Photography and magnesite

Christmas is over for another year, in fact another year is almost over - only hours to go until 2009 shows its face!

Our christmas was very family oriented and the children had a wonderful time, as they always do. Did you receive anything you just LOVE? I did! I received an autographed copy of the wonderful book A Grain of Sand by Dr Gary Greenberg. I've mentioned it on my blog before as a wonderful look into something so mundane yet so startingly beautiful that you will never look at sand the same way, ever again! Not just a gorgeous coffee table book, there is wonderful information on both Dr. Greenberg's microphotography and on sand itself.

I was contacted by a fellow who saw my admiration of macrophotography and sent me a link to his photos on flickr. He has taken some wonderful shots of stones that would make great wall art.

Bright blue-greens are always popular in summer and I found a great strand of treated magnesite (pictured above made into a necklace) that gives that wonderful aegean green colour. I haven't dealt with magnesite before and was interested to learn more about it. It is commonly found in a massive form (more rarely as crystals) in white/grey/yellow-brown. Fairly soft at 3.5-4 it has been used for sculpture for thousands of years. (A small Mesopetamian lioness sculpture made of magnesite c. 3000-2800 BC was sold by Sothebys in 2007 for over US$57 million!)

Metaphysically it is said to bring deep peace to meditation. It promotes a positive attitude, stimulates ideas yet has a calming effect on emotions. Said to detoxify the body it acts as a muscle relaxant, treats bone and teeth disorders, speeds up fat metabolism and helps deal with fevers and chills. Sounds like I should save a piece for the medicine cabinet! ;)

My family (and I imagine half of Australia) are off to a New Years Eve celebration tonight. If you have such a gathering to attend I hope you have a wonderful time and I look forward to catching up with you in 2009 ;)

Happy New Year!

Ho Ho Ho - less than a week to go!

Less than a week to go to Christmas! My children have finished school for their christmas/summer holidays and they're almost jumping out of their skins. (When they had to go to school of course, they were dragging their feet and telling me how tired they were. Good to see that hasn't carried over to the holidays ;) ).

The dancing concert went beautifully - the choreography was brilliant and the story clearly relayed. The girls were lovely little white doves in the opening act and my son was a shiny diamond dancing in the mine during the hip-hop segment. I must say he has finally got his dancing together - it has taken two and a half years but he looked great!

We've also had the christmas carnival, christmas pageant and end of school presentation in the last week. So it's been all stations go, go, go.

I have been able to get into the final handmade market of the year in Tamworth, so tomorrow will be a very early start for the 2 1/2 hour drive. Hubby is coming with me this time to help me set up and pull down and has grand plans of buying a newspaper and sitting in a coffee shop for most of the morning!

I have the Christmas letter written and will attempt to write out some cards today in the hope that I can get them all in the mail on Monday. I must be genetically programmed to do the cards late LOL.

The piece pictured today has gone to a new home already - in fact it was purchased as a Christmas gift. The most wonderful druzy chalcedony (little baby crystals that have naturally grown on a chalcedony base) pendant has been matched with peacock pearls of a wonderful lustre and colour and the smallest highlight of sterling silver.

I may not post before Christmas, so if I don't - all the best of the season to you and yours!