Rebecca Zemans Jewelry Blog

This blog post is dedicated to Mohs scale of hardness. We use it frequently with our stone of the month series so we wanted to take this opportunity to dedicate an entire post to explain it. It is important to know the Mohs hardness in order to better care for different gemstones. The Mohs scale is a way of measuring a stone's scratch resistance against a harder material. It was invented in 1812 by the German geologist and mineralogist Friedrich Mohs and ever since has been used to test and describe the hardness of minerals. While Mohs was the first...

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....

Today we are continuing our 'How To' series with an edition on sawing. Just like the processes described in our earlier posts, sawing is a very important part of how we make our jewelry. In the video below you will see Rebecca saw a round circle, which she then files and will later use to create a Satellite Brooch.  It is surprising how complicated something as "simple" as sawing can be. There are many little things to keep in mind. First, the direction of the blade relative to the saw frame is key. The blade's teeth need to be facing...

With Spring upon us, we wanted to share the new custom pieces we've been working on this Winter. We've been so busy that we realized we hadn't shown you many new pieces in a while. So here is a glimpse of some of our most recent work. We couldn't have done it without our amazing clients whose vision make these designs possible!  We always love making our customers dreams come true because it pushes our creativity and skills keeping us fresh and on our toes. For example, we worked with Palladium for the first time, which can be a difficult...

Today we will share with you some insight on one of our most important processes - forging. Forging is the process of shaping the metal using force. Forging can be done either hot or cold, depending on the metal. For our silver and gold jewelry, we use the cold forging process after annealing the metal. Meaning, we hit the metal while it is cold after heating it up to loosen the molecules and then cooling it off so we can hold it while hammering it. Hot forging is when you hit a portion of the metal while it is hot,...