Welcome to the Heart of Stone Studio website! Our Shopper’s Guide is below, but first we want to tell you about our all new Rewards Points Program. Once you sign up for a Heart of Stone Studio account, you’ll be eligible to earn 1 reward point for every $10.00 you spend. Rewards points are held in your account for you to use against future orders. Each point is worth $1.00 off that order’s total, and you get more rewards points for any balance that you pay. It’s a great program–our way of thanking you for becoming a customer. In fact, you get free rewards points for just opening a Heart of Stone Studio account (scroll down for account information and links).

How to Earn and Use Heart of Stone Studio Rewards Points:
1.Log in to your account using the Log In button at the top of our home page.

2. Shop and pick out the item you want to order. Once you’ve earned points, you can apply them to any sized order.

3. Go to your Shopping Cart to review your order. To the left of your total, you’ll see: What would you like to do Next? Click on: Use Reward Points. You will be shown how many points you have available.

4. In the box asking you how many Points to Use, type in the box the number of points you want applied to your order, and click: Apply Points.

5. Scroll down to see how your order total has been adjusted. If it’s correct, make a note of the revised amount, because you should earn new rewards points on that balance.

6. Then click on “checkout” and go all the way through the checkout process, including:  “confirm order.”

7. You can then check back to your account and see the report on how many points you’ve used, and how many new points you’ve earned.

Enjoy using our Rewards Points program. You’re saving money!

Now, please take a look at these tips to help you get the most out of your shopping experience at Heart of Stone Studio.com.

How this site works Shop Efficiently Shop Competitively Ship Safely

How this site works

You can find your way around our hundreds of different kinds of gemstones easily if you understand the basic organization of this site:

Cabochons are gemstones that are usually (but not always) opaque, with flat backs and rounded faces. They can easily be bezel-set or wire-wrapped.

Drusies are gemstones whose top surfaces are covered with tiny crystals, like the inside of a geode. They also have flat backs, but need to be more carefully set so that the crystals aren’t damaged. The crystals are sturdy but drusies are not recommended for heavy-wear jewelry pieces.

Faceted stones include small genuine diamonds (called melee) and traditional colored gemstones. Also included in this section are synthetic stones for use in PMC settings.

Finished Pendants can be immediately incorporated into jewelry designs because they already have their own bails (structures that allow them to hang).

Strands refer to lengths of beads or pearls that are ready for stringing, as well as chains.

Within the Cabochons and Drusies Divisions, stones are further organized into categories…

• By Color such as red, green, black, blue, etc.
• By Pattern such as Abstract Art, Landscapes, Black in the Abstract, The Beachcomber (shells and beach stones), and Tranquil Garden (stones with dendrites).
• By Specialty, such as Metals, Corals, Fossils, Opals, Sets, Art-Carved, etc.

Each category has its own summary page that shows all the stone species in that category.

• Click on the stone that you want to investigate and it will open to its own Stone Species page.
• Each Stone Species (i.e., Black Onyx, Mexican Lace Agate, Deschutes Jasper) is on its own web page.
• Click on the thumbnail of a particular stone you’re interested in and it will open up an individual product page for that stone, with measurements, availability, pricing, and additional views that show the stone rotated or shot from the side or back.
• Click on any photo to see enlarged views of ALL the photos of that stone.

Finding your way around:

• The links for all the major stone categories are in the teal menu bar at top of every web page.
• Click on a link and a complete drop-down menu for that division becomes visible.
• You can also use the “breadcrumb” trail shown near the top of each page: Cabochons >> Vivid Colors >> Reds >> Hickoryite. Clicking on any category in this trail will take you directly to that page.

Shop Efficiently

Find what you need quickly with our Search box Feature.

In a hurry to find something specific? The Heart of Stone Studio website will do the searching for you—just enter in either the NAME of the stone, Hint: You can actually help the search box be more accurate by omitting terms that are very general: Instead of Laguna Lace Agate, just type: Laguna Lace. Instead of Fossilized Dinosaur Bone, just type: Dinosaur Bone.

Or, you can enter in descriptive search terms and it will find what you want. You can use them singly, such as “opal,” or combine them, such as “black triangle earring pair.”

The website will do the sorting and present you with all available stones that meet your search parameters!

Special tip: If you want to call up all the stones that are drilled, enter this search term: drilled pendant.

Read through our helpful Glossary of Search Terms that will get results on this site.

Find the size of stone you need by keying a specific size class into our Search Box. In the interest of efficiency, all gemstones on this site are assigned to a specific size class: Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large, and Jumbo.

Any one of these classes, when made part of your search string, should pull up all the stones on this site that fall within that size range. To avoid getting overwhelmed by an avalanche of stones, try adding other terms to narrow the search, such as color, shape, or stone name.

Perceptions of a stone’s size differ from person to person. Don’t rely on how the photo looks on the computer screen. Instead, READ the MEASUREMENTS before you buy. All measurements are in millimeters, which is the industry standard. If you’re unfamiliar with this kind of measure, refer to our Size Class Guide

Use our special comparison features.

The product detail pages on our website contain two special features to help you select just the right stones:

1. Our “Items you’ve been viewing” shows pictures of the last five items you’ve examined, so that you can see their photos right next to the current item you’re viewing.
2. Our Compare feature lets you compare two or more stones for their major characteristics. When you are examining any individual stone, just click on the “compare” button to the right of the stone photo to add an item to the comparison.

Shop Competitively

The vast majority of stones on our site are one-of-a-kind. Here are some tips to help you get your first pick of new stones posted to the site:

Sign up for our e-mail alerts.

Whenever Judy posts new stones to the site, she sends out an e-mail alert to her special customers. You can either click here to sign up, or have your e-mail address added automatically when you create an account. Don’t forget that you can also shop from your smart phone or tablet!

Check the “Newly Posted” box on our Home Page.

When you open our home page, check the “Newly Posted” section for stones that have just arrived on the site. Click on a photo to be taken directly to that type of stone (Stone Species) to shop.

Use your Wish List

When you become an account holder, you can use your Wish List to hold images of stones you’ve got your eye on. To find those stones quickly and automatically, just go to the wish list and click on the item. If that stone no longer shows up on its individual product page, then it has been sold.

Check out quickly

Of course it’s fun to browse, but on days when new stones are posted, use the links from our newsletter to go directly to the newly-posted stones. When you’ve picked out the favorites you’ve just GOT to have, don’t let them sit in your cart for a long time—They aren’t yours until you’ve checked out and paid for them. So to avoid getting “sniped,” check out promptly. Heart of Stone Studio uses PayPal to handle all its financial transactions, so your credit card information is protected by PayPal’s powerful security. Having a Heart of Stone Studio account will speed up this process even more, because your shipping information will already be on file.

Sign Up for Your Own Heart of Stone Studio Account

Advantages of having a Heart of Stone Studio account:

• Fill out forms for shipping and checkout just once! We keep your shipping (and credit card info, if you wish) totally private and secure.
• Keep track of stones you like by adding them to your own personal Wish List. When you’re ready to buy, just check out direct from the Wish List page.
• Keep a record of your purchase history. It can help you find information that you might have lost.
• Keep additional mailing addresses on file.
• Get automatically signed up for e-mail alerts.
• Become eligible for “members only” deals and specials, like our great new Rewards Points Program.

Click Here to sign up for your own personal Heart of Stone Studio account. Already a member? Sign In Here.

Ship Safely

Heart of Stone Studio uses the U.S. Postal Service to ship stones. Small orders can be sent first class, but please keep in mind that if your order is lost in the mail, the responsibility for it is yours. Heart of Stone Studio can’t replace gemstones lost in the mail because they are one-of-a-kind. We can, however, issue you a refund if the stones are insured.

So if you want to be SURE that your stones are protected, select a shipping option that involves INSURANCE. In the U.S., the most common option is Priority Mail, insured. Please MAKE SURE to select this option during checkout, especially if your order is worth $100 or more. Priority Mail also provides a number allowing your package to be tracked. We can use it to hunt down the exact location of any package at any time.

Heart of Stone Studio is NOT responsible for lost shipments if those shipments were not insured.

INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS:

We love our international customers and make every effort to keep your shipping costs down. But, Please do not choose U.S. shipping options. Instead, select among: First Class International (not insured; best for smaller orders). For more valuable orders, select Express Mail International, insured. This option is much more expensive but worth the investment if you’ve selected special stones. Express Mail packages are tracked, so we have a way to locate them. Plus, if for some reason they are not deliverable, they are returned back to Judy and can be re-shipped.

Please note that we deliberately avoid “jacking up” international shipping costs—what you’re charged is very close to the actual postage cost, without much overhead added on.

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