New gems!

http://www.gotrocks4sale.com/small-cabochons.htm

Giving my thanks

I am humbly giving thanks to customers and all my new friends

Get Ready . . . Drill!

New free tutorial about drilling rocks, stone, cabochons or glass.

See it here:  http://gotrocks4sale.com/tools-tutorials.htm

It is not difficult if you have the right tools!

Check out all recommended tools for drilling at

  http://gotrocks4sale.com/tools-tutorials.htm

The Rock THIS IS A GOTTA SEE!!

I received this via email:

There is a huge rock near a gravel pit on Hwy.25 in rural Iowa .

 For generations, kids have painted slogans, names,

and obscenities on this rock, changing its

 character many times.

A few months back, the rock received its latest paint job,

 and since then it has been left completely undisturbed.

It's quite an impressive sight. Be sure to scroll down and

check out the multiple photos. All angles of the rock. 

The flag is actually painted on the rock too.

 Here's the artist: Ray 'Bubba' Sorensen.

CheapCabochons.com

CheapCabochons.com

Easy Patina Finishes for Copper and Brass – a Tutorial by Rena Klingenberg.

Wow, not only is it a free tutorial but it shows how to make the cuff bracelet too! Great pictures and directions. Go here to get this free tutorial:  http://jewelrymakingjournal.com/rustic-cuff-bracelet-tutorial/

Great job as usual Rena

I Remember

Memorial to those we lost.


http://www.nationalgeographic.com/remembering-9-11/

CheapCabochons.com It's NEW!

The $ 4.00 & Down Gallery has been sold out so many times and this site is getting just to big so I'm expanding, although I am just getting started, you will need to check back often. 

There will be a $1.00, $ 2.00 , and $3.00 Gallery - that's it. 

First come First Served so check it often. Inventory can change hourly because these pieces are one only.There will be No Returns and What you See is What you Get. 

Same shopping cart so you can buy in both sites with one payment. 

Combined orders from the two sites will give you the free shipping offer of 20.00 or more is free, period, under 20.00 is 2.50 flat fee 

When the site is fully the last stones will be moved to the new site if there are any left. 

Thank you all for your kind words!! Wow!

CheapCabochons.com

New Druzy Cabochons listed

Find these on the Druzy Gallery

New Rocks listed

I'm in the process of posting 72 new cabochons, here is a sample of the new turquoise. Located on page 1 of the 2 pages of turquoise pages.

Wow

Wow, what a response to my info newsletter. Thank You!

What's New?

I have started a monthly newsletter for Jewelry Artists and Designers. Information about new rocks 4 sale and pertinent info, no baloney. 

You can sign up anytime, if you have purchased our stones in the past you are already on my very private list.  You may opt-out at any time

Please note that at no time or for any reason will your email be used by or given to anyone else, ever, guaranteed!

 

Register to Receive Email

 Updates

Hosting Crisis is Over

We have completed our transfer to a new host with great success, thank you GoDaddy! Great customer service, new features, better speed, we are happy again!

This must be a test

Well, I finally bit the bullet and signed on with a new hosting service. My site is still down even though I was told after an hour plus on the phone that everything would be running today.

It's one of those days when rather than dealing with it I should go fishing or just do something fun to remove the stress. I am quite convinced that I am being tested. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

I did accomplish one thing, I started a monthly newsletter. It hasn't gone out yet but the just of it is apologizing to all my customers for the inconvenience of the web site being down. (You can get in with a cached copy, but I can't guarantee that the shopping cart  will work.)

I've got plenty of new rocks to post, turquoise, agates, more stones for the $4 and Down Gallery, but there's no point in posting that until the web site is up and running properly.

Well, this is JUST GREAT!

My domain registrar set up a new platform and now my web site doesn't work! Grrrrrrrrrrrr
If you cannot get into GotRocks4Sale.com you call the 800 number and they tell you that the engineers are working on it. In the mean time I sit and wait.

My traffic has gone done to practically nothing, sales are going on to those who have the web site cashed in their computer. This is just wrong. Yes I am ranting, my customers can't figure out what is going on, and there has been no communication from the company.

My servers are working fine, at my hosting company. I may send out an email to existing customers. If there is something you need, please consider emailing me at mille.gotrocks  at  gmail.com. : / (

Information for Beading Bezels for Cabs

The two kinds of cabochon edges that are most common.  The example on the left is a cab with a dome that slopes right down to a sharp edge, and the one on the right shows a cab with a bezeled/flat edge.  The flat edge is great for wire wrapping because it holds the wires that encircle the cab.  This type of edge seems to be how the majority of cabs are cut, but I like the thin/sharp edge for beading.  Many times the edge is rounded smooth, but if the cab has a good slope from the dome it will still work well for beading.

Barbara Locke
University of New Hampshire
Information Technologist
COLA - Education

Thanks Barbara, those who are new to beading bezels will find this information helpful.

Harriet the Hummer

I know well that you aren't suppose to interfere with nature, however, when I can see a fatal ending coming I will step in. So, this is what happened; three days ago we saw this little hummingbird, and I mean little, sitting on the feeder. One wing straight up in the air, oh no, a broken wing? We all looked at each other, and walked away. It bothered me all night.

The next morning, day two,  this little ball of ruffled feathers was sitting on the deck floor, hmmm, this is not good, Lou the cat will certainly interfere with nature, so I picked up this little girl and put her on the edge of a flower pot, in the shade. I thought about offering some nectar but I was on my way to town and really didn't have time.

When I got back from town I headed straight for the flower pot and she was gone. Not knowing what happened to her, I started on a huge guilt trip. I should have done more to secure her safety. ,

Day 3, I'm having coffee on the lower patio, located directly under the deck Harriet was first rescued from. I went in for a second cup, came out and was thinking what a beautiful day. I'd been feeding Kirby the chipmunk corn and sunflower seeds when I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a ball of feathers sitting on two very tiny little feet on the pavers. Oh my gosh, it was Harriet! Yes, I know I name everything. 

I scooped her up, ran up the hill to the deck and yelled for Linda. I wasn't sure what to do, but I had to do something. Harriet was so weak, she didn't have the strength to fly. Linda grabbed a box and a feeder, a small cup and a toothpick. The feeder was just because we thought Harriet might know what it was for. 

We put some leaves, pine needles and a branch in the box. I dipped the toothpick in the nectar and offered it to Harriet and she licked it clean. Oh great I thought, now I need a straw, I knew that was the only thing handy. 

Harriet sucked that up like crazy, we did this every so often, hoping she would get hydrated enough to take off on her own. There wasn't a lid on the box, Harriet was free to fly away anytime she wanted to. The little bird was looking better and better. 

A few hours had passed and we saw another very young hummer sitting on the feeder. We then realized that Harriet had probably lost her way back to her nest. 

Henry sat on the feeder in the wrong place for a long time, then "slowly" flew to another feeder around another side of the house. As you can see the feathers are not completely matured. Henry was just getting his wings to work.

I decided to move Harriet's box over by the main feeders so she could see and hear all the other humming birds. There are literally dozens of hummingbirds here. I watched for a while, hoping Harriet would fly up to the feeder, but no luck. I decided then to put her on the feeder, she hopped on my finger, I slowly raised her up and much to my delight, she took off for a big pine tree. Whoohoo, Harriet must have gotten enough juice in her to give her the energy she needed to fly.

A happy ending for a great day!

About Beaded Cabs

One of my customers Barbara Locke, University of New Hampshire, Information Technologist COLA - Education shared some information about her beading. Barbara does fabulous work! 

 The one named Cottage1 is an example of a cab with a thick flat edge.  You need to use large beads (#6 here) for the base row to sit above the edge of the stone – so that your bezel row of smaller beads can nestle on the stone and base row, thus holding the stone.

Plume_agate2 shows a stone with a fairly high dome, but it slopes nicely down to a thin/sharp edge.  This allows you to use size 11 beads for the base row around the outer edge of the stone, and size 15 beads for the bezel row.  There are many more color choices in the smaller size 11 & 15 seed beads, so it’s much easier to match bead color and stone color.

Barbara also included a couple photos of my wire wrapping.  Do you see the stork sitting on the bank on a misty morning? 

The cottage stone was cut and polished by Barbara's late father.Barbara said "I’m not positive what type of agate it is, but I immediately saw a thatched roof ‘cottage’ reflecting into a pond, with small fires or colorful flowers on the bank.  Finding 2mm peach aventurine beads for the twisted row was a challenge, let me tell you, but I think Dad would have liked what I have done with his stone."

Thanks for sharing Barbara, and thank you for your purchases!

Being Green, REALLY?

At the cash register of the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own shopping bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The cashier responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations. You didn't have the green thing."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. 

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycling. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every shop and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. 

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. 

But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the post, we used wrapped up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. 

But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank water from a tap when we were thirsty instead of demanding a plastic bottle flown in from another country. We accepted that a lot of food was seasonal and didn't expect that to be trucked in or flown thousands of air miles. We actually cooked food that didn't come out of a packet, tin or plastic wrap and we could even wash our own vegetables and chop our own salad. 

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, city people took the tram or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mothers into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a  young person.

How it all started

Somebody asked me how I got started and why my site has been successful. Well it all started with a collection of cabochons and pendant beads. Too many rocks! So I started a web site and Rena of Jewelry Business Success New mentioned the site.

This is what Rena wrote:

Neat Jewelry-Related Website

We can all relate to the need to "de-stash" our jewelry-making supplies from time to time!

This week's neat site, Millie's Got Rocks, was set up by jewelry artist Millie to unload some of her overstock of cabochons, focal components, and beads.

Be sure to follow the links at the bottom of each page of Millie's site to click to the next picture-index page.

To me this is a "neat site" for three reasons:

First, for its photography. Millie has a lot of beautiful stones that are well-photographed, and the items that are still available have huge, lovely closeup shots when you click on them - which is so important in selling jewelry and components online.

Second, the still-available items have brief but very detailed descriptions - you know exactly what they are and how big they are.

And third, her site is visually clean and uncluttered. You can focus on exactly what you came to see - Millie's overstock of rocks!

Since the site started I've been buying stones from various places, mostly from retired lapidary fold, I started making cabochons from the "rough" that I had stashed. 

I have a many repeat customers and have had a great time getting to know many of them.

Since Rena's message in her newsletter I have had to make some changes with the picture index. It just got too complicated but I show a picture of what you get, no random picks for the most part because the stones are one of a kind, and very individualized.