Posts Tagged ‘celebrities’

I have a great deal of jewelry I don’t wear, including my engagement ring. I’m not a fan of diamonds, and my engagement ring is a beautiful natural emerald flanked by two trillion diamonds and set into a white-gold band with green enamel. It’s a gorgeous and very unusual ring, and I love the fact that the Mister designed it himself.

Emerald Engagement Ring

The problem is that the emerald is set rather high, which makes it vulnerable. Emeralds aren’t as hard as diamonds, and it already has a very small chip under one prong.  When that happened, I stopped wearing my engagement ring and stuck to just my wedding band.

I also have a beautiful natural emerald and diamond ring set in yellow gold that was my Grandmother’s ring. I’m not a fan of yellow gold, even though it has a stunning emerald. It’s not really my style. I prefer more of an antique setting.

Grandma's Emerald Ring

Finally, I have a cluster diamond ring set in yellow gold and surrounded by a ring guard with diamonds. This was my Mom’s old engagement ring, and she recently gave it to me since she doesn’t wear jewelry these days. This ring isn’t to my taste at all seeing as how I generally prefer colored gemstones (especially emeralds) to diamonds. It’s also rather large, with the pronged setting sitting a good ¼” above the band. I would just beat the crap out of it and knock the stones loose!

Mom's Diamond Engagement Ring

Thus, I’ve been thinking of taking all of these to a jeweler and having the stones re-worked into different settings. I have a tiny bit of guilt over redesigning my engagement ring because the Mister worked so hard on it. However, I don’t wear it for fear of damaging it. Wouldn’t it be better to have something that I can wear? I would still have a white gold setting for it, and I figure I should be able to get two really interesting emerald rings between the three pieces I want to redesign. I envision something like this:

Emerald Ring Antique Setting - Emerald Cut

Emerald Ring Antique Setting - Oval Cut

I like the idea of the square emerald being protected by a halo of something else, whether that is diamonds or just metal. Actually, the current setting of my Grandmother’s emerald is great because the ring of diamonds protect the emerald pretty well. I would just rather have it in white gold. Now I have to find a jewelry maker who can work with me. It’s really difficult find a skilled jewelry artist, and it’s even harder to find one who knows how to work with emeralds. You have to respect the stone a bit more than you do with harder stones like diamonds, rubies, and sapphires.

By the way, I’ve loved emeralds long before Angeline Jolie sported that honking pair of emerald earrings at the Oscars a few years ago.

Angelina Jolie's Oscar Emeralds

Quality emeralds glow. They look as if they are lit from within by a green flame, and I prefer them to the sparkle and glitz of diamonds.  Diamonds are meant for those who want flash. Emeralds are more subtle and elegant to me. I’ve always felt that diamonds are kind of sterile, and emeralds definitely look better against my pale skin. That’s why the Mister bought an emerald ring when he proposed 17 years ago. So suck it, Angelina! I was wearing emeralds before you made them look cool!

I don’t know about anyone else, but I saw this photo of Rachel McAdams from the Cannes Film Festival and did a double-take.

Sharon Stone! Oh, wait - that's Rachel McAdams

I can’t be the only person seeing Sharon Stone, circa 1992 and Basic Instinct. The whole beaded-bustier look is so 1990s!

There’s no faster way to feel old than to see some hot, young actress busting out the 90′s fashion retreads.