DIY/Crystals On a Budget

[evil ed]

Firebird, I agree totally with Silver on this one. Not sure what it is, but pretty sure it is not amethyst. There's a lot of "crystal growers" peddling their wares a a lot of the rock shows. As long as they are honest with their customers, this is OK. When they are not honest, i have a problem with it!
Many years ago at a show in Cincinnati, a dealer in the swap area was selling copper sulfate crystals he had grown on broken geode pieces. This weasel was telling everybody this was "natural", and even had a made up mineral name to go with it. I made a point to tell as many people about this as I could. After the show, he confronted me and accused ME of being unethical because I caused him to lose sales!

[Silversong]

Ed, don't you just love those swine?

[Firebird]

Buy the way Yana did you make those lovely stars?

I didn't ever think it was really amethyst, the shape is too uniform. But I'm not sure about if it is borax...it there other ways to falsify types of quartz?

I hear what your saying Ed...I love the gem shows, but now fake amber is showing up too and unless they will let you scrape a piece off and burn it...how are you going to tell? I had always felt rock hounds were ethical...now it would appear to be a more widespread problem. I see all kinds of misrepresentations anymore...one local store owner tried to sell me sodalight as lapis...what the heck???
Bb, Firebird

[YanaKhan]

Buy the way Yana did you make those lovely stars?
Bb, Firebird

Yup, I did. Real easy to make, just like on the video. I'll be making some more for the Yule tree, I think they will look lovely on it

[Firebird]

Oh, yea...that's a great idea!

[Falcon_Heart27]

Holy moly!! those look great. Once they are formed are they very hard? Like, do we know if there is a mohs scale rating for tbem?
I guess I'm wondering if the are water soluble?

The colors are wonderful.

Bb, Firebird

Hi firebird,

They are fairly hard, but not enough to withstand lots of dropping or scraping. They will cut, though!!! I had to yank on one of mine a lot because it grew bigger than the mouth of my jar, and ended up with lots of tiny deep cuts on my fingers. they actually didn't hurt or bleed, but they haven't healed yet, either.

Yeah they are water soluble and I believe they will break up when wet, or at least the dye will run. I plan to put a clear coat of nail polish on mine.


~Falcon

[Falcon_Heart27]

Yana those stars are very pretty! And firebird, that's definitely not amethyst, but idk about it being borax either because it's so uniform and pretty. The borax (in my experience) isn't always very symmetrical. That's also very large. If one let it grow for that long, the crystals would've changed shape and wouldn't have been pointy anymore.


~Falcon

[Ivy]

I've always been a little suspicious of this crystal ...it looks like an amethyst someone gave it to me many years ago and when I rinsed it off it because it was very dusty, it seemed to melt just a bit ...anyway, do you guys think this is one of those borax crystals too? It's way to egg shaped to have formed that way naturally, and it appears to have a central point at the bottom where a post may have been attached?
Bb, curiousbird

Did you ever find out or test it? Some Amethyst/Quartz do grow with a hollow underneath and wierd vugs and holes.
Testing in a little water would tell, the hardness of Borax crystals is about 2 - 2.5 on Moh's Scale so very soft (to put in perspective Quartz is 7 and Diamond 10).

[Falcon_Heart27]

New addition!!! I bought this quartz pendant at a farmers market.
[img]http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016011 ... c53f7b.jpg[/img]

[RosieMoonflower]

Very pretty! I love how it has the small stones on the front to represent the chakras! Very good find!

Rosie

[RiverDawn]

This is awesome! Think I'll make some!
Thanks for showing us!!

[Myrth]

I was disappointed with my attempts to grow crystals when I was a child. They were small, and I could see the string inside them. They just weren't pretty. I wonder how to make them larger. I would enjoy growing larger ones. I need to study the video and read up on this.

[Floyd Pinkerton]

I need to do this.

There's also actually a place nearby where I live, where you can buy 2 bags of sand that have crystals hidden in them for like $17. Then you pan for them yourself. It's a lot of fun, and I got probably $150 worth of crystals out of these 2 bags. Lots of amethyst and citrine, and I even got one or two rubies. I forget exactly what all I got, but it was a great day. I don't know if there are places where you can do that everywhere, but it is one option if you're ever in central PA and go to Indian Echo Caverns!

[Firebird]

Cannot see the image...am I the only one?

Ok 4 posts ago, Falcon, you put in a pic...I tried to quote it but the pixels of the pic were too large for me to make a post.
It may have to do with the tapatalk, I will send you a P.M.
Bb, Firebird