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No gift in the world will please a woman more than a thoughtfully chosen piece of jewellery. It will also be a constant and lasting reminder of your love. Think Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and that enormous diamond.
There is something magical about opening a cute little box with the expectation of finding a precious and beautiful object.
Unlike, say, an electrical appliance, a piece of jewellery is a very personal gift: it is worn on the skin, it is highly visible and it also makes a statement of wealth, taste and fashion.
Would a woman ever get tired of being given jewellery? The answer is emphatically “NO”, but do try to vary what you buy.
You should consider the occasion, the personality, age and size of the wearer, current fashion trends, materials and last but not least, price.

Occasions:

Wedding anniversary
The major anniversaries are usually assigned a particular stone or material. For example, 25 years is Sterling silver, 30, pearl, 35, emerald, 40, ruby and so on making it easier for you to choose.

Birthday
Birth months are also assigned a stone but this should only be bought once or twice. No problem if she was born in April (diamonds) but a little tedious if she was born in December (garnet)

Christmas
is usually an occasion for something sparkly and showy to go with all those party dresses. So go for diamonds if you can afford them otherwise, crystals or facetted stones.

Valentine’s Day
A piece with a heart is a popular and charming idea. The heart could be made of silver or gold but also of gemstone, crystal or unusual hand-made foiled Murano glass.

The birth of a child
In my opinion, the birth of a child should always be marked by a piece of jewellery. Choose a pink stone for a girl (rose quartz, pink sapphire, star ruby) or a blue stone for a boy (sapphire, tanzanite, lapis lazuli, blue topaz, blue lace agate). Pink or blue freshwater pearl earrings would also be a good choice. Childbirth is a joyful but also painful and traumatic event in a woman’s life. Everyone naturally fusses over the baby often ignoring the mother. Show her how proud you are of her and how much she means to you by this thoughtful and unexpected gift.

Sorry
Yes, flowers might work but a gift of jewellery would go a long way towards eventual forgiveness! It would show that you really mean it.

Thank you
Show your appreciation by buying her an unusual piece of fashion jewellery unexpectedly. You will get lots of Brownie points for this one.

Your partner’s taste and personality:

• Is she a larger than life character who wears huge earrings and bright colours? Then a thin chain with a small pendant will almost certainly not be to her taste. Large, bold earrings or a 3-strand necklace with lampwork beads or a clinking colourful cuff will be more her style.
• Does she like or hate a particular colour? Be aware of this when buying jewellery.
• Older ladies look their best in pastel colours. Choose rose quartz, lavender amethyst, pale milky green amazonite, aquamarine or pearls.

Size matters:
There is no pleasure in wearing something that is too tight or too large. Bracelets and rings will be lost if they are too loose.
If you buy on the Internet the size of the piece ought to be mentioned.
Unlike clothes which are sized to fit women from the thinnest to the largest, jewellery is not. Bracelets in particular only go from 6.5 to 8.5″. I see a lot of women with bracelets tight around their wrists when they should be hanging loosely.
If your lady is outside the middle range of sizes:

1. Measure a piece of jewellery that you know fits her well as a guide and take a note of it.
2. Choose necklaces and bracelets with extension chains.
3. Consider bespoke jewellery where the piece will be made to your specifications and measurements. It costs very little more and you have a truly unique piece. (I also enclose a card explaining the design, the materials and even name the piece after her).

Fashion
How important is fashion in jewellery? The answer is: VERY. Jewellery has been worn since times immemorial but if you look at what ladies were wearing in a particular era you will notice that the pieces are similar but also very different from another era. For instance, jet was the thing to wear under the reign of Queen Victoria; in the 1920’s flappers were never seen without their very long strands of pearls.
The younger your partner, the more fashion tuned she will be but remember the baby boomer generation of women is not settling down to twin-set and pearls either.
That said, there is no need to be a slave to fashion. You can’t go wrong if you buy freshwater pearl jewellery for instance.
The clever Chinese have found a way to dye them in all colours thereby giving a classic material a very modern twist.
Semi-precious stones in all shades, cuts, sizes, shapes have also
become very popular and make jewellery much more affordable.

Price
Yes, finally, we come to cost and let me first de-bunk the idea that jewellery is an investment. Few pieces resell at a profit as the consumer is charged a huge mark-up plus tax. The jewels that sell for fabulous sums have either been owned by a famous person (Princess Margaret, the Duchess of Windsor, Jackie Kennedy for example), made by a famous house or have an antique value.
On saying that, precious metals do keep up with inflation and are very durable as are good quality diamonds.
Here we come to a divergence of opinions. Men get really hung up on the price. They equate the amount they spend with the size of their love. Now, don’t get me wrong: women know cheap when they see it! But they will be much more impressed and will derive far more pleasure from a piece of jewellery that their partners have spent time, effort and care in choosing. It is not necessary to spend a fortune. It is far better to purchase a one-off, well designed, quality piece of fashion jewellery than a mass-market, common piece.

What women prize above all else is the attention and time you devote to her. Money comes a poor third. In fact, it’s a substitute when you don’t give her the other two.

So, come on chaps, you know she’s worth it.

© 2006 Martine Callaghan - All rights reserved

Thwarted by my mother who thought that I should train for a safe job with a pension, I am now one of the half million UK qualified teachers who do not teach and I am finally earning a living making what has been a lifelong passion:jewellery. I trained as a silversmith and am also proficient in beading and wire-wrapping. I make good quality fashion jewellery. All my designs are original as I never seem to run out of ideas. Each piece is made only once due to my very low boredom threshhold. I offer a personal service to brides and also make pieces to order (discretion assured). I have customers all over the world and I aim for 100% customer satisfaction.
http://www.marticjewellery.com

Tags: bespoke, crafted, crystals, exclusive, fashion, freshwater, handmade, heart, jewellery, jewelry, pearl, uniquebespoke, crafted, crystals, exclusive, fashion, freshwater, handmade, heart, jewellery, jewelry, pearl, unique

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It’s fun and satisfying to design and then make simple items that serve some purpose. I find it very rewarding to conjure up designs out of my imagination and then build them using common tools and cheap or free materials. I’ve made all kinds of things. Most of them performed some function that no readily available, store-bought device offered.

I do a lot of text keying at a computer keyboard. After many hours of keying, day after day, my hands and fingers tell me (as in pain) that they’re pushing too hard, too many times. After going from store to store looking for a keyboard with easy to press keys, I realized that I needed something to measure the force needed to press the keys on a particular keyboard. Trying to judge the force by typing a little with each keyboard wasn’t separating the Tylenol endorsed keyboards from the more finger friendly keyboards. So I rigged up a plastic tube taped to a vertical wire a few inches long. Pennies could be put in the tube. The lower end of the wire is rested on a key. The number of pennies needed to push a key down is a measure of the key’s required press force.

Then there was the see through, wall hung beehive that I put on my bedroom wall. My father used to keep bees to harvest honey. One cold day in March, I discovered an abandoned hive that had fallen over exposing the bees to the elements. There was only several hundred bees left out of what was once thousands. I put a sheet of glass, about 2-foot by 2-foot, onto a wooden frame that I attached to my bedroom wall. Then I carefully transported the faltering bee colony to their new home. A tunnel made of metal window screening provided a path for the bees to come and go under a slightly raised window. The colony’s queen had not survived being exposed to the weather, so I knew no new bees would be reared. This colony would only last as long as the lifespans of its current members. But it was interesting to watch the bees doing what bees do throughout the next several months. And the bragging rights for having a bee colony on ones bedroom wall was something to envy.

Both the keyboard force-o-meter and the wall-mounted beehive were inspired by circumstances. I just saw the possibility of what could be done and wanted to do it. I try to be open to possibilites for other gadgets and gizmos that would be of value. It is well worth the effort: It is fun to make improvised gizmos, and you get a valued item. The item may suit your needs better than a purchased item because you make it the way you want it. The item could inspire wonder and delight. And it feels good to prove that your ingenuity and imagination can produce things of value.

Below is a description of a couple of items you may like to make.

Bootjack:

If you often find it annoying to remove boots as you enter the house, this project is for you. The bootjack makes the task easier especially if the boots are tight fitting or you are carrying something so that your hands are not free.

Begin with a 3/4 inch thick board that is about 2 feet long and 6 inches wide. Cut a V shaped notch in one end. Use nails to attach a small piece of wood to keep the notched end raised above the floor. Keep the bootjack near the door where you most often enter wearing boots. Put one foot on the jack to hold it in place. Put the heel of the other foot in the notch and pull your foot out of the boot.

Wall display cubby box:

Small cardboard boxes can be fastened together and hung on the wall. Small and valued objects can be placed there to be displayed and admired.

Save boxes from muffin mix, artificial sweetener, rice or other often used food items. When you have enough, cut each box to an appropriate size. I started with boxes 4-inches wide, 2-inches deep, and 6-inches tall. I cut each box to half height, so that each box was 3-inches tall. Boxes that are twice as wide as they are deep can be arranged as shown in the diagrams of this article. If you use boxes with other ratios of width to height, use a different arrangement or use pieces of corrigated cardboard to fill any gaps between boxes.

Lay a piece of plastic sheeting such as a plastic grocery bag on a flat surface. The plastic will keep excess glue from sticking to your work surface. You can use white glue to fasten the boxes together. To help keep the glue from running down the side of the boxes, use a method similar to that used by bricklayers applying mortar to bricks. Before putting a box into position, put glue on each side of that box that will be against a box already in place. That way, while applying glue, you can turn the box in any way that makes it easy to apply the glue. And the glue will quickly be between two surfaces. That helps keep the glue in place. A good glue pattern is shown by the red lines below.

As you assemble the boxes together, use a straight edge such as a wall or a large box as a guide to align the boxes in straight rows. Set something heavy against the boxes to hold them together while the glue dries. Bricks or large books work well. Use the plastic sheeting to keep oozing glue from sticking the boxes to the books or bricks. You can use paper clips to hold the edges of the boxes together where gaps occur.

When all the boxes are in place, let the glue dry for about 12 hours. Then use a nail to punch holes for a string that will go around the group of boxes. Two holes near each corner will keep the string in place. Tie the two ends of the string together. Hang the box display from a small nail.

Tags: crafts, gadgets, gizmos, Handicrafts, handmade, homemade, improvised, make your own, self sufficiency, uniquecrafts, gadgets, gizmos, Handicrafts, handmade, homemade, improvised, make your own, self sufficiency, unique

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