A necklace made by me, featuring pink, gold, and blue/green beryl.
You may not know this gemstone by it's classification name, beryl- short for beryllium, but I guarantee you know it by other names. We'll start with bixbite, red beryl.
Bixbite is the rarest of all gems, as well as red Beryl. It's a beautiful red!! And I actually got to see a piece of it at a little tiny mineral show in of all places, the small town of Delta Colorado.
Bixbite, red Beryl. Image courtesy of Gemselect.com
I'm sure the owner of red Beryl at the show had never seen someone drool over a rock before. I did. I drooled. And yes I own it! (The drooling not the Bixbite. If I owned the Bixbite I wouldn't be here blogging. Well...maybe I would be. Anyways.. .)
One of the more well known forms of Beryl is Aquamarine!! It's the birthstone for March, and varies in shades from light blue to bluish green. I generally prefer the more bluish shades myself, which is what's in the necklace I made above.
There's plenty of Aquamarine in the world and it makes for some very beautiful jewelry!!
Aquamarine. Image courtesy of wikigempidia.com
Next we have green Beryl!! Green Beryl is also extremely valuable, and is much more well known. It's Emerald!!! It's also the birthstone of May!! (My birth month. Yeah!!) I love emerald!! I have a little bit of raw emerald that I've used in my jewelry making, but it's a prescious commodity so I use it sparingly! There are many different shades of emerald but the darker greens are the most highly sought. The green with a touch of blue, is very stunning too, IMO.
Emerald. Image courtesy of geology.com
Beryl also comes in pink!! Another one of my favorites. Pink Beryl is more commonly known as Morganite. It is very popular in jewelry as well!! And the more intense the color, the more valuable the stone. It's pink color looks fabulous with rose gold or silver! Morganite is another Beryl of which there is quite a bit of.
Morganite, pink Beryl. Image courtesy geology.com
Probably the least favorite of mine is gold Beryl. It has a cool name though. Heliodor. It can range in shades from deep gold over into gold-green. It also can make for some pretty jewelry, but is still not my most favorite. I guess you could call it the Rodney Dangerfield of Beryl. Just don't get no respect! Lol
Heliodor, yellow or gold Beryl. Image courtesy of uniqueshop.com
Lastly, is clear or white Beryl. It's also called Goshenite. Really good Goshenite, can be almost as beautiful as diamonds, IMO, and I actually prefer it too diamonds. (I think diamonds are overrated personally). Gimme a pretty Goshenite in Sterling silver and I'm a happy girl! Even the word Goshenite is cooler to say then diamond! I currently don't have any for jewelry making but if I were wanting some I'd be shopping for the clearer faceted form in beads. Just in case anyone has some they wanna send me! Lol
Goshenite, white/clear Beryl. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.com
And there ya have it. All the different types of Beryl. Now all this just makes me wanna go make some jewelry! Gemstones are so inspirational!! Told ya this stone was a Beryl of fun!!
Rock on peeps!