10,000 mother days gift

[pregcurious]

Does your wife like the yellow-greens of peridot, or the blue-greens and more neutral greens of emeralds?

Here are some peridot pairs. They all have a decent cut:
http://www.gemfix.com/peridot.html

 

[Rhett]

yes, all those colours are fine

she turns 40 6 months after the 10,000 event - so jackets could be a bday present follow up!

a wealth of knowledge here

 

[Starzin]

And while you're at Gemfix have a look at green tourmalines
http://www.gemfix.com/tourmaline_green_blue.html

and tsavorites (green garnets)
http://www.gemfix.com/garnet_tsavorite.html

You will now begin to appreciate what we mean when we say "what colour green?"

she turns 40 6 months after the 10,000 event - so jackets could be a bday present follow up!

a wealth of knowledge here

Yes to the jackets for birthday follow up

Wealth of knowledge? You are no where near the bottom of the barrel in PS - in fact you've just scraped the surface. But you have many of us interested because an earring project with a nice budget and someone looking for guidance lets us all have our 2cents worth - just don't let us overwhelm you. Call a halt or take a break for an hour/day and ask questions... lots of questions.

 

[Starzin]

Okay one more before I have to do some other stuff.

These lovely Spectrum Award winning earrings, although more modern, show what can be done with mix and match. These are sold (and wrong colour to boot) but can be custom ordered from the designer. In other words you can ask for them in green!

Or green drop with diamonds where the tiny faceted stones are.

You could also ask if she would attach the bottom half to a diamond stud in order to allow you to purchase jackets later.

http://www.farlang.com/profiles/claudia-endler/product.2010-02-10.9343010903

ETA: Food for thought jackets don't have to be diamonds - they can be green sparkly stuff too. So she can have more than one pair of jackets. That's next Christmas taken care of too LOL!

 

[chrono]

Insufficient bling?
http://www.pearlmansjewelers.com/jewelry-designers/seidengang-jewelry/earrings/14CC2/

Emerald drops?
http://www.langantiques.com/products/item/20-1-2129

Cabochon?
http://www.langantiques.com/products/item/20-1-4244

 

[pregcurious]

Okay, so you're looking for any green stone, in white metal, in a dangly antique-style setting.

I am partial to emeralds, so I will keep on posting those:

I love these earrings, but I think they are fancier than what you are looking for:
http://www.langantiques.com/products/item/20-3-2007

These are by far my favorite, but the price significantly over $5K. Finding vintage emerald halos, however, is not easy, and these are stunning.
http://www.langantiques.com/products/item/20-1-2287


My understanding of jackets is that they're meant for studs, not dangly earrings. With studs, you put the post through the hole in the middle of the jacket, then put the entire stud and jacket on your ear. The stud keeps the jacket in place. You could have a custom jacket made for dangly earrings if the design starts with a stud-like design at the ear.

 

[chrono]

Precurious,
I saw and pinned over the emerald halo diamond earrings too until I saw that it was well over his $5K budget. Such lovely earrings.

 

[Starzin]

Unusually dark green tourmalines (which actually calms them down) but a pretty design
http://www.newyorkestatejewelry.com...d-14k-white-gold--drop-earrings/15422/5/item#

Emeralds
http://www.newyorkestatejewelry.com...avorite-18k-white-gold-earrings-/4873/5/item#

I'm not familiar with this vendor and I’ve got a feeling these gorgeous emerald bead drops with “briolette diamonds” are very expensive. Still, if you like them you could shoot off an email and ask.
http://www.jacobandco.com/jacob/emerald-bead-drop-earrings.html

Chrono – that green gold pair with the briolettes are gorgeous! Do you think Pearlmans could/would do them in white gold if Rhett were interested?

Rhett – as you can see the choices are enormous so can you narrow it down a bit more now you’ve had a look around?

One of the most important questions has been mentioned a couple of times – how formal do you want these earrings to be? It often determines how often they will be worn. While some women would happily rock the sapphire pair you liked with a white shirt and jeans, would your wife? What sort of jewellery do her friends wear on a daily basis? Believe it or not this can be a consideration for many women - if it’s too different from what their circle wear, it doesn’t get worn in their company.

Once you put diamonds, faceted stones and long together a number of us would think formal. Mystic showed how shorter diamonds and faceted stones can be really attractive and become ready favourites because they are so easy to wear with so many outfits.

However if you really want long I would again encourage you to consider cabochon gems (smooth, see Chrono’s emeralds above) or jade or chrysoprase drops as I mentioned before, simply because they tend to become a bit more casual - personal and subjective I agree ☺

And I actually think these are lovely jade donuts, unfortunately YG but you get the idea I’m sure and I wouldn’t recommend buying these to take apart and rebuild. http://www.langantiques.com/products/item/20-1-5039

However, If it’s still faceted peridot that you have your heart set on...
What shape?
What colour green?
Africagems have a good choice of matched pairs, tell us which ones you like and yes, you can pick the colour of one and the shape of another – PSers can find it!
http://www.africagems.com/reg-peridot-matchedpairs-100.html

What else would you consider?

Pregcurious - you're right about the jackets of course but I thought perhaps in a simple halo the bottom diamond could be removed to allow the connector link to sit in there. Just didn't want to get into too much confusing detail yet about something that may not happen.

 

[Rhett]

Okay, so you're looking for any green stone, in white metal, in a dangly antique-style setting.

I am partial to emeralds, so I will keep on posting those:

I love these earrings, but I think they are fancier than what you are looking for:
http://www.langantiques.com/products/item/20-3-2007

These are by far my favorite, but the price significantly over $5K. Finding vintage emerald halos, however, is not easy, and these are stunning.
http://www.langantiques.com/products/item/20-1-2287


My understanding of jackets is that they're meant for studs, not dangly earrings. With studs, you put the post through the hole in the middle of the jacket, then put the entire stud and jacket on your ear. The stud keeps the jacket in place. You could have a custom jacket made for dangly earrings if the design starts with a stud-like design at the ear.

those are amazing - but by the time I pay duty and taxes - they will be well over $10,000!

 

[Rhett]

I have made an appointment with a local manufacturing jeweller

 

[Starzin]

Terrific! A discussion about what's possible and what you have in mind will be good. Even just to see some stones in hand will be helpful and to get some quotes. You have plenty of time and there's no need to rush into decisions since they will only take a couple of weeks to make once you have the design and stones bedded down. Let us know how you get on.

 

[InToTheMystic]

I have made an appointment with a local manufacturing jeweller

Fantastic choice! I have found that working with a local jewellery maker whose workshop I can go in to, and the ability to see real time progress on the actual piece, is a preferable model (for me) to sending something away and waiting for it to come back. We used that approach for my earrings, and for my engagement ring, and although I may have paid slightly more for the privilege, I found it a far less stressful approach. My wedding band was done by an interstate designer, and I had to send it back three times before it was right.

I think your wife will love whatever you come up with, and the effort you are putting in is half the joy.

 

[Rhett]

why are one of these pairs 4x the price of the other?

$250 http://www.gemfix.com/peridot.html
$1000 http://www.africagems.com/oval-peridot-g2k-2279.html

$250 6.5ct VVS Extremely brilliant matched pair. Big and beautiful, clean and very bright.
$1000 7.2ct eye clean no treatment

thanks

 

[chrono]

1. Different photography conditions: one pair could be greener than the other pair.
2. Different overhead costs
3. Peridots from China are typically yellower and thus less expensive
4. There isn't a standardized pricing structure for coloured stones. Vendors will sell them for what the market will bear.

 

[Starzin]

I was just going to step in here and I see Chrono has put it far more succinctly than I would have.

It's one of the anomalies of buying online and knowing what you are doing when you do so. It's also one of the reasons this is such an active forum. Both vendors are well known and respected on PS and many here have bought from both.

As said before there is a lot more to buying coloured stones than picking a pretty colour. If you haven't already done so, ready LD's sticky at the top of this forum.
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/new-to-coloured-gemstone-buying-read-this-first.174284/

In addition this sticky is meant to show the impact photography can have by comparing the online photo to what is received. Bear in mind the photos can be superb or abysmal in either or both.
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/vendor-pictures-and-owner-pictures-of-ps-stones.109420/

Edited for spelling

 

[Starzin]

This is another vendor's peridot list and is very useful in that it is sorted so that you can see what bearing cut, colour, size etc has on price.
http://www.ajsgem.com/peridot-gemstone-2046340456.html

 

[Rhett]

would the 4 kid's birthstones in a pendant look good?

eg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--rA1OHPZtqQ/UISZ51l_roI/AAAAAAAABis/5s-5gXQexLQ/s1600/DSC_0112+(2).JPG

January Garnet (arent there lots of garnets???)
March Aquamarine
April crystal
June alexandrite

 

[Starzin]

Absolutely - You open up a whole new world Does anything like these "family tree" pendants appeal?

These are in sterling silver and Swarovski crystals. Obviously you could go custom and have white gold/platinum and real gems and leave off the names if you would prefer. THEN you could put it on a DBTY (Diamonds By The Yard) necklace to match April's diamond Or you could start with two diamonds near the centre of the chain and add one each anniversary?

http://applesofgold.com/QMP94SS.html


http://www.evesaddiction.com/detail_NLZ11188__853.html


Google link to DBTY pics
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=...=qhaTUsygMIqhigeuw4HoCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ

 

[Starzin]

Different idea altogether, need to add a diamond one.


Sorry I forgot to answer your question - yes garnets come in several different colours - this is really generalising...
rhodolite - pinkish-red
spessartite - orange
tsavorite - bluish or mint green
demantoid - yellowish green

 

[davi_el_mejor]

Recently saw a pendant made that was a tree branch with little birdies attached that had birthstone bodies. It's your branch of the Family Tree

Just an idea.

 

[chrono]

Some people like it, some people don't. To me, it is all about the design. Done right, it can be very classy. Done incorrectly, it looks tacky and overdone.

 

[Starzin]

I think it might be worth refocusing a bit.

You initially came with the idea of long, sparkly diamond and faceted peridot earrings which we asked you to consider how much they may be worn. While that idea is formal for earrings, it's not so formal for bracelets, pendants and necklaces depending on the design.

However the birthstone idea you showed above is the opposite end of the spectrum in that it is wirework - i.e. jewellers such as the PS vendors don't do it. So that means someone like an Etsy vendor as you've no doubt found. Wirework artisans usually use sterling silver because there is no white gold wire readily available to them and the quality of gemstones can be hit and miss.

Re alexandrite - this is also one of the most difficult stones to find and unless you find a good one it can be difficult to love. Most people either love it or hate it. A lot of the lesser quality just end up "muddy" because they don't do a complete colour change as I think LD said in her thread. I highly recommend trying to see one in person first. Both pearl and moonstone are alternatives for June but then again it depends which list you read.

If you are thinking of custom for the birthstone pendant for Christmas be aware that this is one of the busiest periods for jewellers and it might already be too late.

So what about this for an idea...
Inexpensive but meaningful birthstone bracelet for this Christmas. A bracelet because she will be able to see it while wearing it. Also to see if she likes the idea and the jewellery and more importantly, wears it.
This is one of the few Etsy vendors I've found where you can choose your own stones which are reasonable quality and she also has initials and charms that can be added to make it individually special to you and your wife.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/DaniqueJewelry?section_id=11185088&page=1

Then buy this peridot, (or the peridot and diamond) necklace for the 10,000 days. You can choose carat weight and white gold or platinum and they state grade and clarity of the diamonds they use. Even the most expensive combination is within your stated budget.
http://www.debebians.com/peridots-by-the-yard.html#.UpVVklMzpJl

Matching diamond station bracelet (DBTY) for her 40th
http://www.briangavindiamonds.com/diamond-bracelets/pre-set-dbty-bracelet-14k-rose-gold-5707r14
Whiteflash is twice the price because it's twice the carat weight.
http://www.whiteflash.com/diamond-bracelets/whiteflash-by-the-yard-bracelet-677.htm#divDescription
A different look...
http://www.etsy.com/listing/114411676/fancy-075ct-diamond-eternity-bangle?ref=shop_home_active

Make sure anything you buy has a decent return policy so that if you don't like it you can return it. Some of those mentioned above have a restocking fee and you need to decide if you're okay with that. Good luck!

 

[Rhett]

you are so right about focus

its difficult for me because once I started searching various links, ideas started sprouting!

and ideas without knowledge of what Im doing

I think I could pull off a pendant with various stones, but the more Ive been thinking about it, it could fail miserably!

I think Im going back to one nice idea - relatively simple

 

[iLander]

I keep looking at this thread and thinking "If I had a bunch of little kids, I don't think I would want dangly earrings. The kids would want to play with the dangly shiny objects that are hanging off my ears." I'm not sure if that's an issue for you or not.

I would want a pair of emerald-cut emerald studs. Simple, but unique and interesting. Maybe with some diamond accents. I found these randomly on the net, but you get the idea. These could be worn to a ball, or to the grocery store.