Amber is a naturally occurring fossilization of Pinus succinifera resin. The age of Baltic amber is estimated at 40-60 millions years.
It is used for jewelry and medical/beauty purposes.
The majority of the world's amber is found in the Baltic Sea region (hence the

Inclusion in Baltic Amber (picture from Wikimedia)

name -- Baltic amber). Other kinds of amber, added to the classification quite recently, only from 1950s when amber was found in Dominican Republic, make up only 2% of the total yearly production of amber.
Geologists estimate, that there is enough amber in currently known deposits to last us another 1000 years, but some of these deposits are in unattractive for mining locations -- protected zones etc, so the demand of amber drives people to "play" with what is available.
Because Baltic amber is naturally occurring fossilisation, quite often there are impurities, different colours, etc in one piece and people quite often want uniformity. Certain methods where developed already in 19th century to provide that.

As most people know, amber is a fossilized resin from coniferous trees. It has many amazing magical and healing properties.
Copal is "immature" amber. It's softer and easier to damage, but has most of the same qualities as amber, just to a lesser degree.
 
How to test your jewelry to see whether it is really made of amber:

Light test

True Amber will fluoresce blue under a black light. This is probably the easiest way to tell, with no chance of harm to a piece.

Static test

Another simple and safe test. But probably a lot harder to do if it's a piece set in metal. Amber is warm to the touch and when rubbed, it will become electro-statically charged and will attract lint/dust particles. And to a lesser degree, Copal will do the same.

Lithuania is an Amber country, we call amber Lithuanian gold, wear it on all occasions, consider it our national stone. There are historical facts about Amber trade road starting in this region.
So I wanted to start from the very beginning -- the legends, folklore.

The most known one is a legend about Jūratė and Kastytis:

A sculpture of Jūratė and Kastytis in Palanga, Lithuania

 Now this took me a while :) We had a Christmas swap in Lithuanian Etsy team and this is what I received:




 I was sooo happy! Felted slippers are perfect for my constantly cold feet and even colder floors in my house in the winter. Thank you so much Egle!Check out her Etsy shop for more lovely felted slippers.

Last weekend I took my little girl Zerika Karmino Cat to Warsaw.
We had great time there, made a lot of new friends and got some nice pictures taken. See for yourself:

I have been looking at air hardening ceramic clay for a while and thinking it would be nice to try it out -- it is so different to all the other things I already know, should be fun!
But you know how these things go :) -- I never found time for it. Then during one of my visits my mother was showing her Japanese bowls and plates collection and mentioned that she did not find any chopstick rests that she liked and sort of hinted that it would be a great Christmas gift.
Hah -- what a great opportunity for me to try out the very thing. Upon my return home I got myself a pack of the ceramic clay and sat down to make some designs (not really :) it took me about 2 months to finally get around to it, good job, there was time before Christmas).
So here they are:

 And of course with all the joyous things come gifts -- for me that means learning a new craft technique -- I realised that this became a tradition for me for the past 3 or 4 years :) 
This year it is kimekomi -- this is the ancient art of decorating dolls from Japan. It has been adapted to decorating Styrofoam forms for various occasions - Christmas included. You can get Styrofoam balls, wreaths, eggs, cones, etc. There are many beautiful examples of kimekomi decorations around and having accidentally stumbled upon some of them I decided to try this technique out.
At first seemed quite a daunting task and I already started thinking about a different technique to learn, but turns out that I just needed more practice!
Here are some of my creations: