TaoGem Gemstones

I had some of this a while back and the cabochons turned out excellent. At the time I did not know what it was called. At that time, I had thought it might have been a type of Wave Jasper.
The other day a friend of mine gave me another piece of rough of this same […]

The single most important hurdle for a beginner is getting at least somewhat of a handle on the graduated stages from grinding, sanding and a nice polish on a gemstone cabochon.
Believe me.. I remember all to well. Bought my first combo unit. A Highland Park. It came with one course 80 , and 400 grit […]

A while back, came across some Serpentine Gemstone mineral that ended up being unlike anything I had tried to polish before. I could tell the material was certainly going to be some excellent looking gemstone material for custom jewelry designs.
I like to share with anyone interested how these minerals look when first starting to cut […]

I have been sending out a great many gemstones made of a variety of minerals to gemstone jewelry designers for over a year now.
If you have subscribed to my site then you have probably been following along as I add new blog entries. More to the point of this blog post is another recent […]

I wanted to sorta be prepared for my first silver metal clay beginners class coming up the end of the month.
I decided to practice what I preach from a previous blog entry, and will design my first piece more around the design / shape of the stones. Then work second with the shape of the […]

One of what has become a favorite mineral of mine is this semi precious Imperial Spider Jasper. It is a rather rare Jasper. I have never even seen it before.
While visiting another lapidary up in Bonners Ferry Idaho, he reluctantly parted with a very small piece of this fabulous material. It was enough to make […]

It can have so much color and pattern variation. Gray wave red jasper is very similar to red bend jasper in color.
I cut this Wave Jasper Gemstone for a customer. As you can see, this Jasper mineral sure has the potential for some beautiful gemstone jewelry.

The Wave Jasper Slab above is available for special requests. […]