Diamonds are the things to have a lot of, especially in the US, but colored stones are my passion. There are so many of them and they are all so different with different qualities and colors!! Take a look at the pictures of (almost) all of the stones in my personal collection.

Peridot is one of my favorite stones because of the color. Peridot is the birthstone for August but you don’t have to have been born then to love it!

I have lots of peridot stones in my collection, but not all of them are very good quality. Peridot is actually hard to find in large sizes without a lot of inclusions. I bought the 2 stones below at a the gem show in tuscon. After looking at a lot of peridot that had good color but was heavily included, I found the vendor with these stones and I had to have them. These are about 9mm trillion cut stones and they are the really nice green color that you want in a peridot.

The other peridot stone I have in my collection is a stunning piece of peridot, but the cut is what really makes it spectacular. I bought this stone at a show from a German cutter–Tom Munsteiner http://www.munsteiner-cut.de/english.html. I saw his work when I went to Tuscon for the first time while I was in school at GIA. I didn’t have the budget to buy anything from him at the time but when I went back a few years later, I decided I had to have at least one of his stones in my collection. He chooses the best stones and then cuts them to really accentuate their best qualities. This is one of my favorite stones in my collection.

All of the above stones are for sale. If interested please contact me at leah@leahashley.com.

Fortunately for her, rubies can be quite pink and pink would look great with her other colors!

Then there is the next problem; there are 3 different stones which makes it impossible to make the ring symmetrical. I tried adding her and her husband’s birthstones in but both of those are amethyst. The color works well, but it doesn’t help with symmetry.
My first thought would be to have a wide band with the stones randomly on the top of the band in bezels. Again, we had another problem; she doesn’t wear big rings.

I thought that this design manages to accomplish everything she wanted without being too big. I used one larger amethyst for the middle to symbolize her and her husband with the smaller stones at the end of wavy cut outs to represent the children.

The band of the ring will still be the most prominent aspect of the design but it is only about 7mm wide. The bezel set stones will add a clean, modern flair to the ring but the colors shouldn’t be too overwhelming so as to make the ring look gaudy.

My friend’s third and last child was born in July 2008. I think she has waited long enough for a mother’s ring so I hope she likes this design so we can move forward with making it for her!