Minerals...

...a group of garnets. Garnets aren't a single mineral, but rather a group of several closely related minerals. They come in a variety of colors, & while the most widely known is a deep, dark red, they also come in green, yellow, orange, brown, black, pink and purple. These are rhodolite garnets--a rose red to violet variety. 
My great aunt and uncle spent years travelling all over the world. My great aunt loved jewelry and often bought unset gems as well as actual pieces of jewelry. Sometime in the 1960's my mom and her two sisters flew to Arizona to visit them, and while there my great aunt brought out her collection of unset stones & told them each to pick out a set. My mom picked the garnets. They came in a lovely display box--I think there must have been about 27 of these stones, in three different sizes, all perfectly lined up. My mom put them in her jewelry box and over the years they spilled out of their original box, some of them getting chipped & lost. When I graduated from Nursing school my mom gave me the stones, saying that since they were my birthstone she'd like me to have them. I took them to a jeweler who picked out the three best stones, one in each size, and had a pendant made & hung on a chain, which is one of the few necklaces I ever wear. I'm thinking that when the twins, who also share a January birthday, graduate from High School I'd like to have a necklace made for each of them with some of the remaining stones. I think they'd like that.  Thanks to Ninniex for hosting TinyTuesday this month & for her "mineral" theme. :))