Baby, It’s You: “Popping the Question” During the Holiday Season

Raise your hand if you, too, love those “How we met” stories. Got a great one? Sing out! 

I also love hearing how people “pop the question.” Lots of them do it during the holiday season. (Is it all those lights that make your certain someone look irresistible?)

Are you getting ready to pop the question? Yes, there’s still time, but those calendar pages are turning, so don’t delay. And good news:  you’re not limited to what this or that store buyer decided you’d like, and you don’t have to stand in those lines. Just call 415/796-3969. (If you’re getting married this month and still need a companion band for your sweetheart, your own ring, or gifts for the bridal party, happy to help there, too.)

As a bonus, couples that got engaged in a previous December, send in your stories. If yours gets featured, you’ll get ten percent off a pair of earrings (or, for men, a pair of cufflinks) to complement that ring.

Here’s a great one I heard recently: Knowing that his sweetheart loves crossword puzzles, our hero created a custom-made one, making it look like something you’d find in a magazine and planting it in the car (they were on a vacation) so she would find it.  The answer to the last clue was, “Will you marry me?”

How romantic is that? Hooray!

Can’t wait to hear your stories, and help you with your rings. Call 415/796-3969, and let’s put our heads together about the best choice for you and the one you love.

©2012 Laynie Tzena.

Veronica Has the Floor

Sorry, Betty: a British study investigating “hair color and the intensity of attraction” (we’re all ears, Wikipedia), found that a sizable portion of the male population favors brunettes. (Okay, 51 percent, but we’ll take it. 62 percent said that we were stable and competent, 67 percent said we were independent and self-sufficient, and 81 percent noticed we were smart.)

You say there are brunettes from the Americas to Asia and Africa, and how on Earth can you generalize about so large a group? You may be right. So here are some pointers when shopping for jewelry for your favorite brunette.

Those with fair skin are ravishing in red; choose ruby or garnet for her. The right purple is wonderful: amethyst comes immediately to mind, but have a look at iolite, tanzanite, and grape garnet (yes, the color is natural, and stunning), too. Sapphire—from Ceylon blue to indigo—is a great choice, and so is lapis. In the green family, consider emerald, malachite, and jade.  Smoky quartz, red tiger’s eye, and mahogany obsidian are good choices in brown; in gray and black, choose hematite, gray labradorite, black diamonds, snowflake obsidian, and onyx.

The chatoyan in both tiger’s eye and red tiger’s eye catches the light and will be lovely on a brunette with honey-colored skin; moonstone and labradorite are great on her, too. Citrine, carnelian (especially the light one that looks like melon), yellow sapphire, yellow jade, and amber are fine choices, along with two different garnets: Mozambique, and that Spessartite garnet we were talking about for redheads.   

If her skin is a deeper, richer color, diamonds and pearls are stunning, and she is oh, so pretty in pink, whether it’s a ruby, a pink sapphire, pink tourmaline, rhodolite garnet, rhodonite, or rhodochrosite. Tsavorite garnet, a beautiful green gemstone, is wonderful on her, and so is peridot. If she loves blue, choose aquamarine, a sky blue topaz, or larimar. Both blue and green turquoise are also great choices for her.

Oh, and thanks, Wikipedia, for reminding us that Leonardo’s mysterious friend, the one the world has been trying to figure out ever since she sat for that portrait, was, let us say it in unison: brunette. No information has been recorded as to what kind of jewelry she favored. Just another part of her allure.

©2012 Laynie Tzena.

Do Blondes Have More Fun? You Decide.

As we recently discussed, I once aspired to be blonde, and ended up with hair that was screaming orange.

I came to love having dark hair—good thing, too, since that’s the kind that grows on my head—but I really enjoy designing jewelry for blondes and those who love them.

Today we’ll talk about what kind of jewelry is best for blondes.

You’ve probably already thought of gold jewelry, and that’s certainly a good choice.  Anything that picks up that beautiful color works well.  So for a lovely gold pendant for that blonde in your life (or the one in the mirror :>;), set that gold with citrine, topaz, tiger’s eye, amber, agate (“Picture Jasper,” anyone?), or yellow sapphire.

That sapphire could be a blue one, too, a stone that is stunning on many a blonde.  A glance at the color wheel might explain why that’s so, and why lapis is such a winner, too. But had you thought of emerald? Wow! And don’t forget jet or onyx—the contrast is what makes that “little black dress” such a knockout when the wearer is blonde).

At the other end of the spectrum, pink tourmaline, diamonds, and pearls are all beautiful on blondes.  Also on brunettes.  More on us soon.

©2012, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

Sun-In Not Required

I love it when people ask, “What kind of jewelry do you design?” All kinds of beautiful jewelry, actually—from very simple to very elaborate. A few years ago I created a line of tiny pendants (called “pendientitos”) in porcelain, Venetian glass, and gemstones for the “Tiny” show at Studio Gallery. They were so much fun to make! But I also love multi-strand necklaces and great big pieces my friend Jane would call “show-stoppers.” It’s all about the customer’s taste. 

There are wonderful pieces in the collection that I could never wear. They’re either not in my colors, or not my style. That’s one of the things I love about designing jewelry—the variety of it, and the fact that it’s all tailored to the customer.

As a teenager, I so wanted to be blonde. Honey, did I ever!

"Blondes have more fun!" people notified us regularly. "If I've only one life to live, let me live it as a blonde!" said a woman on TV.

"Sign me up!" I thought.

Alas, my brief fling with Sun-In did not yield the desired result. My hair turned orange—and not an orange that worked for me. Take my word for it.

But I sure do love red hair. It's so beautiful! For you redheads out there, and those of you who have a friend or loved one with red hair, here are some gift ideas.

First, let's talk about gold tones vs. silver ones. The gold shimmers next to that red hair, but white gold, platinum, and sterling silver all provide a nice contrast. Think about what the redhead on your list chooses most often.

Carnelian sings on redheads. I paired it with hematite in a bracelet for a great look. It's available in both deep orange (in clothing, the color is called "rust") and a lighter shade, too.

For those who favor earth tones, "flower agate" or striped agate is wonderful.  Red tiger’s eye is terrific, with that chatoyan (the band that shimmers a bit), as is mahogany obsidian.

In the green family, unakite is a great choice, since the green is flecked with a russet color; labradorite is lovely, too. Green tourmaline and emerald are also fine choices.

Redheads who love blue look wonderful in aquamarine, blue tourmaline, lapis, larimar, sapphire, and Swiss blue topaz.

For a sparkly look that will pick up that red hair, choose yellow sapphire or Spessartite garnet. (Yes, it’s a garnet—a gorgeous orange one.)

There are many more choices, of course, but these will get you started.  Call 415/796-3969 and let’s talk about the redheads on your list.

©2012, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

"White Turquoise," or What's The Big Deal, Really?

Lots of ads this year, as usual, for the Big Sales, the Big Deals. And who doesn’t love saving?

But what exactly do you get?  One of the major retailers has been under fire for selling rubies filled with glass. To the untrained eye, they look absolutely fine.

A customer loved the white gold pendant we designed for her. She thought she’d just get a chain at the mall.

“Why doesn’t it match?” she asked me.

“Do you know where it came from?” I asked.

She didn’t. We just know what’s on the tag, half the time. So I asked one of my team members why she thought white gold didn’t match white gold.

She laughed. “They’re plating everything,” she said, “to make it shinier.”

Nothing wrong with plating, often called “dipping.” I do it all the time for my customers. But here’s the problem when you buy something at that Big Sale, or from someone you don't know. How do you know what the metal is under the plate?

It’s not the fault of the person behind the counter. Those people work really hard, especially this time of year.  But they generally don’t know the details about the jewelry they sell, except what the markdowns are.

“So you’re telling me I have to pass up all those good deals?”

Not at all.  I just want to know that you’re getting a good deal.

One of my customers asked me if I could make something to go with some “white turquoise” she had bought on a trip.

"'White' turquoise? Sounds like howlite.”

Nothing wrong with howlite—I’ve used it in designs. But it’s not turquoise.

“No, no, he said it was turquoise.”

Another customer was going to Morocco. Did I want her to bring something back for me? I usually say no, since I have sources for whatever I need. But I said sure, bring back malachite, if you see it.

She put it out on the table. Fossil.

“But he said it was malachite,” she said. 

 “Why is my gold necklace turning dark on my neck?” my customer asked me. “They told me it was gold.”

Asked one of my team members. “Probably 10 karat, not 14 karat.”

It’s still gold. Nobody lied. But what exactly did you get, and how much did you really save?


©2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Laynie Tzena.

Opportunity Knocks

Yes, it's true: Gold is at $1722 today, the lowest it's been since August 10. (Silver and Platinum are down, too.) What's on your wish list?

Publish Post

The Doctor Prescribes Reality

So let’s talk about gold. Notice any changes lately?

Uh-huh.

And how does that affect the average jewelry buyer?

Not much.

What?

Not much. And here’s why. Even a bump of $100 or more in the gold market price—which happened this very month—makes a small difference in many purchases.

How on Earth can that be true?

Because the market price is for an ounce of gold. That’s a lot of gold. If you think about it, most people are not spending, say, $1800.

I thought perhaps we should talk about this. So I spoke with one of my sources the other day and asked them to price a diamond pendant mounting (“mounting” is jewelry lingo for the metal part of the jewelry, before you polish it and add diamonds and gemstones to create a finished piece of jewelry) on August 1 (before the "big increase") and August 15.

The big difference?

$40.

If you then waited three days, it would have bumped up about another $20. It then went up smaller amounts three more times that week, before dropping below where it was on the 15^th.

So the moral is watch the metal markets every day, right?

Well, how much do you like the taste of Maalox?

A much better solution is to work with a jeweler you trust (for example, the Jewelry Doctor). Tell your jeweler what you’re looking for, and let her keep an eye on things and do your buying for you, bearing in mind that in most cases you’re not looking at a big difference in the price of your jewelry.

©2011, 2014 Laynie Tzena.