Springing forward...

Hello there! Did everyone remember to turn their clocks ahead one hour last night? Yes, we have officially sprung forward! While I am not a big fan of losing an hour of sleep, I do have to admit I am excited about the coming of spring...Atlanta is sooooo gorgeous when things start blooming, that it is completely worth all the allergy medication I will soon have to consume! And I love that the weather is warming up too....Yay for our town having nearly endless outdoor eating spots. Not much beats kicking back on a patio and enjoying the view.

I started thinking about our next holiday - St. Patrick's Day - and thought it might be fun to "go green" for this post and talk emeralds. Let's take a peek at some of the world's most famous green stones:

The stunning Mackay Emerald was mined in Muzo, Colombia and is the largest cut emerald in the National Gem Collection of the Smithsonian. The art deco style necklace was a wedding gift in 1931 from Clarence Mackay to his wife Anna Case Mackay. The emerald weighs 167.97 carats and is set in platinum with 35 emeralds and 2,191 colorless brilliant and step cut diamonds.

The Topkapi Emerald Dagger, on display at the Treasury of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul Turkey, is 35 centimeters long. It given as a gift from the Shah Nadir to the Sultan Mahmud I. The three large emeralds are described as pigeon-egg sized - I'm not exactly sure how big that is, but it sounds pretty big!

The Hooker Emerald, on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, consists of a superb 75.47carat Colombian emerald. Once the property of Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1876-1909). Tiffany & Co. acquired the emerald and mounted it in the current brooch setting in 1950. Mrs. Janet Annenberg Hooker purchased the brooch from Tiffany in 1955, and in 1977 she donated it to the Smithsonian Institution.

The Maximilian Emerald is a 21.04-carat, emerald-cut, deep grass-green stone, believed to have belonged to Cuauhtemoc, the last king of the Aztec Empire, who was martyred trying to defend his homeland from the Spanish in the 1525. The ring gets its name from its one time owner, Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, the archduke of Austria and the younger brother of Emperor Francis Joseph (1848-1916), who was installed as the Emperor of Mexico in 1864 by Napoleon III.

The Mughal emerald is a magnificent historic carved emerald, belonging to the period of the last of the four great Mughal Emperors of India who reigned between 1658 and 1707. The emerald, which undoubtedly is of Colombian origin, weighs 217.80 carats. It is carved with intricate floral designs on one side and beautiful Arabic calligraphy in the Naksh script on the other. The dimensions of the emerald are 52 x 40 x 12 mm, and the mid-point of each of the four sides of the rectangle has been drilled for attachments, so that the gemstone could be mounted and worn as a talisman, with the Arabic inscriptions facing outwards.

Hope you enjoyed that - think green and spring!