Emerald Jewelry

Emeralds are a beautiful green precious gemstone. The finest and most expensive emeralds are dark green in color. This is one of those gemstones where inclusions are normal and unless excessive do not adversely affect the price of the gemstone.

Most emeralds are treated – they are oiled to hide cracks and flaws. Sometimes resins are used to fill cracks. Unless colored oil is used, oiling is so common with emeralds it’s not required to be disclosed during the purchasing process.

However, emeralds are very expensive gemstones. So to cut costs, it’s not a bad decision to buy jewelry made from lab-created emeralds. Lab-created means the stone has the chemical and physical properties of natural gems, but is manufactured in a laboratory instead of by nature. A lab-created emerald will appear identical in appearance to a 'real' emerald, unlike emerald glass crystals which are so uniformly green in color, it's obvious they are fake.


All gold castings start with pure 24-karat gold. 24-karat gold is too soft to use to make jewelry. For jewelry, this pure gold is mixed with an alloy to provide the strength needed for continued wear. These alloys may be copper, zinc, silicon, nickel, silver or boron to name a few. The mixture of metals then designates the gold as 18K, 14K or 10K and so on rather than pure 24 K.


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Classic and Sporty Looks

Every woman’s wardrobe of jewelry needs some good gold and silver, like faux pearls, CZs, and other modern classics. Hand-made jewelry is perfect for everyone because, though it’s not inexpensive, it’s cheap compared to the real deal.

Before packing one’s jewelry (genuine or rhinestone), a gal should call her agent and ask if it’s safe to wear her goodies in that part of the world.

Classic Outfits

Jewelry of all kinds can be sorted into three types:

•Classic Preppy: Choose orderly symmetrical styles to tart up tailored suits or embellish traditional sporty costumes like nautical cruise wear, horsey English riding, and tennis whites.
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Boho: Bohemian jewelry should have a handmade appearance and is truly perfect if it is a heavy focus piece with an organic, one-of-a-kind, sensuous appeal.

•Evening: Dressy nights need high-impact showstoppers that are meant to brighten up dark rooms.

Of course, there is a lot of crossover, and most women don’t really sort accessories into categories, but ladies can use these groupings to help them pack.


Sometimes it’s worth it to save up for real gold or pearls but remember that, even then, most women will layer real with fake to get the look that's just right. And for travel, faux is a go.

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What to Wear for the Evening

Women's travel jewelry can be over-the-top when it's worn with evening wear. There are lots of great options for cheap costume jewelry which look perfect for drinks or dancing in a new town or for hanging out on a cruise ship's formal night.

Not many Boomer Chicks have diamond encrusted chandelier earrings, but for those who do, it is probably prudent to leave the good stuff at home in a vault, even when the itinerary includes partying with the French Ambassador. Then, get some good fake bling for vacation, like everybody else.

Bling

As always, the trick with costume jewelry earrings is to find something that is cute but not too heavy. By the way, the word costume means "ensemble" or "outfit", not something for a Halloween party. The phrase, costume jewelry, means jewelry meant to go with a specific outfit, as opposed to "good" jewelry, which is bought to go with anything.

So, a woman should lay out her evening costumes, before packing, and see if she needs some spice to jazz up her evening looks. Ladies should hunt for jewelry that isn't seen on every other woman or find a creative way to put things together.

Fashion Earrings

The easiest way to give an outfit a nighttime groove is to add big-time earrings. So, start with big earrings or a traffic-stopping necklace, but not both. There are exceptions to this rule, but one statement piece is usually sufficient.

Earrings don't have to match the color of an outfit, but sometimes it’s a lot of fun to have a piece that has obviously been handpicked for a dressy night. Avoid any jewelry with words or obvious labels. These objects are better left for insecure, younger gals.

Jewelry shown at Nordstrom.com is usually well made. For the hipness of jet black, and to stand out from the CZ crowd, see their Nordstrom Crystal Briolette Drop Earrings. For green or yellow, try Judith Ripka's "Stones by the Yard" Earrings.

Women with an attitude can wear almost any earring or necklace during the daytime in the right situation, with the right outfit, though huge CZ drops are only for evening.

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Organizing Your Fine jewelry

Correctly storing your jewelry will keep it shiny and ready to wear at a moment's notice. Follow these tips to keep fine and bridge jewelry attractive for years.

The easiest way to make jewelry unwearable or damaged is to not store it appropriately. Kinked chains, tarnished silver, scratched up settings and damaged gemstones are easily reduced or eliminated with the right storage.

If the jewelry wearer has the room, the best place to store jewelry is in the box in which it was sold. Otherwise, finding ways to section off storage areas for the jewelry can also be a method of safeguarding the jewelry owner's investment.

Custom Jewelry Boxes

These boxes are custom sized to the jewelry, which makes them less than great for storage, as it will be a cattywompus arrangement of different size boxes teetering on top of each other. Also, unless the jewelry lover has a fantastic memory, it will be hard to remember exactly what piece of jewelry is in which box.

If closet space is available for this method, the jewelry boxes should be hyper-organized. Rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets - all in their own separate section. These sections should be further organized by different types of precious metals and gemstones.

Finally, the jewelry owner could prepare a directory to the jewelry keyed to letters or numbers that have been stuck on the jewelry boxes. Recommended are peel-and-stick to make it easy work if the identifying number or letter has to be changed.

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Storing Silver Jewelry

Getting kinks out of chained jewelry, especially the smaller chains is no fun. Find out how to properly store sterling silver chains to reduce the chance they will kink.

Sterling silver jewelry while a precious metal is much more affordable than gold or platinum. However, not taking proper care of sterling silver jewelry can end up costing more money since it will need to be replaced more frequently.

The two major maintenance problems with sterling silver jewelry? Kinking chains and tarnish. This article provides quick and easy ways to keep chains from kinking while they are being stored.

Reducing Kinks in Sterling Silver Chains

When storing sterling silver chains, especially those 2mm delicate ones that are so popular right now, take a page from how manufacturing companies store and ship their chains. Bulk chain is stored on reels. When a customer buys a certain length of chain from the manufacturer, the yardage is cut and wound on a smaller reel, which is placed in plastic bags for shipping. See Image 2 below for examples of how manufacturers ship sterling silver chain.

Making a Sterling Silver Chain Reel

Translating that method to at home use, the jewelry owners can use their own reel, such as an empty paper towel roll. Cut the paper towel roll into numerous smaller sections. Make sure to cut the roll horizontally and not vertically. The objective is to have many narrow rings of cardboard. Each chain is wound around the reel and secured in place by cutting a slit (or two if need be) at the top and threading the beginning and end of the chain through the slit so they are lying on the inside of the roll. See Image 1 below.

To provide more support for heavy chains, try using a utility knife to cut individual size water bottles into rings. Just take care while cutting. Scissors easily cut through cardboard rolls. Plastic is more resistant.

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Jewelry on a Budget

There are plenty of ways to accessorize fashionably by making it yourself, using what’s at home or buying from inexpensive stores. Just make sure the jewelry pieces do not look cheap, which can make an outfit look tawdry or kitschy. Look out for bad quality beads, sloppily wired earrings, tainted gold and silver, paint bubbles and scrape marks. Look carefully, look wisely, look creatively and anyone is bound to get admiring stares without spending a pretty penny.

Find new uses with old items such as a brooch lying around in the closet. It can be used to keep a ruana (poncho-like clothing) in place when wrapped around the shoulders; tighten a loose shirt by cinching it at the side; or pin it to a headband. If there are no brooches lying around, make a homemade brooch:

1.Find a button pin (the ones that have the little messages e.g., “I love NY”)
2.Cut strips of quality gift ribbons and take out the glue gun.
3.Glue one end of the ribbon on the back of the pin, wrapping it around the front and gluing the other end of the strip to the back. This should create a smooth strip on the front. Repeat until all the edges are covered and show no trace of the original button.
4.Glue a rhinestone on the center to make a flower, or glue on as many of the gems as desired.

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Cleaning Jewelry

It’s important to clean jewelry after each wearing. Doing so keeps the jewelry looking great and ready to throw back on with a moment’s notice. Like keeping clothes mended and ironed, in the mad rush to get ready for work, knowing that accessories are clean and ready to wear ensures the wearer the quickest time getting ready and out the door.

Take care to keep all cosmetic and scent products from coming in contact with jewelry. Use hairspray or any other type of spray beauty product before the jewelry is worn. Only put jewelry on with freshly washed hands.

Caution should always be taken when cleaning jewelry. For most jewelry, the safest way to clean it is as simple as breaking out some liquid unscented soap. In a plastic bowl, mix warm water with a scant amount of liquid soap. Dunk and swish the jewelry in the water. Massage the jewelry gently with fingers. Alternatively, the jewelry can be carefully scrubbed with a toothbrush.

Rinse and dry thoroughly before storing. For jewelry that is not terribly dirty, rinsing the jewelry in clean water with gentle towel drying works well too. Once the jewelry-wearer gets in the habit, this takes only a second. After washing, leave the jewelry out overnight on a towel in a safe place to dry. While selecting jewelry for the next day’s wear, put the previously worn jewelry back in storage.

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