Over the past few months, I've been posting on my newly ignited passion for rock hounding, sculpting rocks and rock tumbling. SE Missouri is a great place to find beautiful rocks. I find most of my rocks in creeks 1 or 2 hours south of St. Louis. After tumbling them, I've handed them to many friends and acquaintances as mementos and for no reason at all. People love smooth polished rocks--I'm tempted to call it a human universal.

As I've created increasing numbers of tumbled rocks, I've learned that for a minimal cost, one can create necklaces and other jewelry with them. This is a photo of my first creation. I gave it to a dear friend who is moving away from St. Louis and it brought a big smile to her face. I'm late to this game--lots of people make jewelry. As with all handmade gifts, this is equal fun for giver and receiver.

Here are two other necklaces I just put together. Nature generates some awesome patterns. I couldn't see these patterns on the raw rock. Not until it was tumbled. Some beautiful rocks look ordinary when tumbled. Some ordinary rocks look beautiful when tumbled. You never know.

It's fun to watch common creek rocks (that I found around Farmington Missouri) tumble into these shapes and colors. These rocks are about 1-2" and they have been tumbled through 3 levels of grit over three weeks. They are now tumbling in polish grit for another week, where they will pick up a clearness and a shine. For this batch I gathered reds and patterns and these types of rocks are easily found in creeks around Farmington and Fredericktown, Missouri. These rocks didn't look much like this until tumbled, however. After I posted an earlier post on tumbled rocks, two friends caught the passion and bought rock tumblers of their own. For anyone else interested, I'm using a Thumler brand rock tumbler, Model B.