The Blog of Zbella / Lava Jewelry
Please take a moment to fill in this poll. I’m interested in what your favorite gemstones are. What gemstones have always been your favorite? What gemstones are your latest favorites? Please feel free to leave comments below, especially if you answer “None of the Above.”
Poll Answers
Lava Jewelry is fully stocked on July’s gorgeous birthstones: ruby and carnelian. I have tons of styles available in both stones, and remember that I love to do custom work, so please contact me if you’d like something different in ruby or carnelian for a July birthday.
Ruby is one of the five precious gemstones (diamond, […]
June’s birthstones include moonstone and pearls. Lava Jewelry has beautiful pearl and moonstone jewelry for those June birthdays. Because pearls are not a stone, and volumes and volumes could be written on pearls, I’m going to focus on moonstone today.
Moonstone is a form of a mineral called adularia, which is an orthoclase feldspar. (Was that […]
Emerald is May’s beautiful and precious green birthstone. Yes, indeed, Lava Jewelry has emerald in stock for those May birthdays! Emerald is the green variety of the mineral beryl. Emerald is one of the five precious gemstones, along with diamond, sapphire, ruby, and tanzanite. (As I write this, I ponder why alexandrite isn’t included as […]
Above: Aquamarine earrings. Click on the photo to go to the listing for these earrings.
Lava Jewelry is prepared for those March birthdays, with pretty light blue aquamarine jewelry in stock.
Aquamarine is the light blue variety of the mineral beryl. It is closely related to emerald, which is the green variety of beryl. The blue color […]
Today’s gemstone of the day is another pretty pink gem: rhodochrosite. Rhodochrosite gets its name from the Greek, meaning “rose colored.” It is a manganese carbonate mineral with a hardness of only about 3.5-4 on Moh’s scale. Rhodochrosite forms by the oxidation of manganese-bearing ores in a carbonate environment (for example, stalagmites and stalactites in […]
Amethyst is February’s birthstone, and it’s one of my personal favorite stones. In addition to the traditional purple amethyst, I also have green amethyst (prasiolite) and pink amethyst in my shop. Green amethyst is created by irradiating natural purple amethyst. Pink amethyst is a very, very pale lilac amethyst. I’d like to create some […]
Lepidolite is an uncommon and beautiful mica mineral. It occurs in white, grey, yellow, and lilac. The lilac variety is popular as a gemstone. Lepidolite forms in pegmatites (very coarse grained granites). It has a hardness of 2.5-3 on Moh’s hardness scale, so it is very soft. Lepidolite is found in the United States and […]
Rhodonite is a very pretty pink gemstone, also known as fowlerite. Its name comes from the Greek word for rose (rhodon). It is an inosilicate mineral with a hardness of 6 on Moh’s scale. It occurs in manganese deposits formed by hydrothermal and contact metamorphic processes.
Pretty stone. Short story.
Question of the Day: […]
It’s definitely time to start writing Gemstone of the Day articles again, and I thought I’d begin with a fairly well-known gemstone: onyx.
Onyx is a cryptocrystalline form of quartz. It occurs in pretty much any color you can imagine, and it is commonly banded. Onyx with red banding is called sardonyx. Solid black onyx is […]
