It’s FRIDAY, so, let’s celebrate with some gem, jewelry and fun surprises with an acrostic celebration of Friday!
For each letter of the word Friday, I feature a gemstone, item of jewelry or a special surprise!
Listen to find out what fireflies, an Aston Martin and feldspar have to do with each other!
Starting out with the letter F…
It’s FRIDAY, so, let’s celebrate with some gem, jewelry and fun surprises with an acrostic celebration of Friday!
For each letter of the word Friday, I feature a gemstone, item of jewelry or a special surprise!
Listen to find out what fireflies, an Aston Martin and feldspar have to do with each other!
Starting out with the letter F
F is for Feldspar; it may sound boring, but bear with me!
feldspar is a family of Aluminum Silicate igneous rocks with varying ranges of elements of Calcium, Sodium, and potassium.
Don’t worry – That’s as far as I’ll go with the science!
The exciting thing about feldspar minerals is that they form different gem minerals, like Moonstone, Sunstone, Labradorite, Amazonite, and Kunzite.
California Girl Jewelry serves up some beautiful jewelry set with sunstone and they just posted an amazing large oval kunizte pendant!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kpxgZYL3KU[/embedyt]
Spodumene, aka Kunizte – a purply – pink GORGEOUS gemstone, and instead of calcium, sodium or potassium, lithium is the cause for its signature purply pink yummy color!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V27S7t4j8KY[/embedyt]
From the description of the kunzite pendant on California Girl Jewelry’s website:
“What exactly is a Kunzite?
Kunzite is the best-known variety of the mineral spodumene. It’s named after famed gemologist George Frederick Kunz, who was the first to identify it as a unique variety of spodumene. Kunzite gets its delicate color from trace amounts of manganese. Like diamonds, it has perfect cleavage, making it a fabulous gemstone jewel. It is an alternative birthstone to February.
Kunzite is a relative newcomer to the array of colored stones available for use in jewelry. Specimens of an as-yet-unidentified pink crystal were found in San Diego County, California, and sent to Tiffany & Co.’s mineralogist, George Frederick Kunz. The year was 1902. Kunz was able to confirm that the crystals were, in fact, spodumene, but the previously unrecognized color made the find a new variety of the mineral.
As the story goes, Tiffany & Co. had promised its main benefactor, J.P. Morgan, the naming rights to the next ‘big’ discovered mineral. Charles Baskerville, a chemistry professor at the University of North Carolina and later the City College of New York, subsequently named kunzite in honor of George Kunz in 1903, beating Tiffany & Co. to the mineral’s name. So, the next gemstone mineral to be discovered would then be named (drum roll please), “Morganite”. ” – California Girl Jewelry
If you want to learn more about California Girl Jewelry, listen to Episode 10: “Champagne, Rare Gemstones, and Jewelry With Denise Forbes of California Girl Jewelry”
…on to the “R” in Friday with …
This week on the podcast, I thought I’d try something fun and different – an acrostic sort of word play with Friday, using each letter for a gem or jewelry surprise for each letter of the word in Friday, and…
R is for Ruby, but not just any ruby – ruby from what is the oldest rocks known on earth in Greenland.
As written on their website, http://greenlandruby.gl/, “Unearthed at a pristine mine site in Aappaluttoq [“Ah-puh-lu-tok”], Greenland, in corundum bearing rock that geologists believe is in the oldest rock formation on earth.
Mined, cut, and polished adhering to ethical, social, human rights, and environmental laws and responsible practices. Trackable from mine-to-market.
Offering consistent supply of rich red ruby and hot pink sapphire, for designers’ and brands’ jewelry assortment needs.
Aappaluttoq… [“Ah-puh-lu-tok”] Greenlanders’ word for red.”
Trace elements, sometimes called impurities, are what causes a variety of colors in the same mineral.
Corundum is the mineral that forms both ruby and sapphire of all colors;
titanium and iron cause the blue in blue sapphire, and chromium causes the red in ruby.
Corundum that is saturated with enough red is classified as ruby, and if not, when a lighter red or pink, then it’s pink sapphire.
…R is for Ruby in our acrostic Friday of gems, jewelry and surprises, onto the “I” in Friday…
I is for Indicolite, or the indigo blue variety of tourmaline
- Indicolite is dark violetish blue, blue, or greenish blue tourmaline.
Gigi Ferrante created a one of a kind mermaid ring set with a stunning Indicolite tourmaline – you an see it on her website under her “One of a Kind” Collection;
I had reposted this ring a few months ago, and described it as, a” ring with all the best rolled into one! Just the color of the indicolite tourmaline is entrancing, then add the mermaid theme, and it’s like birthday cake, chocolate martinis, and fireworks all wrapped together!!!”
Tourmaline comes in all colors, but Indicolite is probably one of the most rare and beautiful varieties!
We’re going through the word “FRIDAY” as an acoustic celebration for the weekend with gems, jewelry and a surprise at the end, and we’ve come to D…
…and D is for Danburite, named for the area in Connecticut where it was first discovered, Danbury.
Danburite is clear to pale pink or yellow, with a hardness ranging from 7-71/2,
California Girl Jewelry has a beautiful 4.0+ ct round danburite set in 18kt rose gold ring
This is a fun adventure!! I may do this again so I can tell you about more beautiful gems that start with the letter “D”!
All of the letters depicted in our acrostic fun Friday have been gems, but the next one, for “A” is a special kind of gem itself.
It’s not really a gem, but people who own one probably think it is!
… “A” is for Aston Martin, the British sports car, and Crash Jewelry just happened to receive parts with minor damage and turned it into a beautiful, sleek, black cuff bracelet featuring a specially designed bumble bee motif, created by a special technique.
Here’s the description on Crash Jewelry’s Instagram feed:
“ I don’t think I can adequately capture how gorgeous this cuff is. It’s made from the metal of an Aston Martin Rapide S in onyx black. The stamped bee was enhanced using the technique of Keum boo, (pronounced “come bu”) where gold leaf fuses with steel once it reaches a certain temperature.”
I featured Crash Jewelry in the third episode of Jewelry Navigator Podcast where she shares how and why she came to create jewelry from the high end and luxury car parts passing through her husband’s specialty auto repair shop.
Ok, so now we’ve gone through all of the letters of Friday –
F was for Feldspar, like moonstone, kunizte and sunstone,
R was for Ruby
I was for Indicolite tourmaline
D was for Danburite
A is not a gem material, but a bracelet made from an Aston Martin Rapide S by Crash Jewelry,
and now, the surprise I promised…
Y, at the end of the word Friday, like at the end of the work week, is for Yay, it’s Friday, – also not for a gem material either,
but something depicted and treasured as much as gems from many of our childhood memories of summer nights of catching fireflies,
A good friend of ours, who also was once a flight attendant, and now an established artist out of New York City, Sally Tharp, captured the magic of fireflies escaping from a Mason Jar, called the Great Escape.
She captures the glow of the fireflies from within the Mason Jar, along with the blue green of the jar’s glass as the fireflies follow each other out the mouth of the jar.
Her artwork is entrancing, and in this one,
You can almost hear the crickets calling them back to the meadow from where they were captured as they head back to their starry, summer evening flight.
This particular painting is at Wells Gallery on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, along with several of her other paintings.
I know this wasn’t a gem or jewelry , but There are some things that are as precious to us as gems and jewelry, like enjoying summer nights, and watching fireflies dance and glimmer over the cooling air.
So, Yes…Y is for Yay…!
Have fun this weekend, enjoy your gems and jewels, whether wearable or memorable!
Next time, I’ll share my visit from the Jewelry Navigator Boarding Lounge with Samantha Jackson of Heavenly Vices Fine Jewelry, and the ironic duality of jewelry and how it tempts our vices, while honoring our virtues.
Until next time, Cross check your sparkle whether you wear it on a ring or catch it in a jar of fireflies!