I need expert help from the wonderful design-oriented folks on this forum! Long post -- sorry.
Your first thought will be, "Just ask her." I did that -- she wants experts' opinions!
I fell in love with these inexpensive, precision-cut, unheated pastel sapphires from Adamant. They are ~ 1.3 cts each and about 7 x 5 mm. Different hues but very similar tones and identical sizes and cuts. I was thinking of making a pair of funky mismatched earrings for my young adult (post-college-aged) daughter. She loves the idea! Her tastes are simple and our budget is modest. (It's a gift but she would not wear anything extravagant and we want these to be wearable.) She has a very physically demanding job in the alpine wilderness (half of her time) and then she's back home in her medium-sized city for the rest. She would not wear these in the field -- but, COVID-permitting, she goes out a lot with friends, etc. She's artistic and creative and a wonderful photographer.
So I was wondering how best to mount the stones (see below). I was even thinking about mixing metals -- using rose gold for the pinkish sapphire and white gold for the bluish one. But that may be insane (?) and just look like she can not keep track of her things. I really like the trend in some high-end stuff where one ear has an emerald drop hanging from a diamond stud and the other ear has a similarly-shaped diamond drop hanging from an emerald stud -- but six figures is high for us
. I don't think we want a diamond halo around the sapphires -- a little fussy and formal -- but the stones are not that big at a hair over 5mm wide. I do think we want a diamond in the mix.
She wants me to design and I need help please!
A. These are the two "matched" sapphires:
B. This is kind of what I am looking for -- drop with a diamond above the main stone. The diamond would be at most 4mm which, if RBC would be couple hundred dollars. Was also thinking of a princess-cut set like a "diamond" and not a "square" (rotated 90 degrees) -- so 3mm princess would be 4mm "wide." This shape would echo the diamond-shaped table facet on the sapphires (best seen on the pinkish one):
C. Similar example -- but the melee along the hoop is too fancy, I think:
D. Another example like above but could do without the melee on the hoop (?):
E. Pretty Asscher atop the sapphire. And Asschers in the 4mm size we'd need just look like RBC to my eye online. But I really like the clean, tailored-looking lines on this one. Seems very wearable.
F. My favorite -- a longer blade-like drop with RBC in the middle. Again, I would use princess-cut rotated 90 degrees and skip the diamonds on the hoop part. Fancier but still pretty versatile (oh, and this pair is $75K for some reason!?!):
G. This is what I am hoping to avoid. These are beautiful but I'm not after an antique look:
H. And this is also what I want to avoid -- very pretty and snug halo but not modern-looking. Classic and pretty but not modern:
I. And this is what I really don't want. Certainly the cheapest options but classic posts with no movement are really not funky enough for her style and our stones are not eye-popping in color.
If you made it this far -- thank you! If you are willing to weigh in on design options for funky mismatched earrings, even better! And if you have comments on metals (i.e, both the same or mix it up?), that would also be great, too!
Your first thought will be, "Just ask her." I did that -- she wants experts' opinions!
I fell in love with these inexpensive, precision-cut, unheated pastel sapphires from Adamant. They are ~ 1.3 cts each and about 7 x 5 mm. Different hues but very similar tones and identical sizes and cuts. I was thinking of making a pair of funky mismatched earrings for my young adult (post-college-aged) daughter. She loves the idea! Her tastes are simple and our budget is modest. (It's a gift but she would not wear anything extravagant and we want these to be wearable.) She has a very physically demanding job in the alpine wilderness (half of her time) and then she's back home in her medium-sized city for the rest. She would not wear these in the field -- but, COVID-permitting, she goes out a lot with friends, etc. She's artistic and creative and a wonderful photographer.
So I was wondering how best to mount the stones (see below). I was even thinking about mixing metals -- using rose gold for the pinkish sapphire and white gold for the bluish one. But that may be insane (?) and just look like she can not keep track of her things. I really like the trend in some high-end stuff where one ear has an emerald drop hanging from a diamond stud and the other ear has a similarly-shaped diamond drop hanging from an emerald stud -- but six figures is high for us
. I don't think we want a diamond halo around the sapphires -- a little fussy and formal -- but the stones are not that big at a hair over 5mm wide. I do think we want a diamond in the mix.She wants me to design and I need help please!
A. These are the two "matched" sapphires:
B. This is kind of what I am looking for -- drop with a diamond above the main stone. The diamond would be at most 4mm which, if RBC would be couple hundred dollars. Was also thinking of a princess-cut set like a "diamond" and not a "square" (rotated 90 degrees) -- so 3mm princess would be 4mm "wide." This shape would echo the diamond-shaped table facet on the sapphires (best seen on the pinkish one):
C. Similar example -- but the melee along the hoop is too fancy, I think:
D. Another example like above but could do without the melee on the hoop (?):
E. Pretty Asscher atop the sapphire. And Asschers in the 4mm size we'd need just look like RBC to my eye online. But I really like the clean, tailored-looking lines on this one. Seems very wearable.
F. My favorite -- a longer blade-like drop with RBC in the middle. Again, I would use princess-cut rotated 90 degrees and skip the diamonds on the hoop part. Fancier but still pretty versatile (oh, and this pair is $75K for some reason!?!):
G. This is what I am hoping to avoid. These are beautiful but I'm not after an antique look:
H. And this is also what I want to avoid -- very pretty and snug halo but not modern-looking. Classic and pretty but not modern:
I. And this is what I really don't want. Certainly the cheapest options but classic posts with no movement are really not funky enough for her style and our stones are not eye-popping in color.
If you made it this far -- thank you! If you are willing to weigh in on design options for funky mismatched earrings, even better! And if you have comments on metals (i.e, both the same or mix it up?), that would also be great, too!
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. She has nothing like that.
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I wanted to do some mockups with different shaped diamonds and different settings single claw us bezel). Size-wise the 3-4mm range seems to look pleasing to my eye 
and highlights the shape of the stones better, but agree i would have the jeweler keep them as minimal as possible. If they swallow things up too much, maybe half bezels (top and bottom) could be feasible!
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