Aventurine

Every year, I make some tumbled batches for my mother-in-law. She loves tumbled rocks, and always arranges them artfully with candles, etc. After doing quartz/quartzite/amethyst last year, I went with aventurine this year.

I bought rough from multiple sources. It ranged from light green to gray/green to mossy green. Some had sparkles and some did not. Here is how a mixed batch of rough looked partway through:

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And here are the final results (with bad lighting, mediocre photographic ability, and poor white balance). I couldn't quite get the pale green color to come out right, but you'll get the idea:

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Here are some close-ups of the larger rocks to give a sense of the shine:

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Here are some of the darker, mossy green specimens. They tend to have a lot of sparkle to them.

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Some of the paler ones have a good bit of internal sparkle as well:

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All in all, I was pleased. It can sometimes be hard to get a good shine on aventurine, but these worked out well. I'm sure that my mother-in-law will like them!

Thanks for looking, and happy holidays to all.