Jewelry - is the most desirable and attractive thing for any girl. And don`t deny it! Confess to yourself that sometimes it wouldn`t be bad to have a golden ring with diamonds (the more the better), sapphires or emeralds on your finger (not obligatory on the ring finger). The matter is about one of the most successful, popular and well-known jewelry company in the world - Tiffany & Co. I`m sure you also know it. I am  a worshipper of this company. The history of its success is amazing.  It begins when Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young opened a small stationary shop in New York on the central trade street Broadway. It is remarkable that in the very first day the day`s receipts was only 5$. But gradually the company began to provide itself with logotypes and brand signs which appeared in 1837 in the form of brand wrap and advertisement material in special turquoise colours. And now any person who sees the turquoise box or packet associates it with beautiful and excellent-made jewelry by Tiffany & Co. 
 In  1885 the company made a major contribution to financial history of USA completing the State Seal. Tiffany became increasingly popular after 1961 when the movie Breakfast at Tiffany`s had been released to the public. In the movie the heroine of Audrey Hepburn wore a diamond necklace by Tiffany & Co. 

 This collection I chose by myself. It includes my favourite jewelry.  Enjoy!

I`ve never thought that jewelry may be so original even in simplicity and brand so recognizable.
















    

OneRepublic - Good Life

  It is one of the best and the most positive songs for me.  OneRepublic is an American rock band from Colorado Springs. Formed in 2002 by Ryan Tedder and Zach Filkins, the band achieved massive success on MySpace, becoming the most prominent unsigned act on the website then. The band varied style of music has been described by Ryan Tedder: "We're no respecter of genre. If its a good song or a good artist whether rock, pop, indie or hip hop, they've probably influenced us on some level...nothing's new under the sun, we're a sum of a bunch of parts." OneRepublic made radio history when with their first single from the debut album Dreaming out Loud , "Apologize", received the largest amount of airplay in history with 10,331 plays in one week, the record only being broken again by "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis, a song Tedder also co-wrote. But, to my mind, their second album, Walking up, is the most successful. Good life also came into this album. I guess every music lover must listen to it. I hope you`ll enjoy it!

Another one my favourite gem is a fluorite.Fluorite is a mineral with a veritable bouquet of brilliant colors. Fluorite is well known and prized for its glassy luster and rich variety of colors. The range of common colors for fluorite starting from the hallmark color purple, then blue, green, yellow, colorless, brown, pink, black and reddish orange is amazing and is only rivaled in color range by quartz. Thats why I like it. Fluorite is magnificent, mysterious and enchanting. I guess it is one of the most beautiful semi-precious stones in the world because of unusual form and rainbow colours.

A fluorite crystal could have a clear outer zone allowing a cube of purple fluorite to be seen inside. Sometimes the less common habits such as a colored octahedron are seen inside of a colorless cube. One crystal of fluorite could potentially have four or five different color zones or bands.

The deposits of fluorite one may find in England, China, Brazil, Morocco, Bancroft, Germany, Mexico and number of other countries.

Every mineral collection owned by even the newest and youngest of mineral collectors must have a specimen of fluorite. Fluorite is by far one of the most beautiful and interesting minerals available on the mineral markets.

 Today I want to tell you about the history of the most delightful and fickle proficiency of the leaving season - making ice statues. To my mind it is  marvellous but thankless art ( because of its short life). The first ice sculptures were originally crafted by Chinese hunters and fisherman in 1600’s in Heilongjiang on the Chinese border with Russia. They used buckets of ice to dig a hole into and then put a lit candle inside creating a lantern. After the first Chinese people did this for a practical use other’s started to hang decorative lanterns from their homes, and it even spread further when people began to parade them in carnivals. As the decorative trend spread the town of Harbin in Heilongjiang grew into a large city and become the home of the annual International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, which today holds thousands of artists work. 

  However, Russians claim that St. Petersburg was where ice sculptures originated from and was the palace of the first monumental scale ice palace. The palace was exquisitely designed, by Piotr Eropkin, and featured some fantastic creations such as ice cannons that shot real ice cannon balls and an elephant that, through a canal with pipes connecting it all up, sprayed water from its trunk. It’s hard to dispute if St. Petersburg really did found ice sculptures, but they were certainly the pioneers of the first grand ice sculptures in the world. Here on the photos you can see a look of nowadays ice sculptures.

Кот под валерьянкой=)

Our birds and beasts can be very funny and hilarious! That is an example. A cat with language facilities! Listen our colleague who is trying to learn a new word! I advise you to watch all the video to you heart`s content!

The nature is very changeable and mysterious. Every moment in the subsoil of the Earth go on different physical and chemical processes, most of which people can never comprehend. One of them - formation of the fanciful-shaped molecules that make a base for semi-precious stones and gems. My hobby is studying of stones.
 From the time immemorial people believed that stones might serve as talismans.They were considered to be  connection between gods and humanity, they contained  a vivifying energy that could treat any disease. Every stone bears very powerful energetic fund: it can injure to people or help them: bring luck, attract money or even contact with next world.
 I have many favourite stones and I`ll tell you about them from time to time.
The first one is Lapis lazuli:

This opaque, deep blue gemstone has a grand past. It was among the first gemstones to be worn as jewellery and worked on. At excavations in the ancient centres of culture around the Mediterranean, archaeologists have again and again found among the grave furnishings decorative chains and figures made of lapis lazuli – clear indications that the deep blue stone was already popular thousands of years ago among the people of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome. Particularly in the Middle East, it was thought to have magical powers. Countless signet rings, scarabs and figures were wrought from the blue stone which Alexander the Great brought to Europe. There, the colour was referred to as 'ultramarine', which means something like 'from beyond the sea'.
 Lapis lazuli is regarded by many people around the world as the stone of friendship and truth. The blue stone is said to encourage harmony in relationships and help its wearer to be authentic and give his or her opinion openly.
Lapis lazuli is an opaque rock that mainly consists of diopside and lazurite. It came into being millions of years ago during the metamorphosis of lime to marble.
 Uncut, lapis lazuli is matt and of a deep, dark blue colour, often with golden inclusions and whitish marble veins. The small inclusions with their golden shimmer, which give the stone the magic of a starry sky, are not of gold as people used to think, but of pyrites. Their cause is iron. The blue colour comes from the sulphur content of the lazurite and may range from pure ultramarine to a lighter blue.

 Since our childhood we know the Myths of Ancient Greece - one of the most distinctive, original and priceless work that have been ever created by the humanity. Everyone can note in them something attractive, captivating or  interesting for him or her, capturing our mind and imagination. Maybe we still have resemblance in characters with our ancestors, have the same superstitions or even fears. I dare suppose that you also had your favourite personage-god or creature in the myths. My choice is Athena. She was revered as a goddess of organized war, strategy and wisdom. Besides she was a patroness of the arts, crafts and knowledge. In all ancient myths Athena was characterized as wise, brave, intelligent, fair, strong warrior-maid. In a word she personifies all the features that I rate in the human beings. So... Who is your favourite mythological personage?