Crystal Spheres

How spheres are made

A block of rough stone is trimmed into a cube or a many-sided shape, then ground round between rotating cups with finer and finer abrasives, and finally polished. Hard stones such as quartz and jasper take a glassy polish; softer ones such as calcite and fluorite need gentler handling afterwards.

Choosing stock

• Start with the colours people ask for: rose quartz, clear quartz, amethyst and fluorite.
• Add one or two patterned stones (agate, jasper, labradorite) for variety.
• Keep a few larger one-of-a-kind spheres as the centre of the display. Every numbered sphere is photographed on its own, so you get the piece you see.

Display

Use a stand under every sphere so nothing rolls, light them from above, and line them up by size so the price steps are easy to read.