As a translucent to green opaque coloured Chalcedony, the inclusion of flecks of deep red and green make this a beautiful addition to any crystal collection, with an added benefit this stone’s generous energy giving qualities.

African Blood Crystal is said to help us face challenges, conquer fears and motivate us to action. It activates the courage deep within us, encouraging us to take on those experiences we dread or are holding us back from embracing our true joyful self.

Ultimately a protection stone, this beautiful flecked crystal will aid in healing, especially in any matters to do with the heart. Using African Blood Crystal grounds Heart energy, reducing irritability, anger and frustration.

Origin: India, Brazil, China, Australia and the USA.
Energy: Activates.
Colours: Translucent with flecks of green and dark red.
Helps with: Healing, protection, creativity, strength, purification, motivation, grounding, protection against injury, transmutes negativity, courage, movement, circulation, transformation.
Usage tip: Wear African Blood Crystal if you work in a hazardous occupation. Use African Blood Crystal in your meditation to clear the Heart Chakra of energetic blocks. Hold African Blood Crystal for inner strength when you are feeling anxious.

You can also find heat-treated versions that are green (prasiolite) and yellow (so-called 'citrine’). The word amethyst comes from the Ancient Greek word amethystos, meaning ‘not drunken’ and refers to its traditional use as a stone to prevent overindulgence and inebriation. What does this mean for us living in the here and now?

Amethyst is a powerful crystal, used to protect and purify both the physical and spiritual body. It is strongly related to the third eye, the seat of intuition and the crown chakra.

When our energy in these chakras is blocked, we can become clumsy physically, anxious and blunder through thought and decision making. Amethyst helps to cleanse this blocked energy in the third eye, crown chakra, the body or any room it is placed in. It can also be used to transform negativity or assisting with insomnia and dreams, assisting travellers with safety. With all of these amazing uses and qualities, Amethyst is a significantly beneficial all-purpose stone and one of Shiny Storm’s most popular crystals.

Origin: Brazil, Germany, Sri Lanka, Uruguay.
Energy: Amplifies.
Colours: Pale to deep purple, green (heat-treated, prasiolite), yellow (heat-treated, ‘citrine’).
Works with: Citrine, clear quartz.
Helps with: Intuition and insight, insomnia, safe travel, connecting to higher self and the Divine, creativity, manifestation, stress and anxiety, nightmares and addiction.  
Usage tip: Place on your bedside table to help alleviate insomnia, discourage nightmares and/or remember dreams. You could even secure amethyst underneath the head of your bed.
In meditation, Amethyst will help attain stillness in your mind, allowing you to channel greater clarity, creativity and manifesting ideas into reality.

At its core, this crystal aids in the attunement of energies to purpose, higher dimensions and divine beings. Used in meditation, Apophyllite can help to connect to your guardian angels and spirits, strengthening your bond and allowing your intuition to become more powerful. In this way, you become more sure of yourself and the path you are taking, whilst also attracting those things (and people!) you want most.

Apophyllite is also an excellent clearer of negative energy whilst increasing high vibrations, making it a calming addition to any space.

For those who practice healing modalities such as Reiki, this crystal is well known as a powerful aid in enhancing the flow of Reiki energy, while also helping practitioners purify themselves as an energy channel.

Origin: India, Australia, Russia, Germany, Greenland, Italy, and the USA. Green Apophyllite is found in India, Brazil, Quebec and Canada.
Energy: Connection, high vibration.
Colours: Clear or white, green.
Works with: Any grounding stones because of powerful Apophyllite’s connection to the higher realms.
Helps with: Enhancing intuition, calm, energy clearing, communication with higher realms and spirit guides, connection, attunement, alignment.
Usage tip: Anyone practicing astral projection and lucid dreaming should place a piece of Apophyllite at their bedside. This stone will fill the entire room with high vibrational energy that will aid your transcendence to higher realms and connection with your spirit guides and angels. Green Apophyllite (whilst rare) is an excellent aid to meditate outside with, and will help attune you to Mother Earth’s powerful energies. Place a small piece of Apophyllite on your third eye to ease headaches or tired eyes, perfect after a long day at work.

Regardless of the colour, Aragonite holds powerful energy which will encourage you to release blocks, face the truth and develop an unclouded perception of reality.

This stone enhances tolerance, trust and provides clarity by developing a deep understanding of any problem.

This may sound quite difficult, but it is a power which will aid in your efforts to make positive change. This change might come in the form of increased confidence, patience, inner healing and personal improvement. Aragonite helps to bring all the chakras in balance, which in turn promotes mental clarity and emotional equilibrium, bringing us ever closer to positive transformation.

Origin: Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, Spain, U.K. and the US.
Energy: Projective, Receptive. Colours: Golden brown, colourless, white, green, red, violet, yellow, and blue.
Helps with: Balance, clarity, inner strength, alignment, clearing, confidence, emotional healing, patience, tolerance, trust, truth. Usage tip: Bring your entire chakra column into alignment with regular use of Aragonite during meditations. Clear troublesome or open closed chakras by placing Aragonite on that chakra during meditation.

As an energy amplifier, the other colours of blue, red, orange, yellow or white can also amplify the chakra energies associated with each colour.

A joyful crystal, Aventurine is a wonderful stone to balance the emotions, enhance self esteem and decisiveness.

It can also assist in channelling your own personal energies and desires. Aventurines in general can renew your optimism for life, pushing you to take action, seek new opportunities and adventure, helping you grow as an individual.

Origin: Brazil, China, Russia, Tibet.
Energy: Amplifies.
Colours: Green, blue, red, orange, yellow and white.
Works with: Tourmaline, turquoise.
Helps with: Blue: enhancing communication. Green: leadership and optimism. Red: safety. White: Connection to higher-self. Yellow: confidence.
Usage tip: Green Aventurine is excellent in promoting leadership and confidence. Place one in your suit pocket during important work meetings. Meditate with Aventurine to bring you closer to your spiritual guides. Carry Aventurine to help protect from those who suck away your energy.

In ancient times, magicians used Black Tourmaline to ward off demons, but now along with draining off negativity and providing protection, black tourmaline also helps keep you grounded, promotes self-confidence and reduces anxiety. In this way, it is a powerful regeneration stone, helping to channel the courage to face new challenges whilst creating a safe and balanced energy around you.

It can also aid in purifying environments where excessive emotional negativity has occurred.

If Black Tourmaline breaks, it has become saturated with the harmful energy it has absorbed. Simply return it lovingly to the Earth and see me in person at a market on the Sunshine Coast or the Shiny Storm website for a new piece.

Origin: Australia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, United States.
Energy: Absorbs.
Colours: Black.
Works with: Clear quartz.
Helps with: Anxiety, excessive anger, psychic protection, protection against negativity,  grounding, stress release, cleansing negative emotions.
Usage tip: If you are in close and constant contact with someone who is excessively negative (such as a colleague), position a piece of Black Tourmaline between you and that person. Wearing Black Tourmaline will help keep you safe from harm.

Having the ability to express what we think and feel freely and clearly is incredibly important to our overall emotional, physical and spiritual health.

Our voice is the pressure valve of our body: when our throat chakra is blocked or out of alignment, all chakras begin to fall out of balance.

Blue Aragonite is an excellent stone to help those who struggle to express their truth, by gently bringing to consciousness those traumas and painful memories we refuse to confront. With a calm and tender energy, this crystal will unveil the pain hidden and pushed down deep into your inner self, allowing you to process and speak your truth with compassion and kindness for yourself and others. Calming, gentle and nurturing, Shiny Storm strongly recommends Blue Aragonite be included in every crystal collection.

Colours: Light blue and blue.
Works with: Rose Quartz, Green Calcite, Rhodochrosite.
Helps with: Communication, truth, speaking truth, calming, relaxation, intuition, joy, mediation, self-discovery, healing, nurturing, trust, clarity, balancing, compassion, kindness, overcoming trauma.
Usage tip: Wear Blue Aragonite to increase your ability to communicate with compassion and kindness. Place Blue Aragonite on your throat chakra during a Reiki or massage treatment to concentrate powerful healing energies there.Meditate with Blue Aragonite to calmly unveil and confront those truths we find hard or refuse to acknowledge. Simply hold Blue Aragonite for instant relaxation.

It’s no surprise then that the Throat Chakra benefits from Blue Calcite, which is particularly useful for cleansing all lines of communication. But this is not where this amazing crystal’s healing properties end. As a powerful stone used in relaxation and recuperation, Blue Calcite will help soothe and relax the emotional body.

It’s calming effects on the mind through the Third Eye Chakra, allow the user to think about emotional situations with more of objectivity, opening up stronger communication channels between your thoughts and feelings.

Blue Calcite will also absorb negative energy and help protect you from the ill feelings of others throughout your day. It also promotes clear thought as it cleanses communication channels throughout your body, allowing creativity and inspired ideas to flow.

Origin: Mexico, South Africa.
Energy: Amplifies, cleansing.
Colours: Light blue, dark blue.
Works with: Aquamarine, Moldavite, Phenacite.
Helps with: Communication, soothing emotions, relaxation, recuperation, tranquillity, protection, emotional understanding, psychic abilities, patience, dispelling negativity.
Usage tip: Wear Blue Calcite in a necklace to help communicate more effectively during your day.Keep a piece of Blue Calcite at your work station to promote clear thought and creativity.Place Blue Calcite over your Third Eye during meditation to increase your psychic powers.

A very strong amplifying and cleansing stone, its hexagonal structure suggests that Calcite will help you achieve your desires and thus is excellent for manifestation work. This stone is also considered to be an effective healing stone.

Being made almost entirely of calcium, Calcite is closely associated with the growth and healing of bones.

Origin: Brazil, Iceland, Russia, USA.
Energy: Amplifies.
Colours: Black, blue, green, grey, honey, yellow, orange, pink, red, violet and white.
Works with: Other Calcites in different colours.
Helps with: Manifestation, energy amplification, calming, rejuvenating, cleansing, grounding, inner peace, individual chakra work.
Usage tip: Calcite is beautiful and can be used to create a rejuvenating environment in a bedroom or bathroom. Place different coloured Calcite stones around the room and enjoy their combined calming energies. Put Calcite in children’s rooms to promote the growth of healthy bones.

For those who struggle with communication on any level, this beautiful stone will not only support your voice to be heard, but untangle frazzled thoughts and ambiguous desires.

Blue Lace Agate helps those who need confidence and clarity to clearly articulate their truths, especially in friendships or relationships, as it assists both aspects of communication: the ability to listen and understand as well as communicate clearly.

Speak clearly, in confidence and in truth. By communicating your truth and what you want to those around you, this stone will help you manifest those desires into your experience. On an emotional level, Blue Lace Agate helps ease feelings caused by past experiences, clearing negative energies and blockages to allow for renewed self-expression and growth.

Origin: Africa and Eastern Europe.
Colours: Blue and light blue.
Works with: Rose Quartz, Aquamarine, Lapis Lazuli.
Helps with: Communication, trust, calming, balance, detoxification, confidence, clarity, courage, clearing, self-expression, growth, manifestation.
Usage tip: Wear Blue Lace Agate in a necklace if you struggle to express your emotions without getting upset. Carry Blue Lace Agate with you to job interviews, public speaking or therapy sessions to give yourself a confidence boost and clear thought.

This powerful stone enhances spiritual development and helps to encourage all forms of communication, both physical, emotional and spiritual.Blue Quartz enhances creativity and self-expression, helping us to communicate to others, but also to allow ourselves to hear our truth and listen to our inner beings fully. Accessing the spiritual and angelic realms is also made easier with this beautiful stone.

Incredibly soothing, Blue Quartz reduces stress, calms the mind, combats fear and inspires hope. It is also a powerful tool in protection from negativity while its balancing properties help dispel fear.

This stone offers hope, happiness, and peace, lifting our inner selves up and out of anxiety and darkness into beautiful positivity.

Origin: USA, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Madagascar.
Energy: Transformational
Colours: Light to deep blue.
Helps with: Communication, creativity, self-expression, spirituality, psychic abilities, calmness, personal development, growth, accessing higher realms, hope, trust, listening, courage, happiness, consciousness, accessing the higher realms.
Usage tip: Use in your yoga and breathwork practices: Blue Quartz is very good in helping to learn how to control and be conscious of your breathing. Hold Blue Quartz in your hand to promote calm and peacefulness.