If you appreciate originality and personal expression above all, buying standard department store jewelry is probably not for you. Customizing your own piece with a beautiful stone may, therefore, offer the ideal solution.
A design-it-yourself piece of jewelry can be planned alongside professionals in the field, but it is worthwhile to know some fundamental types of stone setting among the thousands of variations in existence.
A bezel setting, for example, is the oldest known technique of attaching stones to jewelry. In them, diamonds are surrounded by a precious metal band which fastens the diamond securely into place. They are also called rub-over settings, and are considered the most secure fastener for the stones.
Prong setting – the simplest and most common type of setting – uses the least amount of metal to hold the stone, while in channel setting, the stones are suspended between two bars of metals (channels). A bead setting essentially involves a hole drilled into the metal surface and making a concave depression just the size of the stone. A burnish setting is similar to bead setting, but with a different technique to push the metal around the stone.
If you’d like a diamond in your piece, remember the Four-Cs of diamond evaluation: carat, color clarity and cut. The brilliant cut, which provides the maximum amount of sparkle to the gemstone, is the favored diamond cut. It is followed by the princess shape, as these two reflect light best and are the most brilliant for their size.
