It''s done! A 1.60 J SI2 has found a new home...

[Maxine]

Wow!!!! your upper limit, Mara?????

 

[flower12]

Mara.
I love your ring !! love the setting too!!!

 

[Lynn B]

Date: 4/10/2005 4:43:47 PM
Author: valeria101

Date: 4/10/2005 4:32:20 PM
Author: Mara
This photoshop stuff is deadly!!

I Know!

your next upgrade could be a vintage stone... I would think

Great suggestion, Ana! Those can be some gorgeous stones!

But personally, I think our dear girlfriend, Mara, would miss the ARROWS too, too much!

Lynn

 

[valeria101]

Date: 4/11/2005 5:51:39 AM
Author: Lynn B

But personally, I think our dear girlfriend, Mara, would miss the ARROWS too, too much!

It doesn''t have to be... Every kind of round has some sort of pattern inside - that 8 carater shows a neat row of triangles (oversized arrow heads and short shafts, if you want). I would bet many vintage stones look great nder the IdealScope even if they do not show any pattern. If a dark pattern is in order, it can be obtained...
Cuting to optimize brilliance is by no means a new concept.

 

[Maxine]

Mara, on one of your posts, you talked about seeing incredible things in your stone at one of Greg''s concerts....what was the lighting???? The other day I was at work....fluro lighting covered w/plastic, nothing special, but the arrows looked like they were shooting out the sides of the stone!!! Unfortunately, I had to resume focus on the task at hand and couldn''t enjoy the "show" for too long, but it was incredible!!! The lighting was nothing special IMO....

 

[MissAva]

I love drolling over your rings....awfullly pretty!

 

[Mara]

Maxine, it was an old beautiful cathedral church in SF...Greg was playing a concert that was accompanied by a famous male opera singer who was doing a charity gig for his MIL's school. It was actually written up in the paper, what fun! Oh and the opera singer? GORGEOUS!!! He was such a good looking guy! Mid 30's and married with an amazing voice, my single girlfriend that came with me said when he came out 'oh this makes it worth it'. ..

I find that church lighting is very flattering to diamonds. This church lighting had alot of inset recessed bulbs but they were SOOO high up on the ceiling, this was a huge cathedral, and yet they were just setting my rings on absolute FIRE. My girlfriend who was with me was just mesmerized by my rings! So was I ...half listening to the concert and half admiring/playing with my rings.

I also had my 10 stone RHR on which has .10c stones which I got off Ebay..they are something like I/J color and SI/I1 clarity, nothing special and cuts are definitely nothing to write home about, sparkles just fine for the $300 I paid... and in the church even this thing was just an eye popper!!! It was amazing,I had never seen it look so good, it looked like it had ACA's in it...thanks to ths amazing churc lighting. So just imagine what my actual well-cut e-ring and w-ring melee looked like, not to mention the Big J. That thing was just going off like firecrackers, all I could see were colored fiery sparkles and especially the arrow heads. So I was playing around with my rings and putting all three on one finger to see what it would be like to have 3 rings on my finger, it was like a row of dazzling light, you couldn't even see the small diamonds.

The next week my girlfriend that was with me that night had me help her find a RHR since she was so enamored by my diamonds that night in the church...she ended up getting this darling Raffi diamond ring off Signed Pieces, retail was $1100, she saw it on SP (courtesy of moi of course!

) for $370, and then next week it was on sale for $295!!! I saw her with it last week and it is BEAUTIFUL. Such a steal for $295!! Two half rows of diamonds and a big center space of metal with cutout hearts on the side, just lovely and it looks so sparkly on her hand. So now next time we go to one of Greg's concerts in a church, she will have her own bling bling to look at !!

Oh and that same night there was a gal in the pew in front of us with a HUGE e-ring on, at least 3-4c on a tiny hand, and she had big doorknocker diamond earring studs on too, at least 2c each if not bigger. She was a small Asian gal so they naturally looked even bigger on her. Things seemed to be well cut since that church lighting was just setting off all the diamonds...BUT then again look what it did to my RHR so who knows! All we know was that both of us were goggling at her big ole rocks time we got a glimpse!

 

[rosy]

Yes, I second that. There is something amazing about church lighting that does wonders for my ring. All the fire that bounces off of it in all directions. I noticed it happening to my ring when I went to a new church for the first time on Easter Sunday. It was hard to concentrate on the sermon, but then again isn''t it almost always?

 

[Mara]

Cleaning my rings with the ultrasonic inspired me to re-read this thread and then take some more pics of my rings...hehee...I REALLY wish I had a better camera, I see so many more colors and arrows in my rings on a hourly basis but my camera just can''t seem to capture the FIRE.

 

[Mara]

And here are my super squeaky clean rings...I posted this in the ultrasonic thread but figured I would put it here too. See how you can see through the melee holes to sunlight? LOVE IT!

 

[Kaleigh]

They look great Mara, nothing like squeeky clean rings. How long do you keep them in the ultrasonic for????

 

[Mara]

Ok NOW I''m on a mission. I have fresh batteries in the camera and a loupe!

K..I know, clean rings are FUN. I just do the typical HIGH setting on the ultrasonic and if I feel perky I hit ''repeat''...hehee.

 

[Mara]

Okay this one was a GEM...look at those arrows, yum!!

 

[Mara]

 

[Mara]

and a fun melee side angle with a blurry big stone, kinda fun!

okay i think i need a nap now!

 

[HOUMedGal]

Mara, don''t you just luuuuuv the ultrasonic? I''m totally addicted to mine!

 

[Demelza]

Mara, I love all the pics, but especially the last two. I can''t believe that stone is an SI2. It looks so clean! I''m starting to think maybe I should get one of the ultrasonic cleaners myself. Is it fairly small?

 

[Lynn B]

Oh yeah... THAT''S WHAT I''M TALKIN'' ABOUT!

GREAT pics, girl! WooHoo! What an awesome diamond. And that ultrasonic is sure keeping it squeaky clean!

Date: 10/1/2005 7:10:55 PM
Author: Demelza
Mara, I love all the pics, but especially the last two. I can''t believe that stone is an SI2. It looks so clean! I''m starting to think maybe I should get one of the ultrasonic cleaners myself. Is it fairly small?

And yeah, Dem, it''s VERY small, and so easy to use. I think you gotta have one!

Lynn

 

[Mara]

YES I LOVE THE ULTRASONIC!! I don't think it's been this easy to take good pictures of my rings in a long time. Who knows how dirty those things were before and I had no idea! I'm turning into AME with this thing now. I was telling Alj that I left my rings off all day on the paper towel and just admired them today. YIKES! Now if the big J was just a bit BIGGER.

 

[bling*diva*]

~~Mara, you ring is BEAUTIFUL!!!!! It''s been a while since I had seen any new pics!!!!

 

[cutes814]

Wow Mara,

The close up of the stone is delicious! That is one VERY eye clean SI2. Beautiful!

I received my ultrasonic in the mail on Saturday but didn''t get a chance to use it yet. Probably will do so tonight.

 

[AndyRosse]

WOW!!! Now that is what a clean diamond should look like!!!

And seeing that close-up picture, I totally forgot this was a SI2 stone!!!

 

[Mara]

I know, seriously having these rings be so clean is a seemingly really novel thing. It's almost like I have a whole new ring set and the diamond looks bigger or something. HAH!

Oh yeah and my SI2 is a GREAT one...the funny thing is that the 40x mag and plot showed some spots on it originally so I was a bit apprehensive but this baby is a stellar SI2. I adore it.

 

[ash]

It''s beautiful

 

[Shay37]

Mara, love those closeups of your big honking J. Those rings are clean enough to eat off of.

BTW, I think you could easily go 3 cts. and still look quite lovely on your hand.

Shay

 

[Mara]

Haha SHAY you bad bad girl!!!

I totally agree that a 3c would look right at home on my hand.

 

[Mara]

Today I managed to finally get some cool flower shots of my rings...here are the highlights of the 90-or-so that I snapped.

Is it just me or are these first two absolutely ICY WHITE?

 

[Mara]

.

 

[Mara]

.

 

[Mara]

Last one..for now..I took some more but I haven''t gone through them yet. Batman loves pink roses!