First, I should approach clean: I have more jewelry than I have clothes. And I’m only a minute bit ashamed. I treasure glitter and sparkle, gold and silver, hot pink and earth tones. I expend jewelry to aid explain who I am, and how I am feeling on any given day. And I’ve been like this for years.
That is why I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately toward mass-produced, shameful quality, generic jewelry, which aloof costs as mighty as the genuine thing. I can’t instruct you how many times, in the last couple of years, I have purchased something only to feel disappointed, and at times, even betrayed.
One example: I purchased earrings from a friend who sells jewelry via shriek sales. They were silver loops with aesthetic chunks of Larimar in the middle. I was in esteem. Then I wore them to work. I got several compliments, and then one of my coworkers commented that my earrings didn’t match. I took one out, and certain enough, one of the Larimar stones had fallen out. I searched the office. No Larimar. I called my friend who had sold me the earrings.
She told me that I needed to have the novel receipt, and I needed to earn a copy of the receipt, and then return the loyal receipt with both earrings. She actually emphasized the word both, as if I would try to scam the company out of a single, mismatched earring. The company would do an investigation to leer if it was my fault that the stone fell out. If it was clear that it was not my fault, then they would replace my earrings… unless of course, they no longer had my earrings in stock, in which case they would replace them with earrings of an equal or greater value. I, of course, would have no say over what these “equal value” earrings looked like. I was troubled. I don’t even have time to deem through a process like that! And besides, I didn’t even have the receipt. So, the short version of the tale is: I paid upwards of $50 for a pair of earrings that I wore for about 3 hours.
Another example: I bought a gold ring with a tanzanite stone from a appreciate chain jewelry store. I wore it for a few months, and then the stone fell out. I returned to the jewelry store to accumulate out that they had changed owners, and did not care one iota about my broken ring blues. Ack! I was so frustrated that I vowed to halt buying jewelry.
Then I had a better concept. I went to a craft point to and visited with a woman who makes all her gain jewelry. She promised up and down that she would stand leisurely her jewelry, and that she never forgets a face — no receipt required. I bought several of her pieces, and guess what! All of them are tranquil intact. Go figure.
I began to wonder if handmade jewelry from a genuine person is the plot to go.
Then I discovered a website that I absolutely love: Nadine Jewelry. Nadine is the name of a person, not an office building. She makes all of the jewelry in her store herself. But here’s my common part: she makes her jewelry to order! I ordered stackable birthstone rings in my size, and she made them unbiased for me. And her guarantee? She promised that her jewelry is built to last “at least a lifetime.”
I wanted to ask Nadine about matching birthstone earrings, and I was actually able to call her on the phone and talk to a loyal person… who was nice to me. I felt like I was in a movie. I told her about my original obsession with handmade jewelry and she said she couldn’t agree more.
She said, “I esteem to construct jewelry for people because I feel as though I am giving them a gift, like I’m sharing fraction of myself. When I set my heart into a allotment, I feel like I’m forging a connection between two people. Jewelry can and should bring people together. I craft each allotment of jewelry with esteem and patience, and with appreciation for not only the fragment, but also the person who is going to wear it.”
Obviously, I was sold. And I’m calm sold. Since I spoke with Nadine, and since I’ve started wearing my radiant stackable rings, I have vowed to pay more attention to the jewelry I seize and wear. I have upped my standards, and I’m all the richer for it!