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Birthstone for December -- Blue Zircon

Blue Zircon Jewelry Making Gemstone and Birthstone for Dec.The modern birthstone for December is the Blue Zircon.  Zircon is a naturally occurring gemstone made of Zirconium Silicate one of the group of nesosilicates.  (This is not the same chemical composition as the laboratory made Cubic Zirconia.)  Zircon comes in many colors (red, brown, yellow, green, black, colorless and blue) but the blue variety has become the most popular.  The color of zircons can be changed by heating.  Depending on the amount of heat applied, colorless, blue and golden-yellow zircons can be made. 

Zircon is one of the densest/heaviest gemstones so when sold by carat weight, it will be smaller than other gemstones of the same carat weight.  (This won't be a factor where the stones are sold by size like 8mm.)  Zircon is can be chipped if handled roughly.  The hardness of Zircon is 7.5- on the Mohs scale (Quartz sand has a hardness of 7 and diamonds have a hardness of 10.) 

Zircon is a very common mineral, contained in igneous rocks (rocks resulting from molten magma deep within the earth's crust that cooled and hardened.)  While zircon is a commonly available material, large crystals of Zircon are much less common. 

For more information on zircons visit Wikipedia here. 

To view our selection of man-made blue zircons in our internet store, select the picture above-right or select here.

  Birthstones                    View our Blue Zircon Jewelry Making Kits

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Zircon"
Last updated 3/30/2007

This WigJig web page is provided as part of WigJig University - College of Jewelry Making Techniques.  We try to provide interesting jewelry making techniques using beads, jewelry wire and other jewelry supplies.  We hope that the jewelry making skills taught on these web pages will provide you enough information for you to incorporate these techniques in your own jewelry making projects.  For beginners, we suggest that you start with a visit to our Beginners Jewelry Making pages. These pages discuss the skills necessary for making jewelry in the detail that beginners need. We also suggest that beginners to jewelry making might need to visit the WigJig University College of Jewelry Making Designs for jewelry making projects using the skills and techniques shown here. 

 Most, but not all of the jewelry supplies shown here can be purchased in our WigJig store.  We try to have a complete selection of jewelry supplies in our store including chain, wire, glass beads, findings, watches, tools, etc. 

The jewelry making projects shown here do not use Sterling Silver.  The reason for this is simple, it is harder to get good pictures of Sterling Silver wire components than with colored wire including gold-filled, copper, or brass wire.  Any project shown in colored wire can be made in Sterling Silver wire.