Selecting a gift for Valentine Day can be a very stressful job as sometime it is not easy to find a gift that is romantic,unique and affordable in same time.
We are always trying to meet the needs of our customers and to offer them something new, special and unique for reasonable prices. In previous post we introduced you our new collection: The Amy Ming 2010 Healing Energies Collection. We hope that you like it and that everyone can find something suitable. If you missed our previous article please click here or go directly to the Amy Ming Shop to see the entire collection. All items are under 100$.

Today we would like to present you some more gift ideas for Valentine's Day. They are all under 100$ and we are shure that every woman will love them.

Agate and Rose Quartz Necklace

A Soft and delicate looking dyed agate aventurine crystal and rosette rose quartz necklace on a 18” chain.
Healing properties of Rose Quartz- It gives inner peace and helps in all matters pertaining to love.- Opens the heart to love.- It is said washing the face in water charged by rose quartz will help fade winkles and keep the skin young.





Chalcedony and Onyx Necklace
Feel the healing powers of chalcedony and onyx gemstone draping from an 18" sterling silver chain. Chalcedony increases physical energy; decreases the ill effects of senility and dementia; heals eyes, gallbladder, bones, spleen, blood and circulatory system; and is a powerful cleanser, especially on open sores. It is said that the onyx stone can help release negative emotions such as sorrow and grief. It is used to end unhappy or bothersome relationships.



Olive Jade Necklace

One more great necklace from Amy Ming's Healing Energies Collection.
Absorb the healing powers of this fabulous olive jade necklace and sterling silver pendant. Hung on a 16" sterling silver chain. It is said that the olive jade gemstone can be placed directly on the skin, and is an aid to kidney and stomach complaints, relaxes cramps and menstrual pain.




Double Amethyst Necklace


Two teardrop amethysts accompanied by sterling silver symbols of peace and eternity on a 16" chain make this sterling silver necklace a sure winner. Amethyst's healing power overcome insomnia, fears, cravings and headaches; treats blood and breathing problems and is used as a dream stone .




Crystal Gold-Filled Pendant Necklace


Catch the evening light with this 18" necklace, featuring a gold-filled open circle pendant with open set black and smoke crystals draping from a matching petite crystal beads and silk thread strand. To see more necklaces like this one please click here.





Multi-Color CZ and Gold-Filled Pendant Necklace

Muted shades of forest green, blood red and pale honey cz faceted stones and beads create an elegant 18" triple stone pendant necklace with beads on the gold-filled chain.

Crystal healing is an alternative medicine technique that employs stones and crystals as healing tools. Belief in the healing properties of gems has a very long history. Crystal healers today believe that each gem has the power to influence the health and well-being of a specific part of the body. The light reflected off stones placed on vital nerve points is thought to be absorbed by the body, supplying it with healing energy.

The first new Collection of 2010 from Amy Ming is introduced just in time for Valentine's Day. The Healing Energy Collection features natural gemstones with various healing and wellness powers transitioned into unique sterling silver pendant or charm necklaces that can be worn every day.

Here are some of them:

Amethyst Necklace

Healing properties of Amethyst

- Used for problems in the blood and in breathing.

- Helps overcome fears and cravings.

- Helps relieve headaches.

- Used as a dream stone and to help insomnia.

- Add promote peace and eternity!

Blue Quartz Necklace

Healing properties of Blue quartz

- Blue quartz crystal is a soothing, stress-relief stone.

- Assuages fear

- Calms the mind

- Inspires hope

Chalcedony Necklace

Healing properties of Chalcedony

- Powerful cleanser, including open sores.

- It increases physical energy.

- Is used to decrease ill effects of senility and dementia

- Is said to heal the eyes, gallbladder, bones, spleen, blood and circulatory system.

Opalite Necklace

Healing properties of Opalite

(Opalite is a man-made opalized glass resin that is fused with metal to create an opalescent effect.)

- Place on the Crown Chakra to enhance vision

- Stabilizes mood swings

Rose Quartz Necklace

Healing properties of Rose Quartz

- It gives inner peace and helps in all matters pertaining to love.

- Opens the heart to love.

- It is said washing the face in water charged by rose quartz will help fade winkles and keep the skin young.

Fire Agate and Citrine Necklace

Healing properties of fire agate

- Has a deep calming energy that brings security and safety.

- Used as an aid to improve sexual activity, stimulating vitality and opening the base chakra.

- Inspires inner knowledge to emerge in the resolution of problems.

- Helps in overcoming addictions, and other destructive desires.

Healing properties of Citrine

- Increase self esteem

- Protect from the negative energy

- Promote clarity of thought

- Used to help with digestion- cleansing, purifying and eliminating poisons that have built up (including constipation and diabetes).

- Said to calm and soothe distressed conditions.

- Said to help relieve depression

Enhance and pump up your energy with wellness influences from these beautifully designed necklaces for that special someone or yourself.

Wonderstone is a particular type of rhyolite that is known for its colorful maroon, orange, yellow, and pink hues. Often these colors are banded in the stone, making beautiful patterns. Wonderstone is one of the softer forms of rhyolite. Because of this, it’s often used for carving. Rhyolite is very rich in silica and is considered a natural glass. The best wonderstone is from Mexico, Nevada and Utah.

The traditional birthstone for those who were born in the month of January is Garnet.
The garnet group includes a group of minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives. The name "garnet" may come from either the Middle English word gernet meaning 'dark red', or the Latin granatus ("grain"), possibly a reference to the Punica granatum ("pomegranate"), a plant with red seeds similar in shape, size, and color to some garnet crystals.
Six common species of garnet are recognized by their chemical composition. They are pyrope, almandine, spessartine, grossular (varieties of which are hessonite or cinnamon-stone and tsavorite), uvarovite and andradite.

Pyrope
The blood-red colour of pyrope is due to its iron and chromium content. It rarely has inclusions, but when present thet are rounded crystals or have irregular outlines. Pyrope is found in volcanic rock and alluvial deposits, and may, along with certain other minerals, indicate the presence diamond-bearing rocks. The word pyrope comes from the Greek pyropos, meaning fiery.

Almandine
Almandine is generally darker red than pyrope and may appear black, although pinkish red specimens are found. Ut is usually opaque or subtranslucent, but the rare transparent stones have high lustre. Slices of garnet have been used in windows in churches and temples, and legend has it that Noah suspended garnet in the ark in order to disperse light. Garnet was once said to cure melancholy and to warm the heart.

Spessartine
Gem-quality spessartine is uncommon. It is bright orange when pure, but an increase in the iron content makes the stone darker orange to red. Spessartine is named after the Spessart district of Bavaria, Germany. It can be confused with hessonite garnet or yellow topaz, but on close examination of inclusions it is distinguishable.

Uvarovite
The attractive, bright green colour of uvarovite is due to the presence of hromium. It occurs in serpentine rocks. The best clear crystals are found in Urals in Russia.

Grossular
Grossular garnets occur in a very wide range of colours, from colourless right through to black, but derive their name from the first specimen ever found, a distinctive goosberry-green colour. The orange-brown grossular garnet is called Hessonite. The best hessonite garnets are found in Sri Lanka. In Madagascar hessonite is often referred to as cinnamon stone. Both the Ancient Greeks and Romans made cameos, intaglios, and cabochons from hessonite and faceted stones for jewelry.
The pink variety of grossular is also known as rosolite and the best stones comes from Mexico. Crystals are very rare.
There are two varieties of green grossular: one is found as transparent crystals, the other is massive. Massive green grossular from South Africa is called Traansval jade, after its main locality and because it resembles jade. It may contain black specks of the mineral magnetite. Since 1960s a transparent, green grossular garnet, named tsavorite, has been mined in Kenya. Massive green garnet is used as a decorative stone and tsavorite is faceted as a gem. The name "grossular" is derived from the botanical name of the goosberry (grossularia)

Andradite
Garnets containing titanium and manganese are grouped as andradite garnet. The most valuable is demantoid, whose emerald-green colour is due to the presence of chromium. It has a higher dispersion than diamond. The best demantoid is found in the Urals in Russia, and is associated with gold-bearing sands and metamorphic rocks.

The Garnet is known as the stone for a successful business. It is believed that if a garnet is put under a pillow it will cure depression. They can be used to make a person popular and have self-esteem when worn as jewelry. It helps protect one on trips and bring constancy to friendships.

The relatively extreme hardness and pleasing rose-red color of rhodonite make it a most satisfactory material for beads and small carvings. The name comes from rhodos, the Greek for "rose", referring to the distinct colour. Massive rhodonite is usually opaque to translucent, and is carved, or cut as cabachons or beads . Transparent crystals are rare and fragile, but some have been cut for collectors. Both crystals and massive material have been found in Urals (Russia), Sweeden and Australia. The outstanding source is near Sverdlovsk, Russia, on eastern slope of the Ural Mountains, where a large deposit has long produced rhodonite useful for ornamental stones. It has been used for large carvings as well as small ones; thus the sarcophagus of Alexander II of Russia was hewn from a single block.

One of the first gemstones to be mined, turquoise has long been prized for its intense colour, which varies from sky-blue to green, depending on the quantities of iron and copper within it. Turquoise is commonly found in microcristalline, massive form, usually as encrustations, in veins, or as nodules. It is opaque to semi-translucent, light and very fragile, with conchoidal fracture. Some material is very porous, leading to fading and cracking, so it may be impregnated with wax or resin to maintain its appearance.

Sky-blue turquoise from Iran is generally regarded as the most desirable , but in Tibet a greener variety is preferred. Localities in Mexico and USA produce a greener, more porous material, that tends to fade more quickly.

Turquoise has been thought to warn the wearer of danger or illness by changing colour. If given by a loving friend, turquoise would protect the wearer from negative energy and bring good fortune. It is the symbol of friendship. Turquoise has been imitated by stained howlite, fossil bone or tooth, limestone, chalcedony, glass and enamel. In 1972, an imitation turquoise was produced in France by Gilson.

The substance has been known by many names, but the word turquoise was derived around the 16th century from the French language either from the word for Turkish (Turquoise) or dark-blue stone (pierre turquin). This may have arisen from a misconception: turquoise does not occur in Turkey but was traded at Turkish bazaars to Venetian merchants who brought it to Europe.

picture:

Tremendous 54" turquoise and sterling silver lariat necklace, can be worn as a belt or layered bracelet, with dainty drops of teardrop turquoise beads in between, and matching drop earrings from Amy Ming Collection

The well known beautiful blue Hope Diamond has its origins in India, and it probably comes from the diamond mines of the Golconda region. It was discovered in the Middle ages and first mentioned by Z. Tavernier, a famous French jeweler, who has traveled to India many times in the second half of the 17th century. During his sojournes there, Tavernier made an inventory of all precious stones of various courts of the maharajas of those times. He particularly liked the blue Hope Diamond, which, as the legend says, was set in the forehead or eye socket of the gold staue of Sita – a powerful six-armed Hindu deity worshipped as the divine consort of Rama, the Sixth Avatar of Vishnu, and revered as the incarnation of the goddess Lakshimi. One of the versions of the legend says that Tavernier has secretly paid a thief to enter the temple and steel this precious jewel from the statue. During the diamond’s extraction, the statue was destroyed. Other stories contend that it was the French jeweler, himself, who robbed the diamond.
In 1668, Tavernier smuggled the stone to Paris. By this act, the curse of ill fortune was created and bestowed upon anyone possessing or even coming in touch with the diamond. According to an old Indian legend, all future owners of the stolen diamond were to be marked and destroyed by the angry and offended Indian gods.
Tavernier did not believe in Indian curses, but as soon as he arrived back to France, he sold the amazing blue diamond (the “Tavernier Blue”), which weighed 122 3/6 carats, to King Louis XIV of France, who had it cut into a triangular shape to enhance its brilliance. The newly cut stone weighed 67 1/8 carats and was set in gold. It was officially named “The Blue Diamond of the Crown” (otherwise known as “French Blue”) and the king often wore it around his neck on a long ribbon. Shortly after the king had purchased the diamond, his son and his grandson died. In the meantime Louis XIV gave the diamond to his mistress, Madame de Montespan. At that time, there was a group of people in Paris who performed and celebrated the so called Black Mass, conducted by a libertine priest, Abbé Guibourg. Madame de Montespan was an habituée of these celebrations and Abbé Guibourg tried to gain influence over the king through her. During these diabolical rituals organized by Guibourg, children were sacrificed, while Madame de Montespan danced nude wearing only the blue diamond around her neck. The celebrations did not help the hideous priest and they caused Madame de Montespan to lose favor with the king, who ordered her to give back the diamond. In 1715, King Louis XIV died an agonizing and painful death of gangrene. The diamond passed to his successor, King Louis XV, one of the most unpopular French kings (this was not yet attributed to the diamond at the time), who had it reset in a piece of ceremonial jewelry for the Order of the Golden Fleece. After his death, the diamond was inherited by Luis XVI who gifted it to his wife Marie Antoinette. They were both beheaded. Before dying the Queen gave the diamond to her closest confident and friend, the Italian-french courtier, Princess of Lamballe. The same year, the princess was brutally butchered and killed, and her husband beheaded. During the time of the French Revolution, the diamond and other crown jewels were kept at the Garde Meuble from where they were stolen in 1792. Afterwards, nothing was known of the stone for some time. There are reports that a Dutch jeweler, Wilhelm Fals, had purchased it and recut it to its present size. It is also said that he died of heartbreak when his son Hendrik stole the gem from him and sold it in London below its real value. Many years later, Hendrik Fals committed suicide and other persons involved in the selling of the diamond died under very strange circumstances. In the meantime, the diamond probably went into the possession of the Spanish court for some time. In a portrait painted by Goya in 1800, Queen Maria Louisa of Spain wears a deep blue diamond that resembles very much the famous French Blue. There is some evidence that it reappeared in London in 1812, in the possession of an English jeweler, Daniel Eliason, who eventually sold it to King George IV of England in 1823. King George IV dies deep in debt in 1830, and the diamond has to be sold, probably through private channels, to repay his debts. In 1839, the stone resurfaces in the hands of Henry Philippe Hope, a London banker and gem collector, who gives the cursed gem its present name, as it appears in his private gem collection catalog. Hope dies the same year, shortly after purchasing the diamond, and leaves his estate to the oldest of his three nephews, Ser Henry Thomas Hope. However, the curse of misfortune that the diamond was believed to have, continued to befall its owners. Thomas Hope’ son died poisoned, while his grandsons squandered the entire family fortune in a very short time. Lord Francis Hope was forced to auction the diamond to pay off his gambling debts. The conviction that the diamond was cursed was so strong that even Francis Hope’s wife, May Yohe, an American actress, wrote a book about it, called “The Mystery of The Hope Diamond”. The American jeweler, Simon Frankel, who bought the diamond from Hope in 1901, sold it to Jacques Collot, a French broker, who went insane and committed suicide shortly after selling the gem to Prince Ivan Kanitovsky, who was murdered by Russian revolutionaries after having killed his lover, Lorens Ladue, a Folies Bergere actress, the first time she wore the diamond for him.

Hope Diamond Part 2 coming soon
This article is kindly sponsored by Amy Ming Jewelry

Topaz is the birthstone of November.

General It occurs in a range of different colours: deep golden yellow topaz (sometimes called sherry topaz) and pink topaz are the most valuable; blue and green stones are also popular. Natural pink stones are rare - most pink topaz is heat-treated yellow material. Imperial topaz is yellow, pink (rare, if natural) or pink-orange. Brazilian Imperial Topaz can often have a bright yellow to deep golden brown hue, sometimes even violet. Many brown or pale topazes are treated to make them bright yellow, gold, pink or violet colored. Some imperial topaz stones can fade on exposure to sunlight for an extended period of time. Topaz has a hardness of 8.

Metaphysical Topaz balances emotions and calms passions. It releases tension and gives feelings of joy. Topaz is known as spiritual rejuvenation gemstone.

Occurrence Important sources of topaz are in Russia, Siberia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Africa and China, Japan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Australia, Mexico, and in the United States (in Maine, New Hampshire, California, Colorado, and Utah). In the United States the best topaz has been worked near Pikes Peak, Colorado, and in San Diego county, California. The largest known deposits are located in Minas Gerais in Brazil. Brazil, Pakistan and Russia are sources of pink topaz.

Remark In ancient times, a figure of a falcon carved on a Topaz was thought to help earn the goodwill of kings, princes and magnates. Topaz is stone of strength noted by Greeks. The Greeks believed it had power to increase strength and to make its wearer invisible while the Romans believed it had power to improve eyesight. The Egyptians wore it as an amulet to protect them from injury. According to Webster's English Dictionary, the word topaz is derived from the Middle English word topace, Old French topace or topase, Latin topazus, topazios, which is the old Greek name for an island in the Red Sea, now called Zabargad. The island never produced topaz, but it was once a source or peridot, which was sometimes mistakenly called topaz.
During medieval days it was thought to heal physical and mental disorders as well as prevent death.

Red and pink topaz gems were used in the jewelry of the 18th and 19th Century Russian Czarinas and is why topaz is sometimes called "Imperial Topaz".

Some clear topaz crystals from Brazilian pegmatites can reach boulder size and weigh hundreds of pounds. Crystals of this size may be seen in museum collections. The Topaz of Aurungzebe, observed by Jean Baptiste Tavernier measured 157.75 carats.

The most famous topaz is actually a colorless topaz that was originally thought to be a diamond. It is a 1680 carat stone known as the "Braganza Diamond" set in the Portuguese Crown Jewels. Another beautiful topaz is in the Green Vault in Dresden which has one of the world's most important gem collections.

picture: Blue topaz & diamond 14K white gold pendant - Amy Ming Jewelry

Brilliant blue topaz teardrop is framed in 14K white gold and diamonds, with a unusual triple link diamond encrusted bale featuring an open circle at the second link

Although the source of "petrified" plants was, indeed, the original living object, those molecules have long since decayed away, and have subsequently been replaced by minerals from the surrounding environment. As a result, such gems are not classed as organic, but rather as mineral gems.
Petrifaction, then, is the process in which, particle by particle, structures of a dead organism are replaced by mineral solutions, usually silicon dioxide. As a result, a perfect replica of the organic material is produced in agate, chalcedony or opal. If the original object was a woody plant the resulting stone is called petrified or fossilized wood. Technically this should be referred to as "a chalcedony pseudomorph after wood" but outside of academic circles, "petrified" will do just fine. Petrifaction is almost exclusively limited to the "hard" parts of plants such as wood, cones and seeds.

Rarer types of wood such as palmwood and tree fern wood are also seen and are favorites with collectors and jewelry designers as well. The interesting patterns that appear in such pieces may reflect the internal anatomy of the tree, such as that of the layout of the vascular bundles through which water is conducted from the roots to the leaves. Depending on the orientation of the slice such features could appear as rings, parallel lines, dots or streaks. The special case of "peanut wood" is interesting in that it is the petrified remains of wood buried in marine sediments which before petrifaction had been infested with a burrowing mollusk. The silt filled burrows of those wood parasites also fossilized leaving the "peanut" shaped markings.
It is belived that it brings well being and calms nerves.

Tier Purple Necklace

TIER PURPLE NECKLACE