The Bavarian Ruby and Spinel Diadem

Wikimedia Commons

The Bavarian Ruby and Spinel Diadem was commissioned in 1830 by King Ludwig I of Bavaria as a gift for his wife, Queen Therese. Designed by court jeweler Caspar Rielander, it's a colossal-sized headpiece of gold intricately set with diamonds, rubies, and red spinels in a floral and vine motif. The tiara was so heavy and uncomfortable it gave Queen Therese headaches to wear it, so she rarely did, favoring lighter and smaller tiaras.

The diadem, which is part of a parure of jewels that includes a grand necklace, 2 cuff bracelets, and drop earrings, mostly sat idle in the royal vaults for close to a century until Crown Princess Antonia (Antoinette of Luxembourg) selected it to wear in her official photographs after marrying Crown Prince Rupprecht in 1921. In the era of royalty, monarchs owned and adorned elaborate jewelry to signify status, power, legitimacy, and divinity. To their subjects, royal jewels projected wealth, greatness, continuity, pomp, and national heritage. Today, we value them for their beauty and as relics of the grandeur of a bygone era.

Photo: Franz Grainer

 Bavaria’s royal family is from the house of Wittelsbach -- they ruled in Bavaria beginning in 1180 -- and what ensued is a bit of sad history. During the occupation of the Nazis, the family was part of a resistance plot and had to flee to Italy and Hungary. Prince Rupprecht remained underground in Italy to fight the fascists who took over his country. Meanwhile, after Hungary fell to Germany, on Hitler's personal orders, Princess Antonia and her children were arrested by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps. She was manourished, tortured for information about her husband, and contracted typhus. Crown Princess Antonia never broke and survived, but was in ill health for the rest of her life. After being liberated in 1945 by the Americans, she never set foot in Germany again. Her children also lived. She died in 1954 at the age of 54.

Nowadays, the Bavarian parure sits on display in the Schatzkammer (meaning treasury) at Residenz in Munich, Germany. Here’s a lovely front view of it. 

Munich is the capital of the federal state of Bavaria, in Southern Germany. It is famous for hosting Oktoberfest, a yearly celebration to the present day that first began on October 12, 1810, to honor the marriage of then Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, the very same couple who left us the Bavarian Ruby and Spinel parure! The Citizens of Munich were invited to a 3-day celebration of the royal union in the fields outside the city gates. The location was christened Theresienwiese (Therese’s Meadow) after the bride. The big after-party was so much fun, it became an annual event which Münchners affectionately dub, the Wiese, as in, Let's go to dWiesen.🥨🍺

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Dump Potato Salad A One-Pot Meal

Sometimes on a hot summer day, one thinks: I’ve got to get something into the pie holes of my family for dinner, but I do not want to cook! THAT was me last night as I was unmotivated to clean up a kitchen full of pots and pans! Moreover, we haven’t even entered the official summer season yet. On those nights, it’s perfectly ok to make Dump Potato Salad as I did last night, which might be a tasty way to use healthy leftovers. I make both German and American potato salads ... and last night I chose to use the basic ingredients for American potato salad ... with ad-ins:

Last Night’s Dump Potato Salad A One-Pot Meal

Ingredients: 

4 medium Russet potatoes (use what you have)

4 large eggs

1/2 onion, diced, finely

1/2 cup celery, diced finely

a few baby carrots, diced, finely

a scoop of light mayonnaise

a few squirts of mustard

leftover sauerkrut from a can

a generous scoop of Greek yogurt

2 slices of deli ham, diced

Spices to taste: I used Cajun salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, smoked paprika, garlic, and parsley. Sprinkles of soy sauce, hot sauce, and organic cider vinegar to boot. The end result was flavorful but not hot to the taste.

Directions:

1) Microwave the potatoes for 10 minutes, or boil on the stove.

2) Steam the eggs in an egg cooker, or hard boil on the stove.

3) Incorporate all the ingredients in a mixing bowl with the aid of a fork and knife. Your eyes will tell you if your dump potato salad is creamy enough. I prefer a rich, not a runny consistency! A sample will tell you to add more of this or that to taste. Our family likes crunch and flavor, not bland! You do you!

If you ask me, we ended up with meat, potatoes, and at least 2 vegetables. It checks all the boxes for a balanced meal!

If you happen to have leftover guacamole, hummus, beans, or vegetables, feel free to toss them into your Dump Potato Salad. Out of caution, we shouldn’t eat refrigerator leftovers over 4 days old, so trash those.  If you have an enormous appetite, you could always pair the dish with a sandwich.

The Pie Holes at my table were satisfied with our dinner. They ate dark chocolate for dessert. Although we had ice cream in the freezer and ice cream cones available, they didn’t have room for it. I had little to clean up.✅

Now what the heck will I make for those Pie Holes tonight? Rice Pudding???😁 

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Short-or-Cap-Sleeved Summer Dresses Are Back!

Style & Co at Macy's

As soon as summer weather arrives, I switch from wearing leggings to dresses. My legs don’t get covered again until autumn, when the days start to get nippy.

Style & Co and Jones New York at Macy’s

During the last decade, sleeveless dresses dominated summers. Understandably, with heat and humidity ... and yet, I missed what I mostly wore during my teenage and 20s,  short sleeves. Cap-sleeved is an abbreviated length of short-sleeved and is also perfect for summer when you just want fabric covering your shoulders and the top of your arms. 

Lands’ End

What I appreciate about short-or cap-sleeved dresses is that I rarely have to carry a cover-up, such as a cardigan or shawl. That little bit of extra material on the top of my arms gives me the warmth I need for indoor air conditioning. What’s more, it shields my shoulders and arms from too much sun. I also think short-or-cap-sleeves give a dress a little extra versatility when perhaps cloaking more skin is desired for certain occasions. Years ago, when tourists entered churches in Rome, they were required out of respect to cover their bare shoulders.

Old Navy’s Swing Dresses

There was a 10-year period when dresses with short sleeves seemed to have disappeared. You could find long-sleeved or sleeveless, but not much in between. For the versatility of having both short-sleeved and sleeveless options in a wardrobe, I'm happy to see short sleeves on summer dresses back in fashion!

Style & Co at Macy's

My fabric preferences for summer dresses are cotton, linen, or silk. I don’t mind 1 or 2 rayon dresses since rayon is light and cool, but rayon isn’t as durable as the natural fabrics. Macy’s has a variety of dresses with short sleeves, which include polyester (a fabric I don't buy). For this post, I featured cotton and linen dresses from Macy’s and Lands’ End. Old Navy’s swing dresses are rayon. I have some Old Navy rayon swing dresses from summers’ past ... yes, sleeveless!  The retailer puts their dresses on sale for $7, $10, $12 so you get enough wear out of them for the little you spend. They are machine washable, and customers look amazingly polished for $7 bucks!

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Hooked On Artichokes

As a child, I never saw artichokes at the supermarket nor on our dinner table. Now I buy frozen artichoke quarters all the time. They are readily available year-round, cheap, and easy to cook and eat.

Artichokes have many health benefits, which I intended to write up, but this comprehensive handout has done the work for me, so I’ll simply link and upload it for you! What’s the point of rewriting it? Somebody else already did a great job!

Unlike asparagus, artichokes have a mild flavor, so they can go into many dishes. Click here to get the healthy artichoke recipes I’ll also post below👇, courtesy of Oregon State University. It may be easier to read online, but I’m posting it here in case it disappears from the internet. Click to enlarge the recipes.

Although I've eaten fresh artichokes in restaurants, I always buy them frozen when making them at home. It’s a vegetable that survives freezing without losing taste, texture, or nutrients. Frozen eliminates the work of washing and cutting them up! Frozen is usually a better value than buying them fresh. You can cook and grill them without defrosting them first, a great convenience! Add this vegetable to your regular diet. I’m sure you’ll like it!

The part of the artichoke we eat is not technically a vegetable but a flower bud, a variety of the thistle family. By its strange looks, you have to wonder who first thought of eating them. Did they try roses and daisies and dandelions also?🌳

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What Makes Green Diamonds?

From Instagram - The Aurora

After writing last Thursday's blog, I got curious about green diamonds. I don’t recall ever seeing one. This might be because they make up less than 0.1% of all fancy-colored diamonds on earth. After red, green diamonds are the 2nd rarest diamonds. Unlike most diamonds that get their colors from chemical impurities entering their atomic structure, green diamonds get their color from natural radiation. Over millions of years, alpha and beta rays emitted by radioactive minerals knock carbon atoms out of place in the crystal structure, changing how the stone absorbs light. In other words, radiation exposure creates carbon atom vacancies. This vacancy defect, also known as the GR1 center in a diamond, causes the green color.

According to Only National Diamonds, radiation from alpha particles usually only penetrates a few micrometers deep, leaving a shallow green "skin" on rough stones. Diamond cutters must plan and facet the gem with expert precision to evenly distribute this color throughout the stone. It may explain why we see more radiant cuts in this fancy colored gemstone. The radiant cut’s faceting maximizes light reflection, which intensifies and saturates the color of the stone, making it appear more vivid.

A very few green diamonds are also colored by more complex defects involving nitrogen, hydrogen, or nickel.

The world’s natural green diamonds come from South America and Africa. Nowadays, laboratory irradiation can also produce green diamonds. It’s challenging to tell natural-grown and lab-grown green diamonds apart. Both are real diamonds. It’s unlawful to sell lab-grown diamonds without transparency.

The scarcity of green diamonds makes them very pricey. Just like other colored gemstones, color is the most important of the fancy diamond Cs (followed by cut, carat, and clarity) in determining value. As their color becomes more saturated and vibrant, prices rise dramatically. Based on their GIA color intensity grade for a 1-carat stone, a Fancy Green color costs from $50,000 - $100,000; a Fancy Intense Green costs between $150,000 - $200,000, and a Fancy Vivid Green costs $300,000+.

Photo: Wikipedia
The Dresden Green Diamond

The Dresden Green, a 41-carat diamond originating from India’s Golconda mines, is the largest and most famous natural green diamond in the world. It is a chemically pure IIa diamond with VS1 clarity. Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, paid 400,000 thalers for the diamond in 1741. Perhaps someone should have told Diespach, the court jeweler of Saxony, that fads come and go before, in 1768, he mounted the Dresden Green as an elaborate hat ornament surrounded by 411 white diamonds.😁 Today, it is on display in the Green Vault at Dresden Castle in Germany. The renowned green diamond survived the Seven Years’ War, the Napoleonic Wars, World Wars I and II, its confiscation by the Soviets, who returned it to Dresden in 1958, and the 2019 Dresden Museum heist of royal jewels. Thankfully, at the time of the theft, the Dresden Green was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan.

The Aurora Green (👆top image) is a 5.02 carat Fancy Vivid Green rectangular radiant cut diamond with VS2 clarity. The Aurora Green is surrounded by pink diamonds set in a ring. Found in Brazil, it sold for a wooping $16.8 million, the most expensive price ever paid for a green diamond, at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2016. Chow Tai Fook Jewellery bought it. Without fluorescence, its GIA-rated Fancy Green color is one of a kind!

Photo: Jewelry Point

Personally, I’d rather pay less money to get a bigger, more common white (clear) diamond. Other jewelry lovers may covet uniqueness over size. 

Ultra-rare fancy-colored diamonds are so wildly expensive that customers fork over a ton of moola for a tiny stone, so I wouldn’t buy, but visit them at Tiffany’s New York flagship store or the museums around the world that house them. First a dreamer, then a realist ... and perhaps an adventurous traveler is the way to get more bang for your buck!💚

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What Gives Fancy Diamonds & Sapphires Their Colors?

Gemstone Brittleness And Cleavage

These are Macy’s commercial-grade gemstones - amethyst, garnet, fancy colored sapphires, citrine, ruby, and emerald.

Earrings, necklaces, and bracelets take fewer knocks, but if you splurge on a ring, for durability, you might want to consider a gemstone's brittleness and cleavage, along with its hardness.

Princess Grace's ring

Hardness refers to a gemstone's rating from 1 (softest) to 10 (hardest) on Mohs' Hardness Scale, which reflects its resistance to surface scratching. While a diamond rates a 10 for hardness, it's actually a brittle gemstone that, upon impact, will crack more easily than other gemstones.

Queen Camila's ring

Cleavage is the gemstone's grain. Just like with beef or wood, a crystalline structure (meaning its atomic arrangement) is internally symmetrical. Cleavage refers to natural, predictable planes of weakness within a gemstone's structure where its atomic bonds are frail. These are the areas where a crystal is more likely to shatter.

Wallis Simpson's ring

Brittleness describes how easily a stone breaks or chips if struck. All faceted gemstones are considered brittle, yet how brittle they are depends on their cleavage. A gemstone's cleavage is a major factor in its brittleness and significantly lowers its toughness.

Queen Marguritta II's ring

So what is toughness? If a stone has excellent cleavage (like a diamond or topaz), hitting it at the exact right angle along that plane can cause it to split cleanly in two. Toughness describes a gemstone's resistance to breaking, chipping, or cracking when a heavy blow is applied. As it happens, diamonds have perfect cleavage planes in 4 directions, giving them relatively poor toughness. Despite being the hardest stone on Earth, a perfectly placed hit can cause diamonds to split along their planes (i.e., grains) just like a piece of wood.

Queen Victoria's ring

A cutter of gemstones uses this knowledge to determine how to cut a gemstone. Customers can use it to buy safer and more durable gemstones for everyday wear.

Some gemstones, such as sapphires and rubies, have no cleavage. Their tightly packed atomic structures resist breaking, making them far less brittle and giving them much higher toughness over diamonds to wear as daily rings.

Emeralds have imperfect cleavage in one direction (basal cleavage). Their cleavage and natural internal inclusions (jardins) make them brittle and prone to chipping.

Josephine Beauharnais' ring

Tough Gemstones For Daily Rings are:

Corundum (ruby and sapphire), spinel, alexandrite, moissanites, quartz (amethyst, citrine, agate, jasper), jade (both types), garnets, and turquoise.

High Risk Gemstones for Daily Rings include:

Emerald, topaz, tanzanite, moonstone, sunstone, labradorite, kuzite, and diamond.

Queen Maxima’s ring

Still, if you love the higher-risk gemstones and yearn to wear them as everyday rings, you can do so by selecting protective bezel or halo settings; remove them when you work or wash your hands; and (less desirable) only wear them for special occasions. In other words, be mindful and prepared to baby them. 

jardins in an emerald 

Frankly, I think we should never work or wash our hands with soap without removing all our gemstone rings. I keep a ring holder by the kitchen sink and take off my rings whenever cleaning. Jewelry is never cheap, so why take unnecessary risks? You always want to keep gemstones pristine and sparkling! 

 Queen Alexandra (Alix of Denmark), Queen Letizia of Spain, Diana & Catherine of Wales rings

Famous royal engagement rings are featured throughout today's blog, but no one needs to be engaged to wear a ring!

Ring holder with my fun to wear, inexpensive white sapphire ring

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Dresses For My Senior Mom

It seems every spring I order my senior Mother a few dresses, and this spring is no different. She was a stylish dresser as a younger woman, and she still cares about her appearance.

Old Navy put a summer dress on promotion for $10, which she likely wouldn’t have chosen for herself, fearing it was too youthful, but I think it will look adorable on her when temperatures are boiling.

She was never a sun worshiper and has lovely skin with no noticeable age spots, so why must she stay all covered up just because she’s elderly during the hottest months of the year?

Mom is wearing this cozy t-shirt dress in pink that I bought for her last spring. Pink and red are her favorite colors. I don’t think her new dresses will bunch up like her t-shirt dress when she sits. Here we are years ago, enjoying a summer day.

The dress is 100% cotton with hidden pockets! After reading all the reviews, the word mini doesn’t worry me; women of all ages stated the length was just right. None mentioned it being too short. At 5'7", I might’ve ordered tall for myself to be safe. My Mom is petite in stature. The drop skirt is super cute, and the loose fit will make the dress easy to manage for all necessary functions during the day, including sitting in a transport wheelchair for outings. The scoop neck is high up enough and classic, and the back doesn’t dip too low. Also, the straps are substantial enough and far from spaghetti-thin. We can always carry a shawl or sweater to drape over her shoulders.

During the sale, I got her 3 dresses (the colors you see in the post).  They were a bargain! I bought her a t-shirt (for pants) and 2 layering tanks, also, which she wears under clothing and to bed. All are soft and machine washable. Free shipping to boot!

My Mom is styling in her new Old Navy dress.

I have as much fun dressing my Mom now as I did dressing my dolls back in the day.🌞

How did I do?

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What Makes A Red Or Pink Diamond?

What Makes a Red or Pink Diamond?

Photo: Prestigeonline - The Eternal Pink diamond

Today I’d like to feature red and pink diamonds. Natural red and pink diamonds are the rarest diamonds* on earth. Natural pink diamonds make up less than 0.01-0.1% of all gem-quality diamonds mined, while natural red diamonds make up less than 0.00001% of the diamonds mined. Many of them were found in the now closed Argyle mine in North-Eastern Australia. 

Fancy colored gemstones usually form when impurities such as boron or nitrogen enter their atomic structure. This is not the case for pink or red diamonds. Their colors are caused by a distortion in the diamond's crystal lattice produced by intense heat and pressure from all directions after the stone's formation in the earth, an ultra rare occurrence! A special configuration of molecules lets us see the stone as pink or red as light passes through it. 

Red diamonds are often less than a carat in weight. 👈The Moussaieff Red Diamond, a trilliant-cut, internally flawless 5.11-carat red diamond, is the largest known red diamond in the world. Discovered in the 1990s in Brazil’s Minas Gerais region, it weighed 13.90 carats in its rough, uncut form. Auctioned for $8 million in 2001, experts think it would fetch $20 million today due to the double rarity of its color and size.

Photo Phillips Auction House

The Argyle Phoenex👉 at 1.56 carats is the largest brilliant round cut fancy red diamond in the world. The ultra-rare pure red gemstone came from the now-depleted and closed Argyle mine. It sold for a record breaking $4.2 million at a Phillips auction in Geneva in 2024. Small, yet intense and stunning!

Frankly, unlike red diamonds, I’ve never been enamoured by pink diamonds until the 👆Eternal Pink diamond came along. At 10.57 carats, it’s not the biggest pink diamond in the world, but IMHO it’s the most gorgeous, plus I love the diamond's exquisite ring setting. The Eternal Pink diamond is a cushion cut internally flawless Fancy Vivid Purplish Pink color reduced from a 23.78-carat rough stone found in Botswana. In 2023, it was sold at Sotheby's for $34.8 million.

Many of the world’s other big pink diamonds are less saturated, so a paler pink and so large, they don’t look as lovely on a finger, which is not to say you wouldn’t ogle them upon sight.

Photo: National Jewelry/Sotheby's

The CTF Pink Star👉, mined in Africa by DeBeers, is not only the biggest and most expensive pink diamond ever sold, but it is the most pricey gemstone ever auctioned. Costing $71.2 million in 2017, the 59.60-carat oval-mixed cut stone is internally flawless and graded by the GIA as a Fancy Vivid Pink Diamond. 

Golly-gee, is it an enormous diamond to wear as a ring, but I’m sure I could get used to all the carat weight, if I had to wear it.:)

The Desert Rose - Sotheby's

👈The Desert Rose is the largest and most famous pear-shaped diamond in the world. A 31.68 carat Fancy Vivid Orangy Pink diamond, with VVS1 clarity, it sold at Sotheby’s for $8.8 million in 2025.

The Fortune Pink,👇 a mere 18.18 carat diamond graded Fancy Vivid Pink by GIA with VVS2 clarity, was the previous largest pear-shaped Fancy Vivid Pink diamond. Christie’s auctioned it for $28.8 million, and I’m going to show you its luminous beauty below. The new owner can wear it mounted as either a ring or a necklace.

Pink and especially red diamonds start as the rarest gemstones on Earth, and as their natural supply dwindles, their value will keep rising! But more than their monetary value, they are a true, rare, natural phenomenon. Reminders of Mother Nature’s powerful forces and lustrious beauty.

*Red gemstones are the rarest type of gemstone. Rubies are also rare.

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Look For An EWG Certification On Beauty Products

EWG stands for Environmental Working Group, an American non-profit organization that specializes in research and advocacy for human health and the environment. In the beauty industry, it is best known for its Skin Deep Database, a website where consumers can find a 1 (low) to 10 (high) hazard score to reflect unclean ingredients contained in their cosmetics. Beyond its rating system, the EWG runs a certification program. The EWG VERIFIED® seal on a makeup product means the cosmetic has passed the EWG's strictest standards, avoiding all of the group’s chemicals of concern. A product’s ingredients must also be fully disclosed (transparent) and be manufactured with robust safety practices.

A recent FDA report found 51 Forever Chemicals (PFAS) in the ingredients of over 1,700 products, frequently found in mascara, liquid lipsticks, and foundations. Forever chemicals are synthetic substances that companies add to makeup to improve durability, water resistance, and texture. Forever chemicals are bad because they never break down and have been linked to cancer and immune system suppression. Imagine using a mascara for years that contains chemicals that are compromising your immune system!

Despite some criticism from the beauty industry, the EWG VERIFIED® seal is your guide to safer personal care products. The organization doesn’t award its seal to brands but to a brand’s individual products. Its database is a useful tool in protecting your health!

3 brands that have the EWG VERIFIED® seal of approval on many of their cosmetics are:

Well People, which describes its products as makeup on the outside and skincare on the inside. It is a clean makeup powered by plants.

Ilia Beauty is highly rated for its clean ingredients and formulas that deliver a natural “your skin but better” glow.

RMS Beauty - offers natural makeup and skincare made with certified organic ingredients.

The EWG rates 1000s of products based on ingredient safety. You can check your favorite cosmetics in the Skin Deep Database to discover if they are clean or not because they contrain worrisome ingredients.👄

 

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