In the last few months, I have had several clients come to me who do not want diamonds for their engagement rings. Not only do they not want diamonds, they don’t want other super popular stones for engagement rings either.

A long time ago, diamonds were not “THE” stone for engagement rings. Sapphires were. Then the big guys (DeBeers) got ahold of the diamond mines and they marketed the crap out of diamonds until every woman though she needed a diamond. I don’t think there is any reason someone should get a diamond if they don’t want a diamond. That being said, there are some limitations with other gemstones that should be taken into consideration.

Each stone type has a different hardness. The scale used to gauge hardness is called the Mohs Scale and it goes from 1-10. Diamonds are a 10 and are the hardest. This makes them great for jewelry worn every day for long periods of time because they don’t easily scratch, crack, chip, or break. All other gemstones are softer than diamonds. Sapphires are VERY hard and are a 9 on the Mohs Scale. They are also very durable like diamonds which make them a great option if you don’t want a diamond but want sometime that will last quite well. Rubies are also a 9 on the Mohs Scale (they are after all just red sapphires) which would make them another great choice for an engagement ring.

After you get past sapphires, you get into stones Chrysoberyl which is an 8.5 then Spinel and Topaz which are both 8 on the Mohs Scale. These would be pretty durable stones but probably the only one that sounds familiar to most people is Topaz.

Once you get into the hardnesses less than 8, stones are considered “soft.” When a stone is soft, it doesn’t mean that it will crumble in your fingers or anything. It just means that if you knock it on too many things, you could scratch the surface or even crack or chip it. Aquamarine, Beryl and Emerald are all 7.5 on the Mohs Scale. Emeralds are famous for being soft but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t used all the time and I even know several people with Emerald centers in their engagement rings. My aunt has an Emerald and while the stone is still intact, it is very scratched after wearing it every day for so long.

Going down the scale after that are:
Amethyst, Citrine, Garnet, Iolite, Quartz and Tourmaline at 7 on the scale.
Jade, Kunzite, Peridot, Tanzanite, Tzavorite Garnet and Zircon at 6.5 on the scale.
Moonstone and Sunstone at 6.
Opal at 5.5.
Pearl at 4.

I have never, and will never tell anyone to get a different stone than what they want because of the softness of the stone they want. I have made pearl engagement rings and am working on an opal one right now. People just need to be aware of how to care for and prevent damage to their stone.

The most important thing is to be careful when wearing your jewelry. Don’t do dishes or shower with your jewelry on. I basically don’t wear my jewelry unless I’m going out and trying to look nice. Take special care when cleaning your jewelry when you have soft stones. Some soft stones should never be put in an ultrasonic cleaner and even regular liquid jewelry cleaner can be too harsh on some things. There are jewelry cleaners specifically designed for pearls that should be safe on any stone. Most of all, try not to hit your jewelry on anything. I’ve never chipped a stone that way but I haven’t loosened stones by knocking my jewelry on things at work and at home.

Diamonds may be forever; jewelry is not. But, with special care and attention, any stone should be just fine though so buy what you like without worrying about what you are “supposed” to have for an engagement ring!

When I posted pictures of a different pearl ring a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine contacted me wanted something similar for a pearl that she already had. I don’t like to do the same design for different clients so I had to come up with a variation that she would love. She already had a ring with a 7.5mm pearl and 2 small diamonds. She wanted to re-set the stones into something in white metal since she doesn’t wear yellow gold anymore. This was a gift from herself to herself so she wanted something fun.

I thought about it for a few days and came up with this design:

I used a true square for the shape of the shank and I extended the top curve around the pearl to make it different. I used the diamonds on the sides of the shank for embellishment.

She loved the design. We decided to use palladium because it is more durable than silver but less expensive than white gold.

I don’t think I have ever been so excited to get a casting back. I couldn’t wait to see the lines of this piece in reality.

Even without the stones, the casting was gorgeous.

When I picked it up at the jeweler, my contact told me everyone loved the ring. I just had to take it to my friend to see what she thought!

She loved the piece and put it right on her finger! I love being able to help friends make cool stuff with what they already have!

I know last weeks post was a pearl piece but I seem to be getting a lot of requests for pearls recently!

This week I have a pearl pendant for you to enjoy with sapphires and aquamarine.

When the client contacted me she had a pretty specific idea of what she wanted. She wanted a simple pendant with a fairly large pearl surrounded by sapphires. She also thought it would be neat to use slightly larger stones at the 4 cardinal points. I put together what I thought would fit with what she had described but to further accentuate the corners, I used nice dark sapphires for the larger stones and lighter aquamarine stones in between.

She loved the lighter stones with the sapphires! She decided to go with 14K white gold for the metal and all natural stones. Once the decision was made, I went ahead and got the casting done.

Once I had collected the pearl and all of the sapphires and aquamarines, I sent those and the casting to my jeweler.

The finished pieces was gorgeous! The light and dark stones really set each other off. I hope she loves it!

A few weeks ago I had someone contact me who was looking for something totally non-traditional and modern looking in an engagement ring. He lives in the Czech Republic and his to-be fiance is Czech and they don’t really do big fancy diamond engagement ring there so he wanted something to fit her taste.

He really liked the trillion fire opal ring I have on my site but didn’t want any diamonds at all. He had seen some engagement rings with pearls and really liked the look of those, so I decided to try to combine the 2 ideas. Below is the original render that I came up with:

He really loved the top piece (I knew he would) and after moving the pearl over a little bit and rounding off the shank, we ended up with this:

He decided to use palladium for the metal to keep the price down and we started manufacturing.

Here are the raw casting and the pearl…

The finished piece turned out amazing! I hope she loves it!

People have lucky charms so why not lucky jewelry? I’m sure there are people who have piece of jewelry that they truly believe are lucky.

I’m not usually someone to think ANYTHING is lucky but if I did, my lucky piece of jewelry would be a pearl ring.

When my grandmother died a few years ago, I inherited a bunch of her jewelry. The favorite piece of hers that I have now is a pearl and diamond ring. It is like nothing I have seen in stores and it has proven to be lucky for me.

I don’t think the ring has any actual special qualities, but when I wear it I feel sexy and pretty and like I can do anything–for me that feeling creates good luck.