Jewelry- September’s Birthstone

The precious gemstone sapphire is a single crystal form of aluminum oxide, a mineral of the corundum family. Sapphire is next to diamond on the Mohs scale of hardness. It is because of this hardness that sapphire is associated with longevity and endurance. Due to its similar chemical structure to that of ruby, therefore red sapphire is actually a ruby.

The name sapphire is taken from the Greek word ‘sappherios’ and the Latin word ‘sapphirus’. Sapphires were believed to possess magical powers since the ancient times; the priests used these gems to help them decipher oracles, ancient kings wore sapphire to protect them from wicked thoughts and charm divine and favor. The Greek sanctified this gemstone and because and because of its divine blue color associated sapphire to the Sky God- Zeus, in the early ages sapphire pendant was worn to keep the heart healthy. The beautiful gemstone was believed to give a powerful defense against spell to the wearer, the ability to tell the truth from lies to the future.

Sapphires mostly come in different shades of blue but there are other colors as well like brown, black, grey, pink and others. The sapphires other than the blue color sapphire are known as fancy colored sapphire. The common colors for the fancy colored sapphires are purple, green and yellow. The purple color contains trace elements vanadium and is usually less preferred than the blue sapphires. The yellow and green color sapphires contain the trace elements of iron in them. The pink color in sapphire is caused due to the presence of chromium, the price increases as the color deepens.

The birthstone of September, sapphire is a popular choice for engagement rings too. Sapphire is also the anniversary stone for the couple celebrating their fifth and fortyfifth wedding anniversary. This gemstone is found in Thailand, Brazil, Africa, Australia, Burma, India and Sri Lanka. The majority of sapphires which come from Sri Lanka are light blue in color also the fancy sapphire used in jewelry is found in Sri Lanka.

Sapphire engagement rings have been a popular choice since the ancient times to the present day world. The famous celebrity Jennifer Lopez wore a pink sapphire ring on her engagement. Pink sapphire became the stone in demand after her wedding.

Sapphire jewelry, no matter which color you chose and which form you chose the quality will speak for itself.

Are You Shopping Safely Online?

It is sad to say, but even on the internet you have to be cautious of how you shop. While there are numerous benefits to shopping online, it is also essential you go about shopping safely online. With so many internet hackers and scams, it is quite easy to have your credit card or even your identity stolen.

With a few simple steps, you can go about purchasing any item you want without worrying about who sees your information. And it all starts with learning about the seller. Prior to purchasing anything, look into any complaint records at your state or local consumer protection agency. While you do not necessarily need to do this with big name companies, it is vital you take every precaution with small businesses.

The next step may shock you; you want to use your credit card if you can. The reason for this is because you then will have the legal right to dispute charges for goods or services that were never ordered, received, or misrepresented. If you try to purchase something using a different payment method, you will have nothing to fall back on.

You are probably wondering about how safe it is to put your credit card number on the internet with the knowledge computer hackers have today. However, there is new technology that allows you to use your credit card without putting your real account number online. This protects it from being abused by hackers or dishonest employees. All you have to do is ask your credit card issuer about substitute or single-use credit card numbers.

Now that you are ready to purchase a specific item, the next tip to shopping safely online is getting all of the final details. Get a complete description of the item, know the total price including shipping, what the warranty information is, and what the return policy is. This way there are no disputes if something goes wrong.

Lastly, print all information you can following your purchase. You want to have records of the time and date you purchased the item, how much it was for, what the order number is, and any other information given to you so you have proof later on if needed.

There is no such thing as being too cautions in today’s society. As the internet has continued to grow, so too has the knowledge of hackers and stealers. It is vital you do everything you can to go about shopping safely online. And with the tips in this article, you can do just that.

Lavender Girl Launches New Headband Styles for Summer/Fall

Left to right: Lavender Girl narrow silk headscarf in Orange Crush, $36; Starlet in Plum, $42; and Thin Indie Band, $24.

Already a must-have for Hollywood actresses and sold at LA’s trendiest upscale boutiques, Lavender Girl‘s headbands and accessories are a stylish compliment to any outfit.  Ranging from $3.50 for an ultra-hip hair twist to $62 for a luxe Bejeweled headband, Lavender Girl typifies LA casual cool and Bohemian chic.  The Los Angeles mother-daughter duo behind the label use only the finest Italian leather and hand-dyed fabrics.

Popular styles include: the Bond Girl II double-strand headband, the stretchy braided metallic Goddess Braid, Bejeweled, and the braided silk cord and chain Swiss Miss band.

The Lavender Girl Bond Girl II headband retails for $32 at www.lavendergirl.com. Celebrities who have been photographed wearing the Bond Girl II style include Eva Longoria, Jessica Alba, and Vanessa Hudgens.

Left to right: Swiss Miss in Rose Gold, $24; Itsy Bitsy Heartbreaker Bow in Royal, $36; and Bejeweled in Sand, $62.

Lavender Girl headbands can be found at fine retailers including Henri Bendel, Fred Segal Beauty, Prive NY, and Wink NYC, as well as www.lavendergirl.com.

Hot Topic: Fair Trade

Q&A with Lynn Persson, owner of Terra Experience

How did you come up with the name Terra Experience?
From a Latin teacher way back; “terra” means “earth.” I worked in environmental protection for thirty-two years. Terra had meaning in that way. I am also a gardener and it had meaning in that way. I was looking for a business name and that just seemed appropriate.

What does Terra Experience sell?
The specialty is doll clothes. I sell ethnic doll clothes that fit eighteen-inch dolls—folk art, textiles and other things from Guatemala and the markets of the world.

When and why did you start the business?
1999. It started small, as a hobby business to help some friends down in Guatemala who needed money for school and other things. My husband and I went down for vacation and fell in love with the country, and got to know some weavers and their families.

Did you have retail experience previously?
No. My husband owns Stony Hill Antiques and Gallery on Regent Street. He has had a retail business and has been kind enough to give me a corner of his shop and sell my doll clothing. We have independent businesses, but support each other.

What do you look for in what you sell?
I try to maintain the cultural traditions, which is one of the things I liked about the doll clothing. Each village in Guatemala has its own weaving styles. Each of the doll clothes I have represents a different weaving village. Rather than having them bend their traditions to meet the style needs of us Americans, I’m making use of our love of dolls and beautiful textiles and taking that to understand their culture. Obviously, I’m also looking for things that will sell and are attractive.

Judging from your website and talking to you, it sounds like Terra Experience has a higher goal than just selling doll clothing. Explain that.
When I started this, I defined three bullet points: Make ethnic doll clothing that fit American Girl and other sixteen-, eighteen- and twenty-three-inch dolls; give kids of all ages the chance to experience other cultures with the dolls and toys they love; and support sustainable development, fair trade, the local artisans, their communities and the environment.

Where do you source things from?
Primarily, going down to Guatemala once a year. I order the doll clothing from the weavers a year before and pay “anticiipo.” [I also work with] group cooperatives and nonprofits that I’ve made friends with down there.
[You meet] people you really start to care about and it’s something you really want to share. I was fortunate that when I just started thinking about this [business], Shorewood Hills elementary school was studying Mayan culture. A friend who is an art teacher [at Shorewood] asked me to sell my items at a library sale. I said “Sure,” and it was a success, which indicated to me people were interested in this kind of thing.

What’s your most popular item?
The doll clothing. I also sell books about the cultures and books about weaving. My customers have asked for things that will fit themselves and their daughter, so I sell a lot of full-size textiles now. Everything is made on a handloom, a back-strap loom or a floor loom by the weavers.
I also provide information about the weaver, their families and their culture. I have information on some good nonprofits and cooperatives that I share with my customers.

Where can shoppers go to get information about the fair trade movement?
There are a couple of different groups [that certify fair trade]. One is the Fair Trade Federation (fairtradefederation.org). They have a process for certifying fair trade artisans and groups. I am in the process of becoming a member and hope to be in the future.
There are also a number of groups that certify fair trade products like coffee. Just Coffee here has a lot of good information on coffee. Willy Street Co-op has list of places that sell fair trade here in Madison. I put that list on my website and they ended up adapting it.
I am a proud member of Co-op America (coopamerica.com), which focuses on green and socially responsible businesses. They have a buyer’s guide and have different guidelines they use to evaluate fair trade.
I’m proud that Terra Experience was identified as one of “top ten green toys” by Co-op America before Christmas. What I have done at this point is work with the weavers and seen how they weave. The weaving itself is sustainable. It’s not a sweatshop with lots of toxic fumes coming out. It’s primarily a woman trying to make money and taking care of her family in her home.

As shoppers, we hear about the green movement, and I’m wondering how the fair trade movement fits in with that. It seems like it does, but I’m confused as to exactly how it fits in.
Green involves a number of things, and one means being a socially responsible business. You can be green in terms of reducing your impact on the earth, and you have to look at the impact that you have on other people on this earth.
The broader look of green is socially responsible, sustainable development. Part of that is asking, “Are the people you’re buying from making a living wage, and are they producing products in an environmentally sustainable manner?”

What can people do to buy responsibly or buy green?
If people look at comparably priced products and buy the one that supports an individual and their families rather than a big corporation’s profit, it sure would help. But it’s also important that some of the big corporations are trying to be green.
With green you’re looking at the whole product. How is it produced; what are the contaminants; how does your own use of the product affect the earth? When the product is disposed of, how does that affect the earth?
It’s really hard. I worked in environmental protection for thirty-two years and when I first went down to Guatemala, I hoped to do environmental work down there but instead I felt that I could help them economically.
But instead I felt that I could best help the women I had met by finding fair trade markets for their beautiful weavings. They were trying to buy school supplies for their children, which cost the same or more than in Madison. Yet the average daily wage for a field laborer is five to seven dollars and less for a woman. Many children only received a couple years of primary education. Now having established long-term relationships with weaving families and various groups I am able to also support scholarships and promote environmental projects that I hope will have a long term beneficial impact on their environment and health as well.
I’m more likely to have an impact on the people economically, so I can figure out what’s happening and then I can support the areas that have a long-term impact.

Sears - Canoga Park, California 1964

On October 28, 1964, Sears opened the largest store in its history up to that time, a 300,000-plus square foot colossus in Canoga Park’s Fallbrook Square Shopping Center, located in the western reach of the San Fernando Valley. Complete with a massive Disney World-esque underground warehouse and service infrastructure, the store represented a major acknowledgment on Sears’ part of the sensational population growth of the Valley.

The store epitomizes Sears’ “western look”, with an elegant, low-slung appearance, complete with palm trees towering through openings in the store awnings and a huge, upswept Sears logo sign. This basic design, in a variety of colors and building materials, was used in a large number the company’s Western, Southwestern and Florida locations from the late 50’s through the mid 60’s. To me, and to the extent that architecture can (many would argue a great extent), it truly reflected the optimism of the times.

The following firsthand memories come to us from Valley resident Tim of Vintage Disneyland Tickets, a great website dedicated to preserving the history of the famous bygone “Ticket Books” (among other things) that were a staple of Disneyland and later of Walt Disney World until the early 1980’s, and fondly remembered by SoCal residents and a good many out-of-towners as well. The phrase “E-Ticket” to describe something superlative originated from these books. Tim worked at the Fallbrook Square store in the early 1980’s when the store was past its prime, but many vestiges of its glory days still remained. In Tim’s own words:

“I actually worked at Sears Canoga Park, California, 1980 -1982. I worked in customer service so I got to see the whole store inside and out. It looked very much like your Sears in Phoenix 1962 photo with the Palm Trees and Green script, but bigger. Part of “Fallbrook Square” (an outdoor mall on a huge parcel of land) the Canoga Park Sears was built in 1964/65 (I think) and was supposedly the largest Sears store at that time. It was huge. Besides the main store and basement (which had everything: Vendome, a Coffee shop, a candy shop with Icees, hearing aids, optical, Allstate, and more!), it had a separate and huge Garden Center & Catalog building, a HUGE 48 bay Auto Center with a free standing Gas Station, a little key making building and we even had the LA area credit central building on the property. The warehouse part of the basement was GIGANTIC, it spanned the entire store plus 1/2 the mall parking lot and it connected the store to all of automotive and the Garden center. It was like its own city. “Upstairs” from the main sales floor was a large area the size of a school auditorium and was just for employees, it had its own full service cafeteria and a stage!!!”

“By the time I worked there it was in some decline, the “upstairs” was not for employees any more (they held microwave classes up there!) and the employee mensroom was the real sign of better times. I kid you not, it had 20 urinals and 15 stalls! and about 20 sinks! I would change from my school clothes to my work clothes before my shift and I would be the only one in there! In 1981 we replaced the old “cord board” switchboard, that was a sad day, I love working that board. We also had the Bell System chimer box. You would set it to discretely page the managers, the GM on staff was a “2-1″…. “ding-ding, ding”…. They took it out when they put in the new switchboard, I should have tried to keep it! The store closed in the 90’s, was turned into a Kmart and it’s now a Wal-Mart with an awful facade! The Basement was turned into a Burlington Coat Factory and it still there. The Auto Center was torn down and is now a Ralphs (where I shop!) and the Garden Center building is still there and is a 24 Hours fitness center (it still has some of the Shale stone siding that the store had!). That Sears was so big it’s four places now!”

Tim also has a great story from his Sears days:

“In 1981, I had a lady try and return a pair of unworn white dress shoes that were at least 20 years out of style, the box itself was an antique. She said they didn’t fit and she wanted her money back… We gave her money back, the current price for those type of shoes was about $25 and that’s what she got. Amazing policy, I wonder if they still stand by that?”

Hard to say, Tim…good old Sears!

In 1996, Sears closed the Fallbrook location and moved to nearby Westfield Shoppingtown Topanga (known to purists by its original name, Topanga Plaza) in the former location of The Broadway department store upon that chain’s acquisition by Federated Department Stores, parent of Macy’s.