William L. Stuart

author of The Gemstone Chronicles Series

gemstone rough

Gemstones Again!! Faceted Emerald, Quartz, and Citrine!

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Gemstones again! I haven’t done a gemstone post in a while (partially because I haven’t been gemstone hunting due to other commitments – like marketing The Gemstone Chronicles), but I now have some very cool stones to showcase! Before I get to the final versions of the gemstones, though, I wanted to show you what the stones looked like when I found them.

Emerald:

The first stone is an emerald. I sent this one over to my gem cutter friend because it had a great green color when illuminated by a strong light. And, the natural shape was pretty cool!

Emerald Rough before faceting

I know the picture doesn’t show the green color. It was difficult to capture…

Quartz:

The second stone I want to show you is a quartz crystal. I found this one and it was extremely clear. Now, I believe the stone is beautiful in its natural state. What do you think?

Gemstones Again Quartz crystal rough

Citrine:

The final stone is a citrine. For those not familiar with citrines, they are the same stone as an amethyst, but with different impurities to give them a yellowish-orange color.

How did the gemstones turn out? I think they are amazing! Here is the finished emerald. While not as green as Lana’s emerald from posts past, or what I envision the Emerald from the Elven Bow in Book Three: The Emerald, it is a great stone!

Gemstones Again Emerald-Cut-Emerald-6.5-Carats-Web

If you recall from my Rubies and Diamonds post, I asked my gem cutter friend Gene to facet two round brilliant cut quartz stones. They are 1.25 carats each. Here is a picture of them!

Gemstones Again Faceted Gemstones Round Brilliant Cut Quartz
Round Brilliant Cut Quartz

To match these, I asked Gene to cut the quartz rough above in a brilliant cut, as well. I think he did a fantastic job! I can see this as a pendant or perhaps a really big ring!

Gemstones Again Round-Brilliant-3-Carats-Web

The last stone is the citrine. I have a bunch of citrines, but they are usually so fractured inside that they aren’t really suitable for faceting. The stone above seemed very clear and, as it turned out, it was!

Princess Cut Citrine 1.7 carats

Apologizes again for the pictures as they really don’t show the beauty of the stones, but, as you can see, this Princess Cut weighed in at 1.7 carats and is a great yellow color!

I have to go through the stones I found this past weekend and see if I can find a few more to send to Gene! I also plan to start creating cabochons after the holidays, so stayed as I post progress on them!

What do you think of the finished stones? How do you think they should be mounted? Gold or Silver settings? Pendants or rings? Let me know how you would mount them?

Connect with me:

You can connect with me on social media, too, and let me know what your thoughts about the stones are. I can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads, or just send me an email to bill@williamlstuart.com!

Happy Holidays!!

Gemstone Hunting Secrets – The Process Revealed!!

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Gemstone hunting! One of my absolute favorite pastimes and one that led to the writing of The Gemstone Chronicles. I have talked about it in previous posts and even posted some pictures from the trips. Today, though, I want to walk you through the steps I go through when I pursue this hobby of mine! Yes, my gemstone hunting secrets revealed!

The location:

All of the pictures were taken by me on Sunday, March 15 at my favorite spot, Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’ in Cleveland, GA. If you have read any of my previous posts on this topic, you already know some of this, but let me summarize for new readers. Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’ is part of a commercial gold mine in the North Georgia Mountains. The property was part of the Loud Mine and continues to produce gold today.

For gold prospectors and gem enthusiasts, it is a great place to go for a fun (and sometimes profitable) visit. The site offers buckets and a covered sluice for sifting through the dirt to uncover treasures. They also offer mining at the creek – which is my favorite part. Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’ puts dirt dug from the mine pit next to the creek that runs through the property. Diggers can then fill buckets with dirt from the pile, take it to the creek, and sift through it. Whatever you find, you get to take home!

The dirt pile:

When we arrived (we being my brother John, his daughter Simone, and me) on Sunday morning, we had a fresh pile of dirt to dig through. However, it was wet and heavy dirt from recent rains, and it made for some heavy buckets!

Gemstone Hunting Secrets Dirt Pile

Our process is to fill 5 gallon buckets with dirt from the pile and lug the buckets down to the creek. Trust me when I say that after 4 hours of toting buckets of dirt, you will be pretty tired! Here are my 4 buckets ready to be screened.

Work smarter, not harder:

Gemstone Hunting Secrets Buckets of Dirt

I like to stack my screening boxes on top of one of the buckets and fill from another bucket. Why? Because I can let the dirt sift through the screens and sift out larger rocks. This way, by the time I get to the last bucket, I have some sifted dirt I can put into my sluice box. More on that in a minute. First, I wanted to show how the boxes look when full of dirt and placed in the creek to begin the washing process.

Gemstone Hunting Secrets Screening boxes

I try to let the creek do most of the work in the process. I tilt the boxes up on each other to get good water flow through the dirt. Most of the dirt simply washes away and leaves a box full of rocks. In the box below, I found a pretty sizable ruby. It’s always a bonus to find something so easily!

Gemstone Hunting Secrets Screen Box with Ruby Outlined

As I mentioned above, I like to work through all the buckets and then dump the sifted dirt into my sluice box. It isn’t necessary to sift it first, but with the sluice box, it makes it easier to run dirt through. Below is a picture of the sluice box in the creek. If there is any gold in the dirt, it will either catch on the black mat or get caught in the green carpet.

Gemstone Hunting Secrets Sluice Box

Once the dirt is run through the sluice, I rinse the carpet off in a bucket and then dump the contents of the bucket into my gold pan. I didn’t find any gold on this day, but I have found a few flakes before. It’s a bonus when you find the gold!

Gemstone Hunting Secrets – The results:

So, what did I find during my first gemstone hunting trip of the year? I found a few nice rocks, but the take wasn’t as good as some trips. Nevertheless, any day of gemstone hunting is a great day! Here are the results. The first picture is some of the gemstones I found.

March 15 gemstones

From the upper left moving clockwise, we have rubies, garnets, quartz, citrine, and aventurine. Remember the ruby in the picture above, well, here is another view. The scale is set for grams, so doing the conversion, the stone is about 35 carats. Unfortunately, I don’t think this one would be a candidate for faceting, so it isn’t worth much. I still like it, though.

Big Ruby

There you have the process we use to hunt for gemstones. I did find a smaller ruby (about 20 carats) that I plan on sending to my gem cutter to see if it is a good stone. When a stone is cut, you lose about 75% in the cutting process, but, if the stone is a good one, I could end up with a 5 carat ruby. Not bad for $15 visit!

What do you think about our gemstone hunting secrets and the process? It really isn’t secret, but it is tons of fun! Any suggestions on making it more efficient? If you hunt gemstones, what do you do and where do you go? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Connect with me:

You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.  I can also be reached by email at bill@williamlstuart.com. I look forward to meeting you!

Book Marketing – Book Trailers!!!

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Book Marketing – Book Trailers!!! One of the hottest trends to help with book marketing these days are book trailers. Book trailers are a great tool for authors to use to generate book buzz, so I decided I would do some research and see if I could develop one for The Gemstone Chronicles Book One: The Carnelian. Before I show it, I wanted to go through the process that I used. Maybe it will help one of you readers with your own trailer!

Book Trailers Drow

Steps:

I started my trailer by developing slides in PowerPoint. You don’t have to do it that way. There are services that will create a trailer for you. Or, you can do it yourself. Step by step, it works something like this:

  • Decide what you want to say about your book – write a script if you need to
  • Find some images that fit what you want to say in your script
  • Find music that fits the images and your book
  • Make sure you give attribution for the images and music. Sometimes you have to pay for a license to use the images and the music, so do your research! I used www.incompetech.com for the music.
  • Edit it all together and there you have it – a book trailer

I know this is a greatly simplified set of directions, but if you follow steps like this, you can make a trailer. You can Google it to find many helpful hints, examples, and step by step instructions. Once you’ve made the trailer draft, I recommend running it by friends, family, and other authors, and be prepared for some criticism (constructive, I hope). I ran my rough draft by a whole group of people (that fit the recommendations listed above) and got a ton of feedback. As a result, I reduced the length, changed the font, and made a few other changes. It made the end result much better, I think!

Formats:

Making the trailer wasn’t all that difficult. It can be a slide show or it can be converted into a .mp4 or .wmv (or other formats, depending on what devices you want to be able to view it). I converted mine to .mp4 so viewers can see it on most devices. The conversion from PowerPoint slides to the .mp4 was easy, too! Just save the file as .mp4 and PowerPoint converts it. Works the same way to save the file as a .wmv, so easy as can be!

Where to post the trailer?

Now that the trailer is made, what do you do with it? I will post mine on my website, include it on MyBookTable, put it on my Facebook fan page, and I might even start my own YouTube channel. I will be at the Augusta Literary Festival March 7 and I can run it at my table during the day. As a part of my overall marketing plan, I intend to use it extensively to generate interest in the book and I will be working on trailers for the other books of the series!

Finally, here is the trailer! Take a look and let me know what you think!!

Have you done a book trailer or had one created for your books? I would love to see them, so post a link in the comments. Who knows, I might end up buying books based on the trailers!

Connect with me:

If you want to connect with me, I can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads, or you can contact me through email at bill@williamlstuart.com.

Faceted Gemstones – Newest Additions!!

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Regular readers of my blog (or my books) know that I’m a big fan of gemstones. I love faceted gemstones, cabochons, and tumbled stones. My books, The Gemstone Chronicles series, use the magical and mystical properties of gemstones as the basis of the magic the characters discover. I frequently go gemstone hunting at my favorite spot in the North Georgia Mountains, Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’, in Cleveland, GA. My two rock tumblers run almost all of the time, smoothing out the rough edges and polishing the stones I’ve found to a brilliant luster. Occasionally, though, I find a special stone that can be cut and faceted. Shown below is the first stone I ever had cut (an emerald)!

Emerald:

Faceted Gemstones Lana's emerald
Lana’s emerald

A 2.25 carat stone, it appraised nicely, and is still loose. Lana hasn’t decided on a setting yet. The stone is gorgeous, and since it was my first find, it is extra special!

Peridot:

My brother John found the peridot shown in the photo below. I had it cut for Lana. It weighed in at about 2.5 carats and I had it set in a sterling silver ring for her birthday. Beautiful!!

Faceted Gemstones
Lana’s peridot ring

Ruby:

Now, I have two new additions to the faceted gemstones family! I was hunting and found this rough ruby and sent it over to my faceting friend and he worked his magic. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of the rough.

After cutting and polishing, here is the final faceted stone. Not huge by any means, but still weighing in at 1.3 carats, it is a great little stone!

Faceted Gemstones Ruby
Faceted Ruby

Note the description in the picture says sapphire, which is true. Recall that red sapphires are rubies! Gene cut the stone in a Cushion Cut, and it turned out beautifully!

Quartz:

I also sent over a piece of clear quartz that was stunning as a rough piece. Gene cut me two round brilliant cut stones about 1.25 carats each. I wanted to see how the quartz would turn out in a traditional diamond cut. I think they turned out great! What do you think?

Faceted Gemstones Round Brilliant Cut Quartz
Round Brilliant Cut Quartz

What do you think about my faceted gemstones! I have some garnets that might facet well, but I have to get them cleaned up and see what they look like. A nice sapphire (blue not red) or a piece of aquamarine to have cut might be nice, but no such luck yet. I guess I just have to keep on looking!

Which of my faceted gemstones is your favorite? What setting would you use for the emerald or the ruby? Do you think the quartz brilliant cuts look like diamonds? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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If you want to connect with me, find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. You can always email me at bill@williamlstuart.com. I look forward to meeting new friends! And, don’t miss a post. Subscribe to the blog!

Rubies and Diamonds (OK, the diamonds are quartz)!!

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Everyone who reads this blog or who has read The Gemstone Chronicles knows that I, like the character of Beebop from the books, love to hunt gemstones. Rubies and diamonds and sapphires, oh my! I try to go about once per month and see what I can find. A few weeks ago, I went and had a great day finding rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and a great piece of clear quartz. I went with my brother John, and we made a significant dent in the dirt pile! Here is what it looked like when we arrived.

The Dirt Piles:

Rubies and Diamonds Dirt Pile Before

And this is what it looked like when we left. Like I said, a significant dent. Look at the sign in the background. Give a great idea of how much dirt we moved!

Rubies and Diamonds Dirt Pile After

The rubies:

But, I don’t want to talk about the dirt pile or what we found overall. What I wanted to show you today is what I did with some of the stones I found. Below are a couple of pictures of ruby rough that I sent to my gem cutting friend (whom John and I refer to as “He Who Cuts Stones”).

Small Ruby RoughThis is the small piece of ruby rough that I sent. I didn’t weigh it before I sent it for cutting, but He Who Cuts Stones made a nice little faceted ruby (picture later).

This is the second piece I sent for faceting evaluation. I didn’t think it would yield anything that was gem quality, and, sadly, I was right. Despite that, I think it might make a great cabochon, though!

Larger Ruby Rough

As promised above, here is the picture of the faceted stone made from the small ruby rough. I think it is a beautiful little ruby!

Rubies and Diamonds Ruby facetNote that the description in the picture says this is a sapphire. Rubies and sapphires are both corundum. Ruby is the red variety of corundum. Sapphires make up all the other colors. Similar to an emerald cut, the cushion but is great. It’s gorgeous ruby and, at 1.3 carats, is a very nice stone. Although it’s not as big as the Ruby from Book Four:The Ruby, it’s still beautiful!

The quartz:

I also sent an extremely clear piece of quartz I found to Gene. I asked him to cut a couple of brilliant cut pieces between one and one and a half carats, but I wasn’t sure what how they would turn out. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised! This is the piece of quartz after the pieces were cut.

Rubies and Diamonds Cut Quartz RoughI know it isn’t the best picture. The stone was about twice that large before it was cut. Because it is still a good-sized piece of quartz, I probably could get a few more cut pieces from it. What I did get, though, was beautiful!

Rubies and Diamonds Quartz FacetedThe picture doesn’t do the stones justice, but they will make a great pair of earrings for the lovely and adorable Lana! They are round brilliant cuts and, as the picture shows, 1.25 carats each. They look like diamonds!

Results like this make gemstone hunting worthwhile for me. Of course, I want to learn how to cut facets, but that is a topic for another post.

What is your favorite hobby? What do y’all think about the stones? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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Back in the Creek!! Gemstone Hunting June 29, 2014

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I finally got back in the creek and went gemstone hunting today! I recently visited the Hogg Mountain Mine in LaGrange, GA and had a great time, but I truly enjoy putting my camp chair in the creek, and sifting through trays of dirt!

For those who don’t know, our favorite gem hunting spot is in Cleveland, GA, at Gold ‘n Gems Grubbin’. Besides being a fun place to hunt for gemstones at the creek, this was also the place that led me to write The Gemstone Chronicles.

What I found:

Today, though, it was just brother John and me and we had a great time and had a pretty good haul of gemstones.

Rocks from the day

I know you can’t see the details in the picture above, so I will tell you that there are citrine, quartz crystal, hematite, garnets, emeralds, topaz, a couple of sapphires, one ruby, and one really purple amethyst! I have some better pictures of some of the stones.

Citrines from the creek

Citrines from the trip! I wish I could have gotten a closer picture to show the points on the stones, but they were very well defined.

Garnets from the creek

In this picture, there are a few garnets (note the deep red on the tip of one of the garnets), a couple of topaz, and a small emerald.

Clear quartz

I think this is one of the best finds of the day! It is a clear quartz crystal with a few surface flaws, but the interior looks pretty clean. I might have to take this one to my friend who cuts facets for me and let him work his magic. Maybe Lana gets a new pair of earrings!! Below is another picture of the same crystal.

Quartz 2

Lastly, I have a picture of a deep purple amethyst. This was the only deep colored amethyst I found. I found another one, but it was very pale. It had a blush of amethyst instead of the deep purple that I like. I didn’t include a photo of that stone.

Amethyst
Dep

So that’s it. The results of four hours of sifting through tray after tray of dirt in the creek. Pretty good day to be back in the creek!!

Have you done any collecting recently? Antiques, stamps, coins, or any other collectible (like maybe the four books of The Gemstone Chronicles)? If you have, please leave me a comment and let me know what treasure you found! I’d like to see it!