TUTORIAL:

Love it thank you so very much!!!!!
Sonrie! Smile! *_*
Linda Rosa
Living on the Isla Bonita Puerto Rico
May good karma be granted to you!!
Web Site
http://www.keepcreatingtheunique.com
Blog
http://keepcreatingtheunique.spaces.live.com

Thank you very much! I hope you find it helpful. :-)
Enjoy!

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Shelby Raymond
Jewelry That Rocks!
SKEENA STORM STONES
Web: http://skeenastormstones.com
E-mail: shelby@skeenastormstones.com

Awesome and useful tutorial!
Eni

Oh my goodness, this is great. Can you give me any advice on books to buy to identify gemstones both natural from a mine and already faceted? I went to a few mines in N. Carolina and have no idea what these stones are (I bought the bags to take home to sift through, I'm glad I did so I could keep all the little rocks also to use.)and a friend got me hooked and I bought a few "parcels" of mixed gemstones from jtv. I have absolutely no idea what most of them are (I can pick out the peridot but that's about it). So, I need books to help me figure them all out.
Thanks in advance for your help and thanks for this tutorial!
Carrie

I just wanted to let you know I just checked your sources so that I can find more information I've been looking for, I mentioned it in my comments above and one of the sources cannot be found by Internet Explorer. So I did a little googling and found it is just missing a word. I believe the site you are talking about should be mineralofthemonthclub.org. Your tutorial is just missing "club".
Thanks again for everything, I'm excited I might finally be able to identify my stones.
Also, I have found several rocks in my yard I would love to use in a pendant. I think I will buy a tumbler to smooth them out first and then go ahead and use my yard findings in jewelry.
Carrie

Hi Carrie- I'd also suggest Gemstones of the World by Walter Schumann. That's a great book for the gemmy stones and for dreaming! My rock tumbler tutorial is almost done - yaaaaaaay! This is really fun. Thanks for catching the Mineral of the Month Club link, they are AWESOME!
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Shelby Raymond
Jewelry That Rocks!
SKEENA STORM STONES
Web: http://skeenastormstones.com
E-mail: shelby@skeenastormstones.com

Thanks for this GREAT tutorial! Your beach photos are also very inspriational. I'm anxiously waiting for the stone drilling tutorial you mention as I've a collection of beach stones waiting to be jewellery.
Thanks!
Sue

I'm so very happy you enjoyed the tutorial Sue! I'll hurry the tutes along so that we can get to the drilling. You'll be able to make those stones as holey as you wish! :-)

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Shelby Raymond
Jewelry That Rocks!
SKEENA STORM STONES
Web: http://skeenastormstones.com
E-mail: shelby@skeenastormstones.com

Love your tutorial! Got some great tips that I didn't know. Btw, I have Gemstones of the World, and you are right, it's a great book!

Thank you, Marika. I'm glad you were able to walk away with new info! Yup, I wish the universe would let me have one of each gem/stone in that book...I drool every time I look at it!

_________________________________________
Shelby Raymond
Jewelry That Rocks!
SKEENA STORM STONES
Web: http://skeenastormstones.com
E-mail: shelby@skeenastormstones.com

Thanks for writing this. Its very informative and helpful for me.

You're welcome, I'm glad you found it helpful. :-)
_________________________________________
Shelby Raymond
Jewelry That Rocks!
SKEENA STORM STONES
Web: http://skeenastormstones.com
E-mail: shelby@skeenastormstones.com

Wow have you brought up old memories. This really brings me back to my teens and early 20's. I lived in Colorado and My husband was the head of the Mineral Society in Maryland before we moved to Colorado. I was such a rockhound with all the specimens we found just in the tailing ponds of the mines there. I also was working at the Climax Molybdenum Mine above Leadville Colorado. Yep we mined Molybdenum which is a steel hardener. Used to make tools etc. I saw the Molybenum in the list above the start of the tut. I remember first rockhounding and would find something I thought was going to be something really neat, and my husband would say, it is levorite. I would get so excited because the very first thing I found was rhodacrosite which is a good find in a tailings pond. Anyway, I asked him what levorite was, and how rare it was, and he would say. Leave it right where you found it, because its nothing, hahahhaahha.
Anyway, I have seen in the mine the most wonderful crystal formations with huge veins of gold, and we were ordered to concrete these veins up, to keep the miners from stealing and causing problems, as we were there only to mine Molybdenum. They sold tee shirts there that said Moly made your tool harder.
Anyway, I also wanted to bring up the crystal formations are usually created from as you said heat, and volcanic activity is usually a great source for perfectly formed crystals that are entrapped in a void in the surrounding rock. A geode is a fun way to see how perfectly the crystals are as the smaller the crystals the more perfect they usually are. We had a huge display of magnimounted specimens of all kinds of crystals. The containers had magnified covers so it showed the crystals in a larger size, and it was so fun to do.
I had to chime in because It just brought me back to those days and they were great memories. Can you believe I worked in a mine, blowing up rocks to mine the ore. I keep forgetting that I actually did that. It was great money and they barely worked hard. Best money I ever made in the 70's.
Thanks so much for the memories. They sure have me wanting to get out here in Nevada and looking.Its great exercise and its fun getting dirty to tell the truth. heheheh. Again, Thanks so much, Pam

Pam! What a wonderful story. :-) I'm glad you shared. It sounds as though moly mining was hard work, but it also sounds like you enjoyed it. We have moly mines up in this area, which is why I have the sample. I'd never heard of the darned stuff until I moved here.

Geodes are WONDERFUL for seeing crystal formations!

I feel flattered that you wrote after reading my tutorial. It's always nice to hear from someone who loves the rocks & minerals as much as I!
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Shelby Raymond
Jewelry That Rocks!
SKEENA STORM STONES
Web: http://skeenastormstones.com
E-mail: shelby@skeenastormstones.com

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am always picking up (and keeping) rocks because I like the look / feel of them, but not knowing what they were.

I'm with you on finding plain old river rocks beautiful enough to use as jewellery - I recently put a whack through the tumbler with plans to incorporate them into my jewellery.

This is great! My youngest grandson and I will have such fun with this. He's seven and he loves rocks as much as I do. He also can't go anywhere without bringing home a rock. He also loves science and he's a little artist too. These "experiments" will thrill him! I can't wait to try it all out. Thanks!

Ooooo,Ooooo,Ooooo. Wonderful and inspiring tutorial. I was just talking to my neighbor/fellow rockhound about buying sleds and taking our shovels along to go rocking again soon because it's been months since we've gone and we're dying to go again, even with a foot plus of snow on the ground and -10 temps!!! Yes, we'll not go too far and will stay together. We had been going at least once a week in the summer.

Thanks also for the book references and putting the name of sedimentary rocks on what we were calling mush pudding rocks! LOL

We have a lot of interesting rocks here in Wisconsin and I'm always on the lookout for what I call "hot cross bun" rocks that are of a size I can carry for my gardens. They are gray with a raised white vein going through them. I don't know their official name. A granite of some kind formed in the Kettle Morraine? Most of what I see in parks are huge and thousands of pounds, I can't seem to find them at landscape or garden centers at all, much less in a size I could carry.

I managed many years ago to take a 20-plus pound peridot rock I bought in AZ for my garden back ON THE PLANE and put it under my seat on the way back to Wisconsin - that is probably something that wouldn't "fly" today!

My collection of lake/river rocks are just waiting for your tutorial so they can become part of some new, fun jewelry, maybe used in conjunction with my small driftwood collection. Thanks again for your tutorial.

And thank you, thank you, thank you, Eni, for your wonderful site and amazing/terrific/inspiring tutorials! I think I have purchased about all of them. Now I need to get with it and start making things instead of just reading/looking at/buying tutorials.
Colleen

Wow, I've been gone for a wee bit and now I see some new/renewed rock enthusiasts have left messages. I'm glad you are enjoying the tutorials and finding them helpful. Rocks are WONDERFUL and make for a wonderful pasttime!

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Shelby Raymond
Jewelry That Rocks!
SKEENA STORM STONES
Web: http://skeenastormstones.com
E-mail: shelby@skeenastormstones.com

TFS :-) its very useful...

Thank you for this tutorial. Really informative and helpful.

Nicely done Thank you

I'm glad you enjoyed the tutorial. :-) Happy rock hunting!

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Shelby Raymond
Jewelry That Rocks!
SKEENA STORM STONES
Blog:http://skeenarocks.com
Twitter: SkeenaRocks
Web: http://skeenastormstones.com
E-mail: sh

This is really good, stone-knowing, rock-loving and beginner+stone-respecting!

Lilia

Wow, Shelby.. I really enjoyed your tutorial! Very enlightening indeed! Thank you so much for sharing!

Thanks Lilia & Athena! I'm happy to hear you enjoyed the tutorial! I wish you many joyous, rock-filled years!