Lapis Lazuli

Lapis lazuli is a primary color dye obtained by mining lapis lazuli ore with a stone pickaxe or better. Similar to coal, redstone and diamond, lapis lazuli can be used immediately without the need for smelting.

Uses

 * Can be used to dye dog collars blue.
 * Can be combined with wool to make blue wool.
 * Can be applied to sheep, which will yield 1-3 blocks of blue wool when sheared.
 * A Lapis Lazuli Block can be formed by filling a crafting grid with 9 dye pieces.

Smelting
Note that this is both inefficient and wasteful, as a Silk Touch-enchanted pickaxe is needed to collect the ore block, and when mined Lapis Lazuli ore produces 4-8 Lapis Lazuli items, rather than just one by smelting.

Rarity and location
Lapis Lazuli is found fairly deep, and is very common in diamond branch mining operations. Add to this that you can get up to 8 dyes from each ore, and your chests will be full of Lazuli in short order.

Trivia

 * In real life, lapis lazuli is a medium hard stone used for making jewelry and as a pigment.
 * Lapis lazuli dye was going to be a crafting ingredient for the block Crying Obsidian, but neither the block nor the recipe were ever added.
 * Lapis lazuli is the only dye obtainable through mining.
 * In 1.2.5, when the pick block key was broken, if you used it on lapis lazuli ore you would get an Ink Sac, unlike if you tried on diamond, coal, redstone, gold, or iron. This is because lapis is a dye that it drops from an ore, and is a data value of the Ink Sac. This along with many other glitches were fixed in the 1.3 release.
 * Even though the dye is not renewable, applying once to a sheep and shearing it allows you to obtain blue wool, which is one reason for mining Lapis Lazuli.

History
Lapis Lazuli (Farbe) Lapis Lazuli (Dye)/es Lapis-lazuli (colorant) Lazuritfesték Lapis Lazuli (barwnik) pt-br:Lapis Lazuli (Dye) Ультрамарин 青金石染料