Rebecca Zemans Jewelry Blog — 14K Gold

We hope everyone has been having an excellent summer!  The studio has been busy working with couples to create special wedding bands all season long, as well as custom tailored anniversary and birthday presents.  Our favorite projects always seem to involve heriloom materials and the transformation which takes place in using something old to create something new. Our most recent heirloom redesign was for a client's wedding band using elements of a ring from her Oma.  Our client works with her hands and needed a durable wedding band that suits her lifestyle, yet wanted to incorporate materials from family heirloom...

We are continuing our metals series with gold-plated, a metal that we are slowly starting to incorporate into some of our designs. As you might know we mainly work with precious metals such as sterling silver, gold-filled and 14K gold. We work with those metals because first of all, we can forge them and move them into the designs we want and secondly, because they are known for its value and longevity. Gold-plated is a metal used mostly for costume jewelry, which is often mass produced and not meant to last forever. That being said, gold-plated can be a very...

Today we are continuing our metal series with gold-filled, a cheaper alternative to solid gold. While gold-filled is not as valuable as solid gold, it should not be confused with gold-plated, as the two are very different. Gold-filled items are 50 to 100,000 times thicker than most gold-plated items, making them much more valuable and resistant to tarnish. Unlike gold-plated items, gold-filled items will not rub off or turn colors either. So what exactly is gold-filled? Gold filled items are made from solid gold (ranging from 10K to 14K) and filled with other alloys such as rhodium, brass, or sterling...

One of the birthstones of December is zircon, a stone that comes in many colors but is most well known for its beautiful light blue color. Zircon has been known since the Middle Ages, with the oldest stones being over 4 billion years old. The origin of the name is not a hundred percent certain, however it is speculated to come from the Persian word "zargun", meaning golden-colored.   Zircon is a mineral that belongs to the group of nesosilicates. In its purest form zircon is colorless, however it takes on different colors due to impurities or certain gemstone treatments...

Considered the “Universal Crystal” all over the world because of its transparent and colorless nature, Crystal Quartz is the perfect alternative to the diamond, the traditional birthstone of April. The word "crystal" comes from the Greek word "krustallos", meaning ice. Quartz was believed to be ice formed by the Gods. Since the Middle Ages, crystal balls made of clear quartz have been used to predict the future. The English word "quartz" comes from the German word "Quarz". Another theory, by Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, was that quartz is ice that has been permanently frozen after a great length of time....