January Birthstone poem – the Garnet:
For a range of garnet bead styles and prices, browse our secure online store!
And for sterling-quality precious-bead info, read our Gemstone Beads Index.
January Birthstone poem – the Garnet:
For a range of garnet bead styles and prices, browse our secure online store!
And for sterling-quality precious-bead info, read our Gemstone Beads Index.
Citrine: the November stone 🙂
A great thing about citrine is that you’ve got options, options, options. Both the natural stuff and geometrically perfect lab-grown citrine are available, and each has its charms.
Shapes you can only find in natural citrine — small but rugged chip beads:
Citrine that’s manufactured by humans is much more regular in shape:
With artifice comes pizzazz–dig this jazz:
You’re not dreaming, there are lots of ways to do your citrine-ing! Look what you can do with a megadose of “vitamin C”:
Riff on the theme, drop a comment below!
Where we check into possible birthstone plans for the upcoming month…
Tourmaline beads, the birthstone of choice for October, show some appropriately magical properties. Did you know that if you rub this stone, it generates a charge that attracts small objects like bits of paper or strands of hair? (I couldn’t find an image of this. Bummer. Please submit one if you’ve got one.)
True to its name (which originally meant “stone of mixed colors”), tourmaline is found in a very pretty palette of blue, yellow, pink, red, black, green and clear stones. Here are most of those colors in a strand that we sell:
Rings & Things also sells strands of the nice black tourmaline alone:
Here’s a great idea for using black tourmaline in a rosary:
And don’t forget tourmalated quartz. These beads technically include tourmaline, so they add to your options for “October babies”:
You’ll find lots more neat background reading at our Gemstone Index ‘tourmaline’ entry! And this is the time of year when you can come to our BeadTour bead shows to look for great new tourmaline, tourmalated quartz and many more gemstone beads not found in our catalog!
Carnelian is an established birthstone for September.
I’ll let you browse our awesome stock of carnelian beads at your leisure…but before you click that link, let’s focus on a rarity: a carnelian trade bead.
You don’t see these every day, even if you’re an African-bead connoisseur. Five corner-cut beads to the strand, a reasonable price, and the joy of finding something really unique!
Have a favorite birthstone bead choice for September babies? Talk about it in a comment!
The standard birthstone for next month just happens to be well-represented at Rings & Things. Let’s play with peridot…
Did you know about peridot?
Some of the styles of peridot that we stock are snazzy enough to wow any Leo/Virgo child of August. You can even tuck a tiny birthday gift or note inside this peridot & sterling ‘wish box’ pendant:
For guys you might prefer going with a chunkier style like these hefty peridot chip beads:
Or you can go really smooth and classic with sleek round peridot beads:
Just bear in mind (and please tell your customers) that peridot is often enhanced in order to smooth out tiny natural irregularities in its surface — So go easy on the exposure to hazardous chemicals. Also shield your peridot from high heat, deep cold, and hammers, okay?
* Alternative August birthstones are onyx or sardonyx, and carnelian.
I bet some of you have sold, or been commissioned to make, August birthstone jewelry. You can share your experiences in a comment below!
Because July’s birthstones are a motley crew (see the end of this post), I’m picking out just one of them to feature, since there’s so much to know about turquoise!
Turquoise is the modern, more often seen replacement for the traditional July “Foundation stone”, sardonyx. I’d like to start out by showing you some of the affordable genuine turquoise beads that are available. (I’ll try to show similar-sized beads to make comparison easier.)
Finally, consider some other stones in the turquoise family (which you can read about in our Gemstone Beads Index). There’s apple-green turquoise and lime turquoise, for example. You can often find specially purchased, special-priced strands of these and similar stones at Rings & Things’ BeadTour bead shows…another great reason to attend when we’re in your town!
Other July birthstones run the gamut: ruby (also Summer’s birthstone), synthetic corundum, emerald (for Cancer), onyx (for Leo), and topaz (St. Matthew’s stone).Thanks once again to Bruce G. Knuths’ “Jeweler’s Resource” book for all of this information!
We took a look ahead to find out the what June’s birthstones are. There’s a jumble of gems to work with!
Pearl is one of the most widely recognized June stones. It’s nice that recent years have brought countless new styles and shapes of affordable freshwater pearls, including the ones you see here. Have fun picking out a pearl that fits the personality of your June baby (or client!).
Agate is the other commonly used birthstone for June. It’s also the birthstone for Gemini, May 21 through June 20. Are you aware of the huge variety of agate beads available? This is another great browsing opportunity.
For a more unique touch, we’ve also found these stones used for June:
You can learn about the physical & metaphysical properties of gemstones like these in the new edition of our popular Gemstone Beads Index!
Have you seen other great birthday-jewelry ideas for June? Post them here in the Comments!
Plan ahead for May birthstones!
There’s one main birthstone for May, emerald. This is also the seasonal birthstone for Spring, so it’s doubly appropriate. For an economical emerald look, think about glass beads. Anything from these metal-core Calypso™ (“Pandora”-style) lampwork beads…
…to the ever-popular, economical Cosmic Crystal™ bicone…
…can be an evocative way to play on the emerald theme. Just search our online store for “emerald”! Or for “sapphire”, which some consider a birthstone for Taurus. Now that’s multi-purposing your components!
Speaking of zodiac signs, Gemini’s birthstone is agate. We always seem to have dozens of varieties of it at Rings & Things’ BeadTour bead shows, and you can always find agate beads in our online store. A couple of favorites are Botswana agate, like these faceted rounds…
…and blue lace agate, like this bib:
Less well-known May gemstones, according to various traditions, are chrysolite, carbuncle, and chalcedony. For reliable, honest background information, you can look these and many more up in our popular Gemstone Beads Index!
What’s your favorite May birthstone, or birthday jewelry? Share it in a comment below. You can even link to pictures of your own creations!
Regular readers will know that I try to write about each upcoming month’s birthstones. For April, it’s more of a challenge to match the birthstones with Rings & Things stock. Which is great, because I love having gantlets thrown down in front of me. 🙂
I want to dig right in with Diamond. We don’t sell many diamonds here, if you mean that carbon-based life form that telepathically makes people act weird. What we have (at the moment I’m writing) are “cash & carry” fancy strands of rough diamond beads, at our bead shows only. (Which start this Friday, March 13th!) Here’s a peek at them:
But for a great diamond-y look, spend a moment checking out clear Swarovski crystal beads! They’re faceted, and they’re as brilliant as many gems are. Clear rock crystal quartz beads can be mighty nice-looking, too…And don’t forget the countless diamond-shaped gemstone beads you can find through our store’s “Search by Shape” feature!
Sapphire is another April birthstone. It’s also a little “precious” for us, since we specialize in semiprecious gemstones. But again, great color matches are on hand. Try sapphire crystals and sapphire glass beads.
Carnelian is the third traditional birthstone of March. Browse our selection to see all the great shapes of beads made of this stone in our store. (Pictured above: 12mm faceted rondelles.)
To match any of these stones, you can always come to Rings & Things’ “BeadTour” shows near you! The new season starts this Friday, March 13, with our Houston show…We specialize in great-priced gemstone beads at our road shows, so it should be well worth your while.
Have more birthstone substitutes to suggest? Talk about them by leaving a comment!
Have you planned ahead to make February birthstone jewelry? Next month is almost upon us! But if you have a rush job, consider this:
Rings & Things can supply your need for the February birthstone,
amethyst.
We have the real McCoy in a variety of grades (qualities), plus
lavender amethyst
and exquisite lab-grown amethyst.
But your options expand when you think about amethyst equivalents:
Have you looked at that color of Swarovski® crystal lately?
There are endless ways to play with amethyst hues in our line of glass beads, too. A popular new item is our
Calypso Beads™ (European-style silver-lined lampwork charms):
There are hundreds of other amethyst glass beads in our online store, ready for your browsing. How to use them? Have a peek at Rings & Things’ Design Gallery for great project ideas like the appropriately-named
Amy-thyst earrings and
bracelet.
So don’t wait till you’re old to start designing with purple!??