Jack's Pick: Just Ice Jewelry's Scarab Earrings

Each Friday I select an item created by a member of the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team(RNEST). What criteria do I use? I look for great looking items that I think are well made offered for a great price!

This week I have picked a pair of Scarab earrings made by Just Ice Jewelry!

The first thing I like about these is that I had to do some

research about what these are, and what they represent.

Most people know that scarabs are insects, and used in Egyptian motifs. Here is what Wiki says:

Ancient Egyptian scarabs were popular amulets in ancient Egypt. Modeled upon the Scarabaeidae family dung beetle, the scarabthe ancient Egyption mythos, the sun (Ra) rolls across the sky each day and transforms bodies and souls. The dung beetle's rolling of dung into a ball for the purposes of laying eggs (which would be later transformed into larva) was seen as an earthly symbol of this heavenly cycle. This came to be iconographic, and ideological symbols were incorporated into Ancient Egyptian society.

Some people might find that weird, but I think it's totally awesome.

Next thing I needed to look up was what a howlite lapis beads are.

Howlite is:

Howlite is a white stone with streaks of gray or black, called inclusions. Because of these inclusions and the fact that this stone is easily dyed due to its porous nature, it is often used to create imitation turquoise as well as lapis lazuli.

Lapis lazuli is a type of blue mineral, but is often used as:

It was also ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for tempera paint and, more rarely, oil paint. Its usage as a pigment in oil paint ended in the early 19th century as a chemically identical synthetic variety, often called French Ultramarine, became available.

So, these beads are a howlite bead, colored with lapis lazuli. Neat huh?

The bottom line is...they look great, and they have a great story behind them. Nice job Just Ice Jewelry!