Great Chitter Chatter - Stories from Loud Voices

Whether it’s meant for Mother’s Day or because she just gave birth to a new baby, coming up with a creative gift that she’ll remember forever is a difficult task for some. The best gifts, of course, come from the heart and will be remembered lovingly.

A creative idea is to make your own, handmade gift certificates. Offering your own personal services can be a particularly special gift - babysitting, cooking meals, house cleaning. Create a keepsake by place the certificates in a decorative box or jar.

For far too many, flowers are the common gift. Florists now offer special mother’s day arrangements or even congratulatory arrangements celebrating the birth of a new baby. These are available in an assortment of prices, so that you can be budget conscious if you wish and the vase becomes a keepsake.

An always popular choice is mother’s jewelry. Mother’s jewelry is exceedingly special, consisting of a ring, bracelet or pendant upon which the birthstones of her children are affixed. This is personalized jewelry that will be highly cherished forever. Another form of personalized jewelry may be jewelry that has been engraved with the child’s birth date upon it.

Some mothers will especially like a day spent at the local spa, including long massages and other beauty treatments that will enable her to feel like a queen. Or perhaps a trip to the beauty parlor for a pedicure, a manicure and a new hairdo is in order.

Perhaps you’ve heard of trees being planted in another’s honor? You can either bring home a sapling yourself and plant it lovingly in her yard, or have one planted in her name. You then give her the certificate of planting in her name which will describe the kind of tree it was, as well as where it was planted and why that particular site was chosen.

Tickets to see a local live music concert, a theatrical performance, or a speaking engagement are popular. To make a special theatre evening, pack of picnic basket for a dinner in the park. You can get as fancy as you wish with the food provisions and if this particular mother is an anglophile perhaps you can make the foods be all of those which those in the UK would appreciate. Kippers, anyone?

Mother is bound to love having a star named for her and her very special occasion. This unique gift comes with a certificate of ownership that includes the actual coordinates of her star. Often the company will send a personalized sky chart with your chosen star circled for ease in identification. A very special and quite memorable gift.

Regardless of what kind of gift you give her, from beautiful mother’s rings to a stunning bouquet of flowers you grew especially for her, mother will be so pleased to have you think of her with enough love and care in your heart to give her such a wonderful gift.

Judging custom wedding rings is to a large degree, admittedly, a subjective affair. You either like the look or you don’t. But when adding in factors of cost, durability and the like, it’s helpful to be aware of some objective criteria used by the pros. You’ll want your personalized ring choice to be a good one. Fine personalized jewelry is not something you want to buy uninformed.

WEIGHT

Gold is measured in karats (not carats). This is an indication of the purity, rather than a measure of the weight or the size. A 14kt gold ring contains 14/24 pure gold, or about 58%. The purity of platinum (denoted Plat or Pt) is measured on a scale from roughly 900-950 out of 1,000. This translates to a 950PT wedding ring being 95% pure platinum.

Note that the remainder is often comprised of chemically similar though equally valuable metals. While lower numbers can be found, they won’t be found in fine jewelry wedding rings.

A diamond, by contrast, is measured in carats (ct), ranging from near zero and up. 1 carat = 200 mg, a measure of mass. A diamond that is less than one eighth of a carat is considered a chip. Partly, the reason is the difficulty of faceting and polishing such a small stone in order to bring out a diamond’s effects.

Note that technically, a ‘chip’ is any diamond which isn’t fully faceted or properly shaped. They can result from accidents or the crystal structure that makes cutting and polishing nearly impossible. This becomes more difficult the smaller the stone. So, most chips are in the range stated.

The largest single gem-quality diamond ever found is the Cullinan, which tipped the scales at about 3,106 carats. It was cut down into the egg-shaped stone that sits in the scepter of England, itself about 525 carats.

But there are many other factors that influence the cost and look of a fine diamond intended to sit in an engagement ring or wedding band.

CLARITY

A diamond is judged by professionals on how ‘clear’ it is, and the stone is then placed into a category.

FL, IF – Flawless, or Internally Flawless represents the highest grade in this area. Such stones are extremely rare and hence invariably very expensive.

VVS1, VVS2 – These ratings represent a diamond which is only ‘very very slightly included’. ‘Included’ means, essentially, occluded or cloudy. Inclusions of non-diamond material or structure are responsible for lack of perfect clarity. Despite the ominous sounding word, these gems are very high quality. The flaws can only barely be seen under 10x magnification.

VS1, VS2 – Very Slightly Included ratings represent high quality stones. No flaw is visible to the naked eye.

SI1, SI2 – Slightly Included gems contains flaws that are visible under 10x magnification and may just barely be seen by those with very sharp eyes. Beyond having good eyesight, though, one needs to know what to look for. Generally, non-experts won’t notice much of anything.

I1, I2, I3 – These are mediocre quality stones that may still look very nice. But they have visible flaws when one looks closely that will reduce the brilliance of the stone’s appearance.

COLOR

Beyond the degree of clarity, diamonds - though usually thought of as clear or ‘white’ - can come in any of hundreds of colors. Fashions change and in one era what might be considered a flaw will be highly valued by the next generation. The color is produced by small ‘impurities’ mixed into the carbon structure that makes up diamond.

A 200-carat blue diamond in the Smithsonian (the Hope Diamond), for example, is valued not only for its unusually large size. Its rare and pure color is also a significant factor.

Blue, pink and yellow are among the most common colors found in ring stones.

D stones are completely colorless and correspondingly rare.

E diamonds are also considered colorless. Any impurities are in trace amounts detectable only by experts with special tools. Still very rare.

F are also graded colorless, but a slight color may be seen by an expert.

G-H are near colorless. Non-experts can detect some shading if they look closely, but these can still be high quality diamonds.

I-J Near colorless diamonds in which the color is slightly detectable. Still a very good value.

K-M are stones in which the color is highly noticeable. Observe, though, that these ratings are for diamonds that are ranked according to how little color they have. As a result, many will find a yellow diamong quite beautiful.

What’s important is to have the color be uniform. Most people still consider even a small spot of color to be a flaw. Of course, that too is simply a matter of taste and some future trendsetter may decide such diamonds are worth even more.

CUT

One factor that is difficult to rank in terms of price or quality is how the stone is cut. That’s because, to a very large extent, which cut is better is a matter of taste. The different cuts - round, oval, square, princess - are all equally beautiful and choice simply depends on personal preference. Other common shapes are the Marquise (a type of elongated stone), the Pear, Emerald cut, Trilliant (a wedge shape), Radiant, Cushion and Heart shaped.

Naturally, experts will have more specific criteria - involving the angles and number of facets. The Radiant, for example, has 70 facets while the Trilliant has 25 on the crown and 19 on the pavilion. But these details need not concern wedding ring buyers.