since. I had to stop dealing with it all and go take a ride to keep from grinding my teeth to nubs. (Better than me taking a drink since that makes me fall over on my face asleep! hehehe) Now that I think I might not blow up, I get to get back to work. Yay!

By the way, by tomorrow, me and Chuck (who’s shipping most of my jewelry now) will be all caught up! If the crick don’t rise, that is. *wink* Tell that crick to stay where it is, because we’re tickled pink about this. Considering the massive number of changes involved, we’re very pleased that we’re all but totally caught up. Woo hoo!

Back to work for me. Good thing I love it!