Hard to Shop For? Not Anymore!

“My wife never wears the gifts I give her,” say some men.  

Your Jewelry Doctor creates a lot of gifts (and provides others from her sources). They always get rave reviews.  Now yours can, too.  

What’s the secret?  Well, remember the “reconnaissance mission”? 

“If you’ll excuse me, Doctor, that operation is used in war.  We’re talking about love.”

True.  But “gaining intelligence”—here, about your special someone’s taste in jewelry—makes the difference in both worlds.

Here’s how it works:  on a date, or across the breakfast table, notice what kinds of things your sweetheart loves to wear.  

Color

Earth tones or jewel tones?   Warm colors or cool colors?  Pastels or true colors?  Does she wear a lot of black?  Does she like colors that blend, sharp contrast, or a bit of both?

Shape

Now let's consider the outline of the kinds of jewelry she loves.  What kinds of shapes does she choose?  Round?  Oval?  Pear-shaped?  Triangular?  (We call those "trillion.")  Rectangular? (We call the long ones "emerald," and the square, "princess.")  Does she prefer soft lines, or crisper ones--more "Art Nouveau," or more Deco?

Environment (and Personal Style)

Let's think about how she likes to wear the jewelry.  Does her style tend toward suits, or a more casual look?  Does she wear necklaces with a lot of texture or a mix of shapes, or something simple and elegant, like a solitaire pendant or a strand of pearls?  Are her earrings flush against the ear—we call that a “button post” or a “stud”—or a dangle?  How long a dangle does she like? 

When Lights Are Low

You’d be amazed how much information you can pick up over breakfast.  And if you want to step up your game, go out for a romantic dinner.  Does her jewelry change?  Obviously, it’ll be dressier.  But does she also choose different colors and/or shapes for special times?

What She Chooses for Herself

Next time you’re home alone, take a look at her jewelry box.  Notice any patterns?  Just as men often buy the same kinds of ties with slight variation, women often favor, say, a simple gold pendant on a chain.  You might see three or four of these, each with a different gemstone.  Look to see if there are coordinating earrings.  Does she prefer matching jewelry, or what we could call “counterpoint”—i.e., jewelry that coordinates, but doesn’t repeat the same exact pattern?

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Make some notes.  And take a picture of your special someone, if you don’t have a recent one.  It not only feels great to have that with you, it makes a big difference when you shop.  I’ve helped people choose gifts for loved ones across the country, using the clothes they’re wearing in a snapshot to determine their style.  (And those clothes are usually in the colors they prefer, too.)

Putting It Into Practice

So don’t be afraid to shop.  You’re no longer groping around in the dark.  Now when you go looking for gifts, you’re halfway there:  you already know what she likes!

What’s your next special occasion?  Anniversary on the horizon?  Is her birthday coming up soon?  Or is the woman in your life a mother?  Mother’s Day is just two weeks away.  Call your friendly neighborhood* Jewelry Doctor at 415/796-3969, and let’s put our heads together. 

San Francisco Jewelry Doctor.  We make gift-shopping fun.

*If you can read this, we’re in the neighborhood.

©2014 Laynie Tzena.

Building Your Jewelry Wardrobe, Part One: T.L.C.

I love helping people build their jewelry wardrobe.  As you might imagine, “building a jewelry wardrobe” doesn’t mean buying everything in sight, anymore than most people would take that approach when it comes to clothing or furniture.  We buy things we love that complement things we already have, fill in gaps, and sometimes we decide we want to expand a bit, too.  Nothing wrong with that. 

Let’s talk about taking care of the jewelry you already own and love.

Part One:  Taking Care of Your Jewelry:  A Little Maintenance
Goes a Long Way.

When you have things you love, you take care of them.  In the case of clothing, that means a regular trip to the dry cleaner and shoe repair.  Furniture doesn’t ask much—a shine now and then, perhaps a little T.LC. (“tender loving care”) to repair a nick on the surface.

Jewelry not only attracts attention when you wear it—especially you :>; it also needs attention at home.  Let’s take a look at jewelry set with prongs.  Well, you can take a look at it—the light shines clear through it.  That’s the magic.

But where a diamond or other gemstone with a bezel setting is protected on all sides (or, with the half-bezel, the stone is partially protected) from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, those prongs we were just talking about don’t cover all that much of the stone.

At the beginning, that’s not a problem, assuming you bought your jewelry from a reputable source:  the prongs in the setting hug the stone.  If the prong jewelry in question is a pendant, you’ll be fine for the foreseeable future. 

But think about a ring.  Some people sleep with their rings on.  Most people wear them at work.  So you turn in bed and the prong catches on the sheet, just a little, and you gently pull it back and maybe in the morning look, and it seems fine.  Or you’re talking with John or Kim about that project and your hand bumps against the phone as you’re checking something. 

A fly on the wall would tell you that both times the tip of the prong was bent, and in one case part of it broke off.  Tiny.  Easy to miss.

Another night tossing and turning, more projects at work, games with the kids, presentations, camping—so many opportunities for the tip of the prong to snap off and the prong itself to get yanked (just a bit each time), and then “Where did the stone go?”

Tip:  Write the date you bought your prong jewelry (or the date you received it) on your calendar.  Put it in the media you use for keeping track of appointments.  Now add a reminder every three to six months (depending on how active you are) to have the prongs checked to make sure they’re intact and see if they might need to be tightened or the tips or whole prongs might need to be replaced.  (You don’t want to overdo the tightening—remember, the prongs put pressure on the stone—but you want to be sure the prongs are strong and secure.)

Enjoy!  Prong jewelry does require attention, but seeing the light through the stone—doesn’t that make it worth a little effort?

©2014 Laynie Tzena.

Darling, I Love You, But Give Me Park Avenue

In the theme song from the television series Green Acres, of blessed memory, we learn that Lisa Douglas (played by Eva Gabor) loves her husband Oliver (played by Eddie Albert, first name pronounced by his better half as "Aw-lee-vuh!" [last syllable rhymes with the "oo" in "good"]). Loves him dearly, but she is a city girl and feels out of place in the country.

This has been known to happen in the world of jewelry, too.

Here’s a nice necklace.

Nothing wrong with it. In fact, the center portion is jazzy and that foxtail chain above it is straight up gorgeous, if you ask me.

But the fact that the center is pretty and so is the chain doesn’t mean they belong in that necklace. In fact, the chain certainly didn’t belong on that necklace. Because it was Nancy’s necklace, and that chain didn’t sit right when she wore it but rolled around and drove her bananas. Plus, she thought the chain didn’t really go with the rest of the necklace—which, if you look closely, has a different, more contemporary feel to it.

Now, where’d I put my magic wand? Oh, there it is.

We also had enough chain for two—count ’em, two—necklaces, one for Nancy and one for a friend of hers, plus more chain that will be transformed into earrings and other goodies.

This necklace wasn’t bad, either.

Pretty amethyst. But it’s hidden by those (also fine) sterling silver spacers. The necklace just didn’t have much oomph.

Drumroll, please.


What’s that? You say that chain looks familiar? You are so right. It was the top of that other necklace we were talking about. But doesn’t it look happier here, surrounded by its new family?

We think so.

©2011 Laynie Tzena.

Geometry After All

As a little girl, I was smitten with algebra. X and Y go to the store.
(a + b) + c = a + (b + c). Coordinates. Axes. Happiness.

Geometry was another story. Didn’t interest me one iota.

So of course today I love geometric shapes, work with them all the time, think geometry is absolutely the bee’s knees. Life does that. (And I still love algebra, too. Go figure.)

But nobody loves everything, everywhere, at all times. This necklace has plenty of interesting shapes. Some would say it has a lot of movement.


But it bugged Nancy no end. Sure, the intersection of the shapes was great, but the piece also felt "busy." You know how sometimes at a crowded party there might be a dozen conversations going on at once, all interesting, but it gets so you can't really decipher or take part in any one of them after a while? Like that. Plus, it always got twisted. So it ended up sleeping in the jewelry box.

Fine. I waved my magic wand. And looky-here: Two for the price
of one.



Well, three, if you count the earrings, which don’t photograph well.

And now you can see the shapes even better. This time around, less really is more.

©2011, 2013, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

Do You See What I See?

I took one look at these metallic beads and it was love.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh!" I said.


Aren’t they gorgeous?

Nancy did not share my feeling.

“Oh, that necklace," she said. "I don’t know if I want to even work
on that.”

People sometimes ask me, “Should I even bring this to you?” I always tell them, “It’s completely up to you. But it’s not about what you originally paid for it (lots of people bring in family jewelry, for which they paid bupkes), or if anybody else sees the value in it." My rule for design and restoration (and life) is quite simple: “If it's important to you, it's important to me.”

This works both ways. I see potential all over the place. But other people don’t always see it, and the customer’s the boss. We were already working on a number of other projects (yes, you’ll see them soon), so I just said, “Okay.”

But I still loved those beads. When I would look at the necklace from time to time, they just shimmered. Every so often I would say to Nancy, “I know we’re not doing anything with this necklace, but I still love it.”

“Uh-huh,” she said.

I left it at that. Lots of other fish in the sea.

One day Nancy said, “Okay. Go ahead.”

So I designed this.


“I’m going to wear that all the time!” she said.

“Told you,” I said.

©2011, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

Expect the Unexpected

Janet said she'd brought back malachite from Fez, and I said thanks. But as soon as I took one look I knew it was fossil.

I was equally sure about Willow's beautiful wood, formerly three-strand necklace.


Which is actually copal, sometimes called "copal amber." (This is why my team includes gemologists, appraisers, stone-cutters, and people who buy and sell stone. I was right about the "malachite," though. Fossil, sho'nuff.)

"Hang on. Did you just say amber?"

Copal.  Sometimes called "copal amber," but that's actually a misnomer.  Copal is not amber.

"But wait. Didn't Willow send you a bracelet and some loose beads? And didn't you have half a strand of some beads in that color family on hand, and some copal, too, from somewhere eons ago?"

Yup.



"Great. Looks like you've got enough of everything."

But no. That would be too easy. (And neither of us wanted to take apart that beautiful bracelet, if it could be avoided.)

So this project was more complicated than it seemed at first glance. Here are the main challenges:

1. It's multi-strand, which means, in this case, three different lengths, and the measurement of each one must be exact or the strands won't sit right on the neck.

2. The beads are graduated, which means you have to keep to the same proportions or the necklace won't be balanced. You can't just add a few beads here and there.

3. Light and dark hues of that beautiful yellow-brown alternate in the necklace, and that variation has to be respected or the color will look wrong. (You can go lighter or darker within the same color family, but you can't interrupt the color alternation.)

4. Copal is not easy to find in this shape and size. If you can find it, it can be veddy expensive.

Other than that, a piece of cake. (Or shortbread, which is what Willow's company, Heritage Shortbread, makes a particularly yummy version of back in South Carolina [we'd met at a trade show]. I mention this for you folks outside the Bay Area. Just gently pack the patient and send it along. Do call me first, though, so I know it's coming.)

So I was stumped once again. But I am too stubborn to quit. So I kept trying different options: wood beads, amber, copper, even buttons. Nothing worked.

But life always intervenes. And so it was that, after trying said bazillion different options, each of which had problems, and emailing Willow to say the patient was not responding but the doctor had not given up, on a very hot day (which we rarely get in San Francisco) when I was supposed to be somewhere else, I walked into one of my favorite shops and found lovely brass barrels that, with the dipped glass beads I had on hand from I still don't remember where (I think I've had them for years) solved the problem.


To be specific: I changed the 4-5-6 pattern at the top of the original necklace to 3-4-5 and built a new top for the necklace using a 1-2-3 pattern of dipped glass beads following the brass barrels, and everyone was happy ever after.

Big thanks to Susan and Haley.

©2010, 2014, 2015 Laynie Tzena.

Music for Josie

Here's a flower pin. Just beautiful. But too little for Josie.

Josie Weiss was a big person. Not tall, or wide, not in-your-face. Josie had presence. She was funny and feisty and had the kind of light in her voice some people have--a lilt, I guess--that always made you want to hear more.

She died a few years ago, and I miss her. Mostly, I miss her voice. I miss her spirit.

But appointments were, shall we say, fluid. Oh, Josie! One time they were working on my apartment and I was staying in a hotel. Josie was coming over to see the next stages of a project we were working on. She was later than usual.

In the hotel office they had a little coffee pot. I soon discovered that Josie was downstairs drinking that coffee and schmoozing with the
hotel staff.

She brought in the pin.

"Let me think about it," I said.

What to do? I knew it needed a frame, but to put more silver around it with that amber at the top would look funny; it would be unbalanced.

I drew a few things. Nothing worked.

"What have I gotten myself into?" I wondered--not for the first time.

I kept looking at the flower.

Suddenly, I realized that, inverted, it would look like a musical note. We put citrine at the top of the bezel to balance the amber (now at the bottom) and, as the English-speaking Canadians say, "Voy-la!" I designed the coordinating necklace with amber, Israeli silver, and hematite.



Her family tells me Josie wore that pendant and necklace all the time. Just about every time I saw her, she was wearing it--sometimes, with things I might not have worn it with. But Josie could pull it off.

©2009 Laynie Tzena.

The Doctor Will See You Now

Let's start here.



Each person's style is different. Helen could have said, "I want you to rebuild this bracelet exactly the way it was." And, assuming she had all of the loose coral or I could get the same shade of salmon coral* from my sources, that's what we would have done.

But she didn't say that.

She said, "What can we do with this? It just isn't me."

So we talked about her style, the kind of jewelry she likes to wear, what she thought she'd like. She decided she wanted a necklace and earrings. Something classic.

So I designed this for her.



She was very happy.

And we had coral left over.

So I designed the bracelet to match the necklace.

And we still had coral left over.

So we put our heads together about what to do next. And Helen said, "This time I want something funky."

And I designed this set with birch, copper, and one of my favorite gemstones, unakite, to go with the remaining coral.



And you know what? We still have some coral. No immediate plans.

*Yes, I know some coral is endangered. I don't design with that coral for my collection. If someone asked for a three-strand set like the one in the picture, I'd use sponge coral or would recommend using lapis, onyx, or red tiger's eye, all of which are plentiful. In this case, the coral buying was done many years ago, when coral was not endangered. We didn't buy any for the re-design; in fact, we ended up with extra!

©2009, 2019 Laynie Tzena.