We've all, myself included, heard far too much about Covid-19 in the past couple of weeks. Stress, shelter-in-place, social distancing, and Lysol. Lots and lots of Lysol. 

Today I'm here to bring a little bit of stress relief to your life. Last Friday I sent out a newsletter with some fun kid’s activities to do during the shelter in place. I had such a positive response to the newsletter that I thought I’d make it public for all to access.

Click on the printables below to print these out. Take some time to yourself as you or your kids color these as a small family friendly activity. All coloring sheets were sourced online.

Another resource I want to share with you is GemKids. GemKids is a fun and interactive branch of Gemological Institute of America. Send your kids here to learn about different gems + jewels, fun history, word of the day everyday, and other fun gems! It's a safe and interesting website that your kids can peruse when they need something to do! Click the photo below to be redirected to the site.

I hope these things help to ease you + your kiddos minds during this shelter in place. If you’e like to see more things like this, please shoot me an email! Have a wonderful rest of your week!

I see jewelry in every shape and form possible- old, new, well taken care of, sparkling clean, with globs of lotion stuck between the prongs, or plain dirty. No matter what I am working on with a client, I always make sure to clean every piece of jewelry that I work on for a client. A large portion of what I work with are engagement rings.

The first thing I do when a client brings me an engagement ring to be cleaned, resized, or maintained is to view the piece with my loupe. A loupe is essentially a small magnifying glass. It makes viewing small details of the jewelry much easier, and I don’t leave home without it!

In the above photo is my loupe along with a client’s beautiful solitaire engagement ring. In this particular case, she hadn’t worn the ring in a couple of years because it no longer fit her. She brought it in to be resized which would automatically come with a cleaning. As always I inspected the ring with my trusty loupe. I even took pictures with my phone, through the loupe so you can see what I saw! Check out how much this ring needed some love:

The client left her ring with me, I resized and cleaned it, and we set a date to get her ring back to her. That’s one of my favorite parts of working with clients. I love being able to see their faces when they’re getting their beautiful jewelry back. She was very happy with the work I was able to do to her ring, and she said it truly looked like an entirely new piece of jewelry! Take a look:

If you’d like to clean your own diamond jewelry at home, follow these simple steps:

1) grab a bowl some very warm water, a soft bristle toothbrush, dish soap, and a hand towel

2) put a small amount of dish soap into the warm water and mix it together

3) place your ring in the bowl of soapy water and leave it for 30 minutes

4) Remove ring and brush it gently with the soft bristle toothbrush

5) Rinse under warm running water, and dry with the hand towel

To keep your ring looking it’s very best, I recommend cleaning it once every week or two. For a more thorough cleaning, I recommend bringing it to a professional jewelry or Gemologist (such as myself) once or twice a year where it can be professionally cleaned and maintained. If you’d like your jewelry polished, resized, maintained after years of use, I’d love to chat with you! Click here to contact me!

Custom Marquise Engagement Ring

Emily Sole Jewelry | Houston Jeweler

What a fun engagement ring this was to make! Brad and I met a few months ago during an initial engagement ring consultation. He is an engineer and very artistic! He sent me a few sketches that he made before we met. How special that he is so talented and contribute to the process in such a unique way? Brad needed a center diamond so I sourced a few different shapes and sizes of diamonds for him to look at. Emily (his now fiancee!) had mentioned to him that she might want either an oval or marquise shape diamond, so we looked at both. This is one of my favorite parts of the process ~ I love educating my clients! After looking at many diamonds together, Brad and Emily chose this gorgeous D color marquise shape diamond.

Once her center stone was chosen we were able to design the setting. She knew that she wanted to incorporate sapphires in her setting so we drew a CAD so she could see what it would look like before making the ring. CAD (computer-aided design) software is used by architects, engineers, drafters, artists, and others to create precision drawings or technical illustrations. CADs really help my clients envision what their final piece of jewelry will look like before the physical jewelry is even produced. We made a couple of changes to the CAD along the way but Brad & Emily knew what they wanted. They added small sapphires in the gallery of the setting and beautiful baguettes down the shank. This was such a fun project!

CADs of the ring to help Brad and Emily see what the final product would look like

Their design came to fruition once they saw the wax of her new setting. All the fine details (scale, height, width etc) that I work on had come together!

Emily’s ring was ready to pick up just in time for her birthday. Brad came in and I was stunned to see that he made his OWN wooden ring box! In nearly 20 years in this business this was a first for me. What a treat! I love my engagement ring clients!!

Wooden box that Brad made just for Emily’s ring

If you’d like to get started on your own custom engagement ring, please send me an email to get started!

Emily’s 3 Favorite Ring Boxes

Houston Jeweler

If you have any special family jewelry, rings that aren’t worn daily, or if you need to temporarily store your beautiful wedding ring, you can’t beat a good old fashioned ring box. I believe the box should have just as much personality as the precious cargo inside the box, so today I’m sharing some of my favorite ring boxes with you!

The Mrs Box

This has got to be one of my favorite options for a couple of reasons. The velvet texture is just so perfect for storing precious rings. The huge range of color selections they offer go perfectly with diamonds and colored stones. You can purchase whatever color you want, whether you’re choosing one that matches your wedding color palette or one in your favorite color. While The Mrs. Box used to only offer one size and shape of ring box, they now offer different sizes, shapes, and number of rings it hold (which is very nifty if you want to place your engagement ring and your band in the box). And to top it all off (literally and figuratively) they will custom foil monograms and engravings onto the tops of the ring boxes, if you so choose. So many different ways to completely customize these ring boxes and make it exactly what you want!

Images via The Mrs Box website by Jose Villa

Antique Ring Boxes

If you’re more of a nostalgic, story-loving kind of person, this one is for you. Antique ring boxes are unique and have so much character. Each one is different, just like antique jewelry. I love imagining the story behind the box and the piece of jewelry that originally came in it.

Images via Pinterest

Classic Red Jewelry Box

These beauties are classic and elegant. It’s very timeless and sturdy, making sure that your jewelry isn’t going anywhere! Red is a meaningful color for love, so this box is perfect for engagements and anniversaries. It’s also a festive color for the holidays, perfect for those Christmastime engagements and gifts! These boxes are also available in different shapes and sizes to accommodate different types of jewelry.

Image via Pinterest

So there you have it! My 3 favorite types of ring boxes. Make sure your rings are safe, secure, and looking good when they’re being photographed or stored in one of these boxes. Have a wonderful weekend!