Earth Day a Beautiful Concept

The Silver Rose is going green in ways that contribute to a healthier and sustainable planet. We have recycle bins in our work place and actually right along side our desks. We support local and online green business. Our regard for the earth includes driving small light carbon foot print cars and Eco-friendly cleaning products.

We carry products that are environmentally friendly such as pearls, boxwood beads and bone. Pearls are a renewable resource easily grown and harvest by local people thus creating jobs in remote areas and an encouragement to keep local waterways clean and viable. Boxwood is a quick growing ornamental tree that also encourages good farming practices and respect for nature. Bone when used in carving uses all the parts of the animals thus cutting back on waste. Turning something into a work of art that would generally be thrown on to a waste pile.

It has been a turn around to look back on how earth friendly has taken on new meaning and given respect where once we earth lovers were called tree-huggers and looked on as a rather second class citizen and just not too bright. Now it's seen as the right thing to do. This is a change I love to see!

Please look around you and see all the ways that you are helping keep our planet healthier and thus more sustainable for those that follow and give yourself a great big hug.

Sylvia C. Rose-Johnson ES

Creating a Toggle Pendant Necklace

How to create a toggle pendant necklace

Do you have a pendant bead that you love, but you don't know what to do with it? I love this limbcast agate disc pendant bead. The mossy inclusions are so intriguing! I felt that it needed more than just a simple pendant and decided to set it off using carnelian agate beads. I strung the carnelian agate beads simply on a 22K Vermeil clasp and wire-wrapped the pendant bead to the loop of the toggle clasp. This way I can wear it in front like a pendant or in back for an unexpected twist!

Emeralds, the modern birthstone for May, are a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6,) colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium.Beryl has a hardness of 7.5-8 on the 10 point Mohs scale of mineral hardness.

Agate, the traditional birthstone for May, is a microcrystalline variety of quartz (silica), chiefly chalcedony, characterized by its fineness of grain and brightness of color. Although agates may be found in various kinds of rock, they are classically associated with volcanic rocks but can be common in certain metamorphic rocks.

35% off Emerald & Agate Beads

• Enter the promo code: 35MayBirthst



• Limited to stock on hand



• Website items only, eBay items excluded



• Sale begins April 12 and ends April 15, 2010

All images are linked to those items.

April Birthstones - Diamond, Sapphire & Opal

April Birthstones - Diamond, Sapphire & Opal

The traditional birthstones for April are the Diamond and the Sapphire. Diamonds are the hardest known natural material rating a 10 on the Mohs hardness scale. They are composed of carbon and have been used as adornment since antiquity. Diamonds are thought to have been first recognized and mined in India, where significant alluvial deposits of the stone could be found many centuries ago along the rivers Penner, Krishna and Godavari. The diamond is also the modern and Ayurvedic birthstone for April. See our post on creating a diamond bead necklace here.

Sapphires are any color of the stone corundum except red. Red corundum is known as Ruby. Sapphires are a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale and are also the birthstone for the month of September. Madagascar is the world leader in sapphire production (as of 2007) specifically its deposits in and around the city of Ilakaka, but Sapphires are also found in the USA, Myanmar, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Australia, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Kenya and China.

The mystical birthstone for April is the Opal. Opal is a 6.5 to 5.5 on Mohs scale of hardness and generally has a 3-10% water content but it can have as high as a 20% water content. There are several varieties of opal. Precious opal is the most widely known and shows fiery flashes on a white or dark background. Fire opal is commonly red, orange to yellow and has no flash. Peruvian opal is a semi-opaque to opaque blue-green stone found in Peru which also has no flash. In the Middle Ages, opal was considered a stone that could provide great luck because it was believed to possess all the virtues of each gemstone whose color was represented in the color spectrum of the opal. It is also the birthstone for October.

See more Diamond, Sapphire and Opal beads here.

What is a Pearl?

What is a Pearl?

A pearl is created when an irritant triggers a mollusk’s defense mechanism. The mollusk creates a pearl sac to seal off the irritation and deposits layers of calcium carbonate over the irritant. This calcium carbonate, a combination of aragonite and conchiolin is called nacre, which makes up mother of pearl as well. In cultured pearls, the irritant is typically a piece of mantle tissue from another mollusk.

Read more about Pearl Farming and its Positive Affects on the Environment here.

35% off Pearls

* Enter promo code: 35PearlMarch

* Website purchases only, eBay items excluded

* Limited to stock on hand

* Sale begins March 29 and ends April 1 at 11:59PM Eastern (GMT-4:00)

Boxwood and the Environment

Boxwood and the Environment

For thousands of years Netsukes have charmed their viewers. A huge detraction to this exquisite form of legend/myth telling was that fact that they were carved out of Elephant Tusk. As the planet has become more aware of what happens to the magnificent elephants, it has made this extraordinary art form repugnant as well as illegal to own for many. The switch to boxwood has made these enchanting objects a green product as boxwood is an easily farmed wood. Boxwood is carved green when it is soft and as it dries it hardens. It is used in it's dwarf form for topiaries in the west and the larger variety for ornamental and even furniture carving in China and other eastern countries. It is an ecology friendly solution to preserving an ancient art when boxwood is used to carve Netsukes and other object d'art.

35% off Boxwood Beads!

• Enter promo code 35Boxwood to receive discount
  
  
• Website purchases only, eBay items excluded
  
  
• Limited to stock on hand
  
  
• Sale begins March 19 and ends March 23 at 11:59PM (Eastern Standard Time)

How to create Coral Earrings

How to create Coral Earrings

I made these earrings using briolette branch coral beads (4985), 14Kgf wire and earwires. While they may look simple, the wire-wrap above the briolette branch bead is a little tricky. I am used to wire-wrapping traditional briolette beads that have a point above the drill hole, so these beads which are flat on the top took a little more time.

Up to 50% off FernFrond & BreakingDawn Hued Beads!

* No promo code needed

* Website purchases only, eBay items excluded

* Limited to stock on hand

* Sale begins March 15 and ends March 18 at 11:59PM Eastern (GMT-4:00)

Up to 50% off FernFrond Hued Beads

This color category includes Ruby Zoisite, Chrome Diopside, Emeralds, Malachite & More!

All images are linked to those items.

Up to 50% BreakingDawn Hued Beads

This color category includes Imperial Topaz, Coral, Sunstone, Peach Chalcedony & more!

All images linked to those items.

March Birthstones - Aquamarine, Bloodstone & Jade

March Birthstones - Aquamarine, Bloodstone, & Jade

The Traditional & Ayurvedic birthstone for March is Bloodstone. The mineral heliotrope, also known as bloodstone, is a form of chalcedony. The "classic" bloodstone is green chalcedony with red inclusions of iron oxide or red jasper. The red spots were once thought during the Middle Ages to be drops of Christ's blood, and that the stone held special powers.

Aquamarine (from Lat. aqua marina, "water of the sea") is the modern birthstone for March. It is a blue or turquoise variety of beryl. It occurs at most localities which yield ordinary beryl, some of the finest coming from Russia. It is 7.5–8 on MoHs Hardness scale.

The Mystical birthstone for March is Jade. The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals: Nephrite and Jadeite. Both were used from prehistoric periods for hardstone carving. Jadeite has about the same hardness as quartz, while nephrite is somewhat softer.

See more Aquamarine, Bloodstone & Jade here.