This illustrates a representative cross-section of the findings to be found in lapidary and craft shops, and gives advice on deciding which findings are best suited to various sorts of stones.
Most shops sell findings for ear-rings, brooches, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, rings, tie clips and pins — almost any jewelry you may want to make — [...]
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Plastic is a lightweight material that comes in an exciting variety of forms and colours and is very easily worked. It is often considered solely as a substitute for materials such as glass, wood or metal but, in fact, it has properties that make it totally unique as a crafts material.
It is made up from [...]
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From ancient times, gemstones have been synonymous with folklore and legend since every stone is believed to have its own magical property. Even today, stones are still worn as amulets in India to fend off disease. Stones were traditionally divided into two categories — precious and semi-precious — but today both groups come under the [...]
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Birthstones have ancient origins and even today wearing your birthstone is thought to bring luck. Particular gems were in earlier times connected to the twelve zodiacal periods though they are now ordered into calendar months; this has resulted in some discrepancies between different jewellers’ lists of birthstones, but they have been standardized as follows. Alternatives [...]
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It was subsequently found that the mineral spinel could also be produced in the same way as synthetic corundum. There was, however, no great demand for spinel, so a range of coloured materials was produced from it imitating aquamarine, tourmaline, diamond and even alexandrite with its characteristic colour change. A distinction is made in the [...]
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Your jewellery collection should be stored in separate compartments or boxes where possible to avoid scratching or tangling. Thin chains seem to have the ability to tie themselves in knots. You or your jeweller should check the settings and clasps of your jewellery from time to time: settings do become worn or bent and in [...]
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By far the most beautiful of the gemstones nature has created from silica and by far the most valuable is precious opal. It is not usually included among the quartz gems because it is neither a crystalline quartz nor a chalcedony but a hardened gel, the silica being combined with between 6 and 10 per [...]
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The only thing which differentiates a ruby from a sapphire is colour, and it would not be inaccurate to call a ruby a red sapphire. Both consist of oxygen and aluminium and to the gemmologist both are known by the rather unglamorous name of corundum. The hard granules which make emery paper such an efficient [...]
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Sodalite
This is one of the constituents of lapis lazuli and at its best it exhibits the same rich blue colour and can easily be mistaken for it. It is not as hard as lapis, however, and the blue is often interspersed with white areas. A large deposit of fine material was found in Canada in [...]
Read the rest of The Decorative Minerals part 2
