The Letter 'B'
It's the second day of 'Blogging from A to Z' and I have three themes, first 'B is for BOOKS', then 'B is for Blue', and lastly, 'B is for Baltic Amber', which probably should have been featured yesterday more like 'A is for Amber'. But the word 'Baltic' is important, because it isn't just any kind of amber, but amber from the Baltic sea area.
So here are my finds for today:
Best wishes,
Anna
First Commenter:
American in Norway
So here are my finds for today:
I love reading and books. For my birthday, I bought for myself a couple of interesting books about colour and jewels by Victoria Finlay, Colour, Travels Through the Paintbox (2003) and Jewels, A Secret History (2007).
Victoria Finlay's book about colour is a walk through the rainbow. There are several chapters about different kinds of blue: Ultramarine (made from the stone Lapis Lazuli), Indigo (made from plants) and Cobolt. Here is a collection of blue items from different Etsy shops:
Victoria Finlay's book about jewels is structured by Moh's scale of relative hardness. Moh's scale is based upon how hard different materials are, and whether they can scratch or not be scratched by other materials. Diamonds score a perfect ten, four times as hard as rubies or sapphires. Victoria's first chapter is about Amber, which is soft, scoring only a 2 to 2½ on Moh's scale, and is neither a crystal nor a gemstone, but a fossil resin.
Amber comes in a number of colors, from white to different shades of yellow and golden to darker shades of reddish brown. It can be transparent, milky or opaque. It can have intrusions and sometimes includes insects from milions of years ago! (Remember the movie Eurassic Park? But Amber is not really as old as the dinosauers, so the movie is really fictional.)
I have never worked with amber, and am amazed at the beautiful pieces of amber-jewellery that are available on Etsy. I'll have to try working with amber one day.
Enjoy!
Victoria Finlay's book about colour is a walk through the rainbow. There are several chapters about different kinds of blue: Ultramarine (made from the stone Lapis Lazuli), Indigo (made from plants) and Cobolt. Here is a collection of blue items from different Etsy shops:
Victoria Finlay's book about jewels is structured by Moh's scale of relative hardness. Moh's scale is based upon how hard different materials are, and whether they can scratch or not be scratched by other materials. Diamonds score a perfect ten, four times as hard as rubies or sapphires. Victoria's first chapter is about Amber, which is soft, scoring only a 2 to 2½ on Moh's scale, and is neither a crystal nor a gemstone, but a fossil resin.
Amber comes in a number of colors, from white to different shades of yellow and golden to darker shades of reddish brown. It can be transparent, milky or opaque. It can have intrusions and sometimes includes insects from milions of years ago! (Remember the movie Eurassic Park? But Amber is not really as old as the dinosauers, so the movie is really fictional.)
I have never worked with amber, and am amazed at the beautiful pieces of amber-jewellery that are available on Etsy. I'll have to try working with amber one day.
Enjoy!
When it comes to making treasuries I know that I am breaking one of the Etsy rules, the one about only having one item from each shop. I am featuring more than one item from some shops because they had such good examples of what amber is.
Best wishes,
Anna
First Commenter:
American in Norway