Lind's Blogosphere: Read Linda's latest entry!

Linda Olsen has become a leading information resource on the therapeutic and metaphysical properties of gems and minerals. She has taken her love of these materials and turned them into a thriving jewelry enterprise built on exclusive designs, custom craftsmanship, and designing each piece for individual customers in need of special support. Linda's email box became so full of inquiries, the next logical step was to contribute to the "blogosphere." Linda keeps a journal of her experiences and contact with customers, the information from which she shares here in hopes of building a community of support.

Click here for photos and a journal on Linda's recent trip to Iowa City Hospitals.

Click here for Linda's exclusive Blog and photos from the Bead & Button Show!

Click here to see an interesting flat of druzy jewelry. It illustrates the diversity of sizes and styles of stones and wire wrapping, and the ruler provides a sense of scale.

Click here for Linda's Latest BLOG and Learn what's new... like Linda's new line of comfort jewelry for the support of cancer patients.
Linda is on the Great Wall in China, and she has photos to share of her week-long experience. Click here.
Introducing Linda's Latest Comfort Bracelet Design: The Thank You Bracelet! (Click to enlarge)

his bracelet was chosen for you in gratitude for the positive qualities you possess.  It contains stones with powerful metaphysical properties and symbols that reflect your positive qualities as you live your life motivated by generosity and kindness.  A class on healthy personality suggested that the happiest of us are people who are altruistic.  The definition is someone who does something for others without any thought of gain for himself.  The person who gives you this bracelet thinks you are that special kind of unselfish giver and presents you with this bracelet in deepest gratitude.  It come with wishes for your happiness, comfort and support as you continue to have a powerful positive effect of other people's lives.

The bracelet contains:

Amber brings stability to life and encourages a sunny disposition and promotes altruism and brings wisdom.

Citrine carries the power of the sun to heal and cleanse.  It energizes every level of life.  It is the happy and generous stone. Gloom and negativity have no place around it.

Sunstone is the joyful, light-inspiring stone.  It instills a love of life, heightens intuition and brings light and energy to life.

Carnelian invites light and abundance into your life It is full of the life force and stimulates the metabolism.

Red jasper provides insight and calms the emotions.  It is the stone of health, strengthening the circulatory system. 

Tiger eye is a protective stone that was carried as a talisman against ill wishers and curses.  It promotes the correct use of power.

Smoky quartz is an antidote to stress and protects from negativity and protects physically and promotes the positive. 

Moonstone heals emotions and is helpful for all feminine problems including PMS, conception, childbirth and menopause.  It helps with insomnia.

Yellow calcite energizes, balances emotions and removes fear.

The sun charm is a symbol of life and strength.  It represents the absolute cosmic power—the center of being, and intuition.  It represents knowledge and warmth, glory and splendor.

The butterfly is a symbol of rebirth and transformation to a new life.

The yellow symbolizes wisdom, joy, happiness and intellectual energy.

The bee represents the triumph over the impossible since the bee should not be able to fly because of its anatomical disproportions.

The dragonfly is the symbol of the ability to adapt and find light and joy in new life. 

The ladybug represents a little luck.

And there is a wish to build a dream on.

How to Size and Buy!

Wire Wrap Creations Showcasing Earth's Treasures
Druzy Bracelets and Pendants! Yes, we have more excellent druzy specimens, and inventive wraps to display them at their optimal best. Linda just returned from the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show, and she found new sources of turquoise (see below), saphires, quartz, amethyst, garnets, and her favorite of all, tourmaline.
A spectacular necklace and pendant all made of watermelon tourmaline.
We visited our old friends from Madigascar and the Ocean Jasper mine from which marvelous stones like the ones at left are crafted into braclets and pendants. This is Linda's original design, the "Peanut Bracelet." Each stone is a variant of Ocean Jasper.
Beads of rudilated quartz, with silver beaded accents and gold filled wire. Linda's new line of Celebration Bracelets is here! Click here to see her newest creations.
Linda's new line of Wire Wrap Bracelets is something to see. Click here to see her newest creations.
Above, three new designs of knitted wire bracelets. Top bracelet features furnace glass, the middle dichroic glass and the bottom bracelet features mystic topaz.

Special Feature: Watch my movie on the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show! If you love gems and minerals, I guarantee, You'll love it!

Windows Media is compatible with most Windows Operating systems and Macintosh OS. Real is an alternative multi-media player. Both links play streaming media files that will deploy in your browser almost immediately and require high-speed access to the Internet.

This is a spectacular movie, a full hour in length and featuring the native American flute of Johnny Castillo whom we met on this wonderful trip. Never been to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in Tucson, Arizona? Well this movie we prepared will put you in the middle of the action. Join my husband, Gary, and I as we prowl the venues of the greatest gem and mineral show on earth.

The sources of my inspiration are the real gemstones and therapeutic crystals I've collected. I've gathered these treasures from the earth all of my life, and now I want to share with you what I've discovered.

Minerals in the earth in all forms are the source of our life force. I'm of the belief that modern medicine (and that includes our pharmaceutical companies), in their quest to synthesize medications for maladies some of which we didn't even know we had, may have lost touch with what earlier civilizations and so-called primitive peoples knew about natural curative agents that literally surround us.

Linda Olsen

Linda's Comfort Bracelets and Complete Jewelry Catalog:
The Bride's Bracelet Click here!
Depression Cancer A New Line!
Grief Diabetes
Chronic Pain Pregnancy
Strength Hope
Angel Bracelet Custom Knitted Wire
Herkimer Diamonds Wire Wrapped Pendants
Opal Pendants PLEASE SHOW ME WHAT'S NEW!
Headache Scroll down to learn about the healing properties of gems and minerals!
Celebration Bracelets See Linda's new line of wire Celebration Bracelets!
The Healing Properties of Gems and Minerals used in Linda's Jewelry
Amethyst is said to cleanse the immune system and reduce tension
Azurite clears stress, worry and grief and lightens the emotions.
Blue Lace Agate provides relief for shoulder and back relief, arthritis and skeletal problems.
Carnelain aids in the healing of wounds
Chrysophase is the cancer healing stone. It also promotes positive thoughts
Flourite is a powerful healer especially for spinal problems
Citrine is a happy, generous stone that eliminates gloom and negativity. It is useful for smoothing group or family discord. It raises self-esteem and self-confidence and removes destructive tendencies. It helps you move into the flow of feelings and become emotionally balanced.
Kunzite clears emotional debris and frees up the emotions healing heartache. It is mood lifting and helps in depression. Excellent for alleviating panic attacks, it contains lithium and is beneficial for psychiatric disorders and depression. It helps the body recover from emotional stress.
Lapis balances the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels—imbalances between these levels can result in depression. It encourages taking charge of life revealing inner truth. It encourages self-awareness and allows self expression and creative thought.
Lepidolite reduces stress and depression. It stops obsessive thoughts relieves despondency and overcomes insomnia. It contains lithium and is helpful in stabilizing mood swings.
Moonstone has strong female energy
Moss Agate eliminates depression caused by brain imbalances.
Obsidion reduces the pain of arthritis, joint problems, cramps and injuries.
Opal has healing powers particularly for people suffering from depression. Legend says that opal can help its wearer find true and real love. Opal is the birthstone for October. Opal is also the stone to ease childbirth.
Opalized Quartz is an emotional stabilizer it strengthens the will to live and releases deep seated feelings of grief. It allows one to let go of the past.
Morganite attracts love and maintains it. It encourages loving thoughts and actions. It cleanses the heart, calms a stressed life and helps you to recognize unfulfilled emotional needs and unexpressed feelings.
Nephrite aids in the elimination of toxins and keeps the wearer out of harms way
Pearl attunes the wearer to the ebb and flow of life. It calms and centers and energizes.
Peridot is considered a tonic that helps regenerate tissues
Purple Sugilite clears stress, worry, grief and sadness and lightens the emotion.
Rhodochrosite detoxes the circulatory system relieves depression is useful for infection.
Rose Quartz sooths burns and blistering and is the finest healer

Sardonyx is the stone of strength and protection. It invokes the search for a meaningful existence and promotes integrity, lasting happiness and stability in marriage. It allows one to realize the delight of living and can be used to attract friends, good fortune and encourage self-control. It is known as the stone of virtue and stimulates ethical conduct throughout life.

Serpentine is used to treat diabetes and hypoglycemia and is the talisman for a long life.
Smoky Quartz is a superb antidote to stress and assists in enduring through difficult times. It relieves fear, lifts depression and brings emotional calmness and silences suicidal tendencies. It promotes positive thought.
Sugilite gently releases turmoil and releases despair and is a pain reliever
Sunstone is helpful for cartilage problems.
Tiger Eye is a protective stone that is used as a talisman against ill wishing and curses. It shows the correct use of power and encourages integrity. It aids in collecting scattered information and is useful for healing personality disorders. Heals issues of self-worth.
Tourmaline alleviates depression by eliminating fear and promoting internal security.
Turquoise is a purifying and psychologically strengthening stone that eliminates a self sabotaging attitude of being martyred. It instills inner calm and aids creativity. It stabilizes mood swings and brings inner calm.
Below are two of my Comfort Bracelets that utilize several of the minerals described above. Click here to learn more.

Linda Olsen is a gifted designer and maker of therapeutic jewelry items. She uses the finest materials from around the globe and hand crafts them into spectacular creations. But surprisingly, those looking for distinctive jewelry items are not her primary customers. It is those who are seeking the noted healing powers of nature's gemstones and crystals. How she came to understand these qualities of earth's natural treasures began when she was a little girl growing up in Dubuque, Iowa.

Living on the banks of the Mississippi River, alluvial deposits formed sand and gravel bars that local building materials companies dredged and graded in huge piles of material filled with agates, quarts, and druzy. She would beg her father to take her to these gravel piles and hunt for stones, a pastime that turned into today's thriving enterprise. Linda still searches those gravel piles today, and her passion for stones has taken her to other places from the deserts of the Southwest, to the Rocky Mountains, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and the Sierra Nevadas. She also imports many of her gem stones from overseas and has created an excellent and reliable network of suppliers who share her enthusiasm.

In my search for exotic stones and crystals, I came upon several fellow enthusiasts in the field who believed that there was indeed something to the notion that some crystals have extraordinary healing powers. It makes sense if you think about it.

Many of our most important nutrients and medicines come from minerals. Calcium is an excellent example. The many derivations of salt, a mineral we more commonly use to preserve and flavor our food or provide a necessary substance our body requires, has derivations that serve as the source for a whole family of pharmaceuticals that treat depression.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People - by Linda Olsen

When life is going smoothly, we scarcely think about our health, state of mind or family circumstances. However, when adversity strikes, we experience a variety of emotions. Helplessness, fear, anxiety, anger are the result, and we seek relief. All too often, solutions to these problems are not immediate. Some of these problems are unsolvable. It is this lack of control, scarcity of answers that make the problems of life even more difficult to face.

Whether you are the individual affected or a concerned friend who stands by and watches the suffering, that hand wringing feeling of not knowing what to do can be very disconcerting. This is probably because we live in a world where we are told we are the masters of our own destiny; that bad things happen to other people and that if we buy enough insurance, eat the right foods, and take the correct precautions that we will be all right. But the fact is life is a slippery slope, and all kinds of things can occur. Therefore, when they do occur, our response may be something that is less than ideal.

For example, a friend of mine was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and as a concerned person, you really want to do something to make things better. The problem is that most of the solutions are in the hands of doctors, and laboratories, chemotherapy, and waiting, waiting, and waiting. We've all been there and done that.

When my friend became ill, I was very interested in beading, jewelry and the metaphysical properties of stones and minerals. I saw her illness as a chance for me to create a bracelet that would not only show my support, but serve as a symbol of the healing that can come from the wishes of others and her own personal positive attitude. She cherishes her Believe cancer bracelet and says that it is a constant reminder to her of our friendship and acts as almost a talisman as she undergoes her radiation and treatment. I call one of my lines of therapeutic jewelry, "Comfort Bracelets."

Depression

Other friends then came to me and said, “Well, I don't have cancer, but I have really felt depressed for a long time. I don't suppose you have something for that.” As a former clinical counselor, I would tell them that their first line of treatment is always to seek professional help, especially when the depression is so severe there are suicidal ideations. There is nothing like two weeks of treatment with the correct anti-depressant to change one's outlook on life, and it makes a world of difference in a person who is suffering. However, in this stress-filled world, we all go through periods of episodes of low-grade depression that may not warrant medical intervention. There are other modalities of therapy that therapists might prescribe, and one of those is cognitive therapy which is simply to change the way one thinks or looks at problematic situations.

This involves changing negative thought patterns, giving up old grudges, training yourself to find the good things in life, and realizing that everything is not as bad as you thought it was. With the help of a good therapist this is a very effective treatment and has provided relief to many depressed individuals. However, think how helpful this bracelet could be in this treatment as a constant reminder of those skills learned through therapy and counseling. Once again, it would be a very meaningful gesture from a concerned friend or loved one.

An precious faceted amethyst wrapped in gold filled wire (click on the image to learn more).

© Linda Olsen 2007 all rights reserved. All graphics and copy in this Web site are the intellectual property of Linda Olsen and/or his clients' property, used with permission, and cannot be used for any purpose without permission. Address correspondence to olsenlin@mchsi.com.