Art + Yard Sale + Nothing over $10 = Spring YART 2008!

Spring YART 2008 is scheduled for April 26, 2008, 10am - 3 pm. Held at 809 S. Villa Drive in Evansville, IN (off Washington or Lincoln Ave, near Vann Park).

YART makes local art accessible and affordable to people in the Evansville and surrounding tristate community who like, make and appreciate art. Artists have the opportunity to sell their work, meet and socialize with each other and their buyers. Local art in a yard sale setting, with yard sale prices! No art sold is priced over $10.

For more info check http://www.yartsale.org or http://www.myspace.com/evilleyart

New poll and New treasury!

Started a new poll about store/item views when listing/renewing items on Etsy - available here on the top left of this blog, and open until April 20th!

Did another treasury, this time of wonderful space items! It's only open for a few more hours, but if you get the chance it can be seen here http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=38016

A lot of great items, and it was hard to choose! Here's a pic of the items featured, including the 'alternate' choices.

Sellers featured and their items: 6timemomma (eclipse photo), bluedogrose (space bunny), bomobob (auroa photo), circularaccesories (astro tshirt), davidloong (rocket around saturn pendant), dote (cosmos cards), Finestra (orion nebula necklace), infinityart (space age pendant), lindsaybellejennings (astronaut walking dog print), margaretsWorld (moonscape ACEO), NorthStarJewelry (metorite necklace), Nyberg (sunset and space print), shaylamaddox (blue circle painting), spacemonkey (Uranus balm), spamberly (WWWSD magnet), uncorked (girl astronomer cork necklace)

All of these sellers can be found on Etsy simply by searching their username!

Stone of the Week - Jasper

Jasper is a type of Chalcedony, which in turn is a cryptocrystalline variety of quartz (cryptocrystalline = crystals so small you can’t see them). Hence it also has the chemical formula SiO2, but with impurities that result in the myriad of colors. One distinction between jasper and other forms of chalcedony is that it is usually opaque; whereas other forms of chalcedony such as agate will exhibit some translucence. The name jasper means “spotted stone", and comes from the Anglo-French word ‘jaspre’ that is derived from the Greek word ‘iaspis’.

Jasper is a varitey of microcrystalline quartz, but with impurities to result in a variety of colors.


Jasper comes in many varieties due to the different chemical impurities, as can also exhibit different ‘patterns’ in the stone due to the environment in which it formed. A number of these varieties have their own names which are purely trade names, not scientific. One of the most common is the red jasper, which is gets its red color from hematite. Autumn jasper often has colors of green, red, orange, brown, and white all mixed together and often speckled in appearance. Kambaba jasper is a green and black jasper that often has swirling patterns, and is sometimes mislabeled as rhyolite. Known as both Kiwi jasper and Sesame jasper, this stone has a spotted pattern of white, blue, and black. Another common jasper is Zebra jasper, which has bands of white and black.


There are many varities of jaspers known by specific trade names. Clockwise from the top is: Kiwi/Sesame jasper, Zebra jasper, Kambaba jasper, and Autumn jasper.


Two of the most sought after jaspers currently are the Ocean jaspers and Imperial jaspers. Ocean jasper, also called Orbicular jasper, forms when Rhyolite (an igneous rock) becomes silicified. In other words, the rock eventually is entirely replaced with silica (aka jasper). Rhyolite itself is silica rich, and as it cools sometimes the silica in the rhyolite can form spheres – hence the pattern commonly seen in Ocean jasper. Imperial jasper comes in shades of green, pink, brown, yellow, purple, cream – the two most sought after being the purple and green Imperial Jasper. It’s a beautiful stone, with rich colors often with subtle flowing patterns.


Jaspers provide a varitey of beautiful stones for jewelry work, such as this green Imperial Jasper.

If there's a stone you would like to know more about - drop me a line! Have a mystery stone? Feel free to post a comment about it, including a link to a picture, and it could be featured on this blog!


Jasper Facts:
Chemical composition: SiO2 + impurities
Color: Many colors
Habit: Commonly massive
Fracture: Uneven and conchoidal
Cleavage: None
Luster: Vitreous
Hardness: 7
Specific Gravity: 2.65
Streak: White
Occurrence: Worldwide, though some varieties are only mined from specific locations (e.g. Ocean Jasper and Imperial Jasper)


References
A Guide to Rocks and Fossils by B. Busbey III, R. R. Coenraads, P. Willis, and D. Roots. Published 2002 by Fog City Press. ISBN: 1877019518

Rocks, Minerals, & Fossils of the World by C. Pellant and R. Phillips. Published 1990 by Little, Brown and Co. ISBN: 0316697966

Mindat – Jasper. http://www.mindat.org/min-2082.html


Mindat – Orbicular Jasper. http://www.mindat.org/min-27171.html

Wikipedia – Amazonite. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper

Sales, Teams, Treasuries, Updates, and More!

So today is the last day of my week-long sales event at Bijoutery. Tonight is the Saturday Night Specials at http://bijoutery.etsy.com/ with a Buy More Save More Sale!

♥Purchase 1 item get 15% off!
♥Purchase 2 items get 20% off!
♥Purchase 3 or more items, get 25% off!

The Mad Scientists of Etsy Team is now Official! Check out our team profile at http://team.etsy.com/viewteam.php?id=265 or you can still visit the thread in the Etsy forums at http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5521620

To find team items, search for our team tag 'msoe team' in the Etsy search engine. We're also gearing up for our first challenge this month,'Science as Art' which will be featured!

I also nabbed us a treasury, but since it ends soon here's a pic of some great items!

Speaking of treasuries, I found some great items made with the stone Jasper, and created a treasury earlier in the week. I will be posting a 'stone of the week' feature on Jasper tomorrow, and that treasury will be featured along with it!

As school is coming to a close here in the next month, I've been kept super busy, so hence the delays in the 'stone of the week' articles. I will still do my best to get them out about once a week, as long as time permits. Look for the feature on turquoise soon!