HBBH 3 ½ - Surprise Party!

Ok I haven't gone mad, there is a bit of unbirthday fun happening over at Marlene & Shelley's Swaps Blog. A sort of a bead swap party based on birth stones midway through another swap event they are organising! Marlene & Shelley paired up everyone who joined in. We firstly let each other know our birthday month and then in secret create some jewellery, based on the colour of the birth stone, for each other. My birth stone is Ruby red for July and my partner Jana has gorgeous Amethyst for February, so I've now got until March 25 to design, make and post something to the Canary Islands!

Once made, photographed and in the post we all sit back and wait with baited breath for the HBBH 3.5 Reveal Day - April 20th when everyone will blog about their creations....so you'll have to wait for more till then :-)

Amethyst is a purple quartz, named when Dionysus (deity of wine and mischief) was so annoyed by Artemis (the huntress) that he set his sacred tigers upon a maiden attending her shrine. To preserve the maiden, whose name was Amethyst, Artemis petrified her in sparkling quartz. Lamenting this virgin's demise, Dionysus poured the contents of his cup over the statue, which immediately became infused with the purple of the grape.