April 30 - May 13, 2007
New Items
No New Items Yet
I am slowly getting back to life after our bad news from
several weeks ago, and hope to start listing anew very soon.
Coming Soon
New Chip/Nugget Beads:
Purple Shell, Sky Quartz, Seraphinite, Bronzite, Bauxite, Clay, Tektite,
Primavera Stone, Blue Zircon, Chinese Chrysoprase, Imperial Jasper, Platinum
Diamond, Morganite, Yellow Tourmaline, Pink Zebra Jasper, Riodacite,
Hemimorphite, Multicolor Glass
Assorted Beaded Bracelets & Necklaces
Agate Rings
Bamboo Wind Chimes
Fossil Shark's Teeth
Solitaire Boards for Marbles
African Baskets
Agate Geode Pendants w/ Crystals
Bug Magnets
Acrylic Bug Pendants
Stone Fun Facts
Malachite
** Malachite is a copper carbonate, with copper giving it its
distinctive deep green color and exotic banding. It was once melted to
make copper.
** Malachite forms in lumpy masses rather than crystals.
It is used primarily for carvings and cabochon jewelry. Most Malachite
jewelry is fairly expensive. (We cannot sell Malachite round beads since
we would have to charge a LOT for them to make a profit!) However, we have
discovered that Malachite CHIP beads are usually more or less the same price as
other chip beads, which allows us to sell these at the same price as
others.
** The word "malachite" might come from the Greek malakos,
meaning "soft" (to refer to Malachite's hardness), or from the Greek
malache, meaning "mallow," which is a plant of this color.
**
Crystal healers love Malachite for its many healing properties. Among
other things, it is believed to aid digestion, heal injured muscles, ease
childbirth, ease colic, protect against radiation, and help with heart
problems. Emotional benefits include the ability to assist the wearer in
changing situations, promotion of fidelity in love and friendship, promotion of
loyalty in partnerships, and the ability to clear emotional blocks.
**
Malachite amplifies every aspect of feeling, including the negative. Thus,
it is an unwise choice to wear when you are in a bad mood!
** The ancient
Egyptians used Malachite in jewelry, and also ground it up to make
cosmetics. In the Middle Ages, parents attached Malachite to their
children's beds to ward off evil spirits and witches.
** Malachite is said to
be the Guardian Stone of Travelers, and is thought to protect pilots in
particular.
** Due to its hardness of only 3 1/2, Malachite is a rather
fragile stone that should be treated with care. It tends to scratch
easily, and shouldn't be subjected to strong blows or extreme temperature
changes.
** Malachite is a gift for the 13th wedding
anniversary.
Please see our Stone Fun Facts
here:
News & Stuff
Spam Update
Since our spam problem a month ago, we not only have
received NO replies to either of our last two newsletters (which is rare), but
have had a few people write to ask where they are. It's pretty clear that
quite a few newsletters didn't make it to their destinations. In sum,
we've had an enormous spam problem (our business address was harvested by a
seller and sold to thousands of mailing lists), and we have created so many
filters that it's been sort of messing up our business e-mails. I am
hoping that using my personal e-mail address to send the newsletter this one
time, we'll be able to get this message out to our regular subscribers.
You can read the last two newsletters on our website here:
In two weeks we hope to have a completely new e-mail address, so we can
remove the filters and have less trouble with sending and receiving
e-mail. (While it once took about five seconds to download messages, it
now takes over four minutes, as thousands of spam messages go through the
filters!)
Fortnightly Sale
Not a Sale So Much as a
Pledge...
This will take some explaining.
First, if you didn't get last week's newsletter with our
sad news, please read it here:
My husband, Jerry, has in the past participated in the
Muscular Dystrophy Association's "Lock Up" program, whereby he gets "arrested"
by the MDA and has several hours to raise his "bail," which is the goal he sets
for himself. He has always created a web page to accept online donations,
in addition to encouraging his friends and family to raise his bail.
A few days after we got our son's diagnosis of
Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy, the MDA called Jerry to participate in their
yearly lock-up. (This was a coincidence, by the way; at this point the MDA
had not yet been alerted to Ewan's condition.) While Jerry willingly
agreed to participate in the past, this year he has a very real reason to do
so. Again, he has created a web page to accept online donations. He
has set a goal of $1,800 bail, and we hope to raise this much with donations AND
through a special pledge I am making through Ephemerala.
For the next three weeks (ending on May 22, the deadline
for Jerry's Lock-Up), Ephemerala will donate to the MDA 50 cents for every
dollar you spend in our store. Obviously this is a very important issue
for us, so we thought that since
Jerry's MDA
Lock-Up is this month, it would be appropriate for Ephemerala
to get involved as well.
If you've been thinking about making a purchase, this
fortnight would be a good time to do it. Each dollar you spend will be 50
cents the MDA will get. Since we are currently in a race for time to
find a cure before it is too late for Ewan, these donations mean the world to us
today.
Please consider placing your Ephemerala order this
week. For an addendum to this offer that directly benefits our newsletter
subscribes, please see the "Insider's Sale" below.
This Fortnight's Sale is good through May 22,
2007
Penny Sale
Every two weeks, I hide a new special offer somewhere on my online
site. This listing will offer a certain product for ONE CENT, with any
purchase of $10.00 or more. The item and its location will change every
two weeks, so be sure to look often. Simply go to my online store
site:
and browse until you find the hidden listing. Add it to your cart,
along with the rest of your $10.00+ order, and it will be included for just a
penny. Happy Hunting!
(Recent keen-eyed customers got a GEMSTONE CABOCHON for a
penny! What will you be able to get this week?)
Insider's Special
Gift Certificates to Match Your MDA
Donation!
In addition to our 50 cents on the dollar pledge above,
I am making a very special offer to our subscribers who choose to
donate
directly to the MDA in the next three weeks (ending May 22). When you
make a donation, we will send you a gift certificate for the exact amount you
pledge. This means that if you donate $50, you will get a $50 gift
certificate. A donation of $200 will get you $200 from our store; a
donation of $2,000 will get you a $2,000 gift certificate, and so on. For
those of you who know you will eventually be making a purchase from Ephemerala,
you might as well put that money toward the MDA's efforts right now, and then
use your gift certificate to get your Ephemerala stuff whenever you like.
There is just one thing I ask. When you make the
donation, please write to me to let me know your name and e-mail, so that I will
know where to send the gift certificate code. There is no way for us to
identify the donors other than their names, and while sometimes it is easy to
find a subscriber's e-mail address just by looking at her name (example, if
Jenny Johnson's e-mail address is jennyjonson@ yahoo.com), other times it's not
so easy to tell. So right after you make your donation, please contact us
with your e-mail address and pledge amount, and we'll send you your gift
certificate code. You have absolutely nothing to lose, and your help will
be so appreciated. This is our gift to you for caring.
You can find Jerry's MDA Lock-Up page here:
This is the page he created to collect donations for his "bail." As a
special double-whammy note, if our customers chose to make their donations
first, then receive their gift certificates and use them in the store before May
22, their store orders would ALSO go toward the goal as per our sale
above! So this is a great way to make a purchase and help a LOT!
This Fortnight's Insider's Sale is good through May 22,
2007
Last Fortnight's Top Sellers
(You know you want to be just like everyone
else!)
1. Gemstone Marbles
2. Amethyst Clusters
3. Amethyst Chip Beads
4. Rainbow Calsilica Chip Beads
5. Blue Lace Agate Chip Beads
6. Dumortierite Chip Beads
7. Clear Quartz Chip Beads
8. Rose Quartz Chip Beads
9. Larimar Chip Beads
10. Garnet Chip Beads
That's it for this issue. Talk to you
again in two weeks.
--Suzanne Dallapè
eBay user ID: ephemerala
Visit my online store:
Please pass this newsletter to anyone you think might be
interested.
Feedback
-- 4289
Positive transactions
to date...
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