Red is the Color that My Baby Wore

Red is the color of fire and blood, red holds associations with danger, power and strength as well as love and passion. Red is seen everywhere as a symbol of love, as is proof by Valentines day decor.

Burning Heart Pendant

Red is a very emotionally intense color, physically, red excites the viewer. It has very high visibility, which is why stop signs, stoplights, and fire equipment are usually painted red. In heraldry, red is used to indicate courage.

Red Arrowhead Pendant

Variations on red and what they mean:

Light red represents joy, sexuality, passion, sensitivity, and love.
Pink signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.
Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.
Brown suggests stability and denotes masculine qualities.
Reddish-brown is associated with harvest and fall.

Traveling!

It has been a long time since I have written anything here... I've been traveling this year. Lets start from the beginning of the year, I came back from Peru on January 1st 2008.

I brought back some wonderful beads from Peru. Primarily Serpentine, some Cryscolla (Peruvian Turquoise) as well as stones I just picked up off the ground.

Here is a picture of the beads I bought at the base of Machu Picchu:



I'll be turning them into necklaces soon.

Peace!
Bridgette

Leaves! leaves! Leaves!

I have been fascinated by these leaves for some time now, I finally got some at the last gem show. Then my mother picked up Alaskan Cottonwood and Aspen while she was in Alaska this summer. I love how each one is different, just look!

The first ones I made for my sister's wedding, it was a Faerie theme, so each bridesmaid had a leaf necklace. Then came the 24k gold Aspen leaf with aventurine and carnelian. Next was a Sterling Silver evergreen leaf with Thai silver and several different semi precious stones, then was the Copper evergreen leaf with some handmade lampwork beads I made in ivory, turquoise and silver, mixed with goldstone and turquiose, lastly a gunmetal oak leaf with picaso marbel and rose quartz. I simply love them.

Unfortunately there are people out there selling "dipped" leaves that are not actually dipped leaves but made using the lost wax technique. While I still believe they are beautiful, some leaves I bough on ebay recently are NOT real dipped leaves. I wish people were more honest. There is no way to really tell when you are looking at the skeleton leaves, but the solid leaves have a void in them from where the real leaf was and you can usually feel it when pressing on both sides of the leaf. If it is completely solid all the way through, you do not have a real dipped leaf, you just have a very pretty cast leaf.