Rebecca Zemans Jewelry Blog — fashion

Today is the first day of Autumn and even though we'll miss the sunny fun of summertime, we are looking forward to the striking palette that is bestowed upon us in the coming months.  Over the years we've worked with couples who have used colored stones in their engagement rings, embracing this colorful time all year long!  Inspired by these couples, we've created this roundup of some of our favorite alternative engagement rings! Colored gemstones are selected for their birthstone attributes, their historic and cultural meanings and their unique beauty.  Any stone can be set in an engagement ring, or...

  In an inverse of the motto of the United States "E Pluribus Unum" meaning "from many - one", our most recent Before & After project is an example of "Ex Uno Plures" meaning "from one - many."   Our customer came to us with her heirloom cultured pearl necklace, a gift she received for her Sweet Sixteen.  Nearly forty years later, she was ready for an updated necklace yet wanted to create something meaningful to pass down to her young nieces as well. The original pearl necklace was tapered meaning that the largest pearl is in the front with...

Welcome to our ongoing series exploring the different types of metals we work with!  Palladium is a metal we are seeing more requests for in additional to traditional metals, so we wanted to educate our customers about some of the great characteristics of palladium.  Palladium is a silvery-white metal with similar properties to platinum, however it is the least dense of the platinum group metals, making it a more affordable metal option than platinum.  It is named after the Pallas asteroid which was discovered around the same time as the metal, at the turn of the 19th century.  Over half...

As some of you may remember, in the beginning of 2012 I created a jewelry collection for Mark Shale, a Chicago-based department store that opened its doors in 1929. The store is known to greatly value design, craftsmanship, and individuality as well as care deeply about the environment, the city of Chicago and the way women dress. Last December, the Mark Shale team decided to showcase a few local designers and singled my work out. We then met to create a customized exclusive collection just for the store. The pieces were elegant, simple and made out of sterling silver and gold-filled. Most...