Rebecca Zemans Jewelry Blog — Metal Work

Our next blog post in this metal series is about 22K gold, a softer metal containing at least 92% pure gold. 22K gold is often used for more intricate designs because it can be shaped and bent into all kinds of forms fairly easily. While 22K gold is very common in some countries, it is much less common in the United States where 14K gold is the most common gold used in jewelry. 22K gold contains a very high amount of pure gold (92%), which gives it a very rich and beautiful yellow color. As mentioned above, 22K gold is also...

Today we will be continuing our metals series with 18K Gold! We recently worked on a couple of really cool 18K gold pieces, so we are excited to give you some more information on this beautiful metal! First of, as you might have already guessed, 18K gold is more valuable than 14K gold because of it high gold content. In order for gold to be considered 18K it needs to contain at least 75% pure gold. Because it has such a high amount of pure gold in it, 18K has a very beautiful and rich color. It is also quite...

Hi Everyone! Today we are continuing our metals blog series with a post about fine silver. In case you missed it, in our previous post we discussed sterling silver, which is an alloy of fine silver. Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, compared to sterling silver which is only 92.5% pure silver. Fine silver is very soft, making it more prone to scratches and dents. On the bright side, its softness is the reason fine silver pieces tend to mend themselves to your body and can be very comfortable to wear. It also does not tarnish, which is great if...

Since recycling is such an important aspect our lives, we wanted to introduce a series in which we highlight the ways that jewelry can be recycled!  Many people have boxes of inherited jewelry that they realize will just never be worn: earrings with missing partners, broken necklaces, or seriously out-dated styles.  But there can be a lot of great material in that box, and with a little love and creativity, can begin a whole new life as something you'll cherish and love to wear!  Rebecca met with a couple at the One Of A Kind Show at the Merchandise Mart this past December...

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...