Thanks to Abby Wood for this image! ▼

People don’t sell beads, beads sell themselves.  Especially February’s birthstone, amethyst!

What Abby said!

So I’ll just toss a couple amethyst-themed ideas your way.  Enjoy!

"Spring Bears"

▲ Hang in there, February babies…Soon you’ll see what delightful things Spring Bears for you!  You know what, you’re never too young for a Red Hat, or for amethyst beads… ▼

"Red Hat"

Your February birthday means days are getting longer already…so savor the Deep Twilight while you can! ▼

"Deep Twilight"

Have more amethyst inspirations?  Yes you have.  Share them.  Here.  Now.  Link to ‘em

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January Birthstone poem – the Garnet:

"By her who in this month was born..."

"...No gem save garnets shall be worn..."

"...They will ensure her constancy..."

"...True friendship, and fidelity."

For a range of garnet bead styles and prices, browse our secure online store! 

And for sterling-quality precious-bead info, read our Gemstone Beads Index.

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Citrine: the November stone

A great thing about citrine is that you’ve got options, options, options.  Both the natural stuff and geometrically perfect lab-grown citrine are available, and each has its charms.

Shapes you can only find in natural citrine — small but rugged chip beads:

Bring chips to the birthday party!

Citrine that’s manufactured by humans is much more regular in shape:

Extra-faceted for extra shine: manmade citrine

With artifice comes pizzazz–dig this jazz:

A dash of lime-green quartz!

You’re not dreaming, there are lots of ways to do your citrine-ing!  Look what you can do with a megadose of “vitamin C”:

Several milligrams of citrine beads...

Riff on the theme, drop a comment below!

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Where we check into possible birthstone plans for the upcoming month…

A great design you can make with tourmaline beads...

Tourmaline beads, the birthstone of choice for October, show some appropriately magical properties.  Did you know that if you rub this stone, it generates a charge that attracts small objects like bits of paper or strands of hair?  (I couldn’t find an image of this.  Bummer.  Please submit one if you’ve got one.)

True to its name (which originally meant “stone of mixed colors”), tourmaline is found in a very pretty palette of blue, yellow, pink, red, black, green and clear stones.  Here are most of those colors in a strand that we sell:

Rings & Things also sells strands of the nice black tourmaline alone:

Here’s a great idea for using black tourmaline in a rosary:

David's Rosary uses the black tourmaline beads

And don’t forget tourmalated quartz.  These beads technically include tourmaline, so they add to your options for “October babies”:

You’ll find lots more neat background reading at our Gemstone Index ‘tourmaline’ entry!  And this is the time of year when you can come to our BeadTour bead shows to look for great new tourmaline, tourmalated quartz and many more gemstone beads not found in our catalog!

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