The design for the tanzanite suite was inspired by the Moorish influence in Spain, a special place of memories for her and myself. We openly discussed her enjoyment of her extensive travels in order to create a design that truly resonated with her.

More and more women and men are uncomfortable with heavy earrings. These finished hoops weigh a meer 4-6 grams per earring because they are made out of aluminum. Interestingly our customer originally came in because her husband wanted to gift her classic diamond hoops.

Araneae are everywhere in our home, in the garden, on the eaves, and inside the house. As always, Gregore stone carver extraordinaire, gets a penchant for something new to make, currently it is spiders, specifically a black jade spider.

In the first part of this blog we shared with you the ideas behind the pendant design our friend wanted to wear to an event at the temporary city erected in a desert in northwest Nevada, whose name we were informed we must not use for any profit making endeavor.

As always we like to give our customers a unique engagement ring in Santa Barbara. The side view pictured above, has a fairly large diamond. The design has simple clean lines, elegant arcs, not fussy, making the engagement ring delicately feminine. The top and side views really pleased our customer.

Santa Barbara men and those men who are visiting in their relaxed, casual wear look great in jewelry. Just like for all of us, self-adornment makes a statement that says ”I like who I am and I like how I feel”.

Designing is our passion. Not only do we make jewelry we also do design consulting. When we got the small heart shaped diamonds and the large opal cabochon we were a little stumped. But our friend wanted the heart shaped diamonds on the shoulders of the ring, so we told him we would give it a try. The ring was a gift for the love of his life.

If you are lucky fate chooses a medium for you, the artist, at a very early age. Then the muddle and confusion that life produces naturally gets cleared away by the constant practice of this chosen craft…These earrings show how the artist Gregore’ is so effective at sharing his quirky and whimsical view of his world with the finesse of a surgeon.

Gregore and Jennifer-Rabe Jewelers,  Fine Jewelry artists in Santa Barbara not only create unique one of a kind fashionable jewelry, they offer their services to the nanoscale microscopy industry with custom cutting. Precision work serves not just the lover of jewelry but also the manufacturers of atomic force microscopes, machines which cost millions of dollars to build. “Where we come in use is to enlarge or modify the hole in the quartz enclosure and to plane surfaces smooth on the quartz cantilever window . We do this type of custom work  locally all the time.”

G&JTOOL.COM has merged with gregoreandjennifer-rabe.com

We offer a variety of jewelers tools to help make work a breeze. It is our commitment to the ancient craft of jewelry that inspires g&jtools.com, a url that links to our jewelry website, gregoreandjennifer-rabe.com. Go to G&J Tools on the header to see our products and accompanying videos on how to use them. There are tools that we invent out of necessity and then there are those inspired by our friends.

Enjoying the Tucson gem show with friends, Heath London and Christine and Bruce.

The Tucson Gem Show is an annual event that brings people together, from all over the world, who are passionate about gems and jewelry. For us it represents a time of high creativity because of the huge visual stimulation from all the beautiful raw materials we see and buy; it is a chance to see old friends and make new friends, to share their fabulous designs; to see our lovely landlady and her family; a chance to see customers, and mentors; and of course our chance to receive accolades as well. Sorry for the delay it has been three weeks since I blogged, Santa barbara had to wait!

The joys of a life well lived is the result of pulling together and drawing out  all of the good from our past experiences, whether  like myself, Jennifer-Rabe having been raised in Spain, or Gregore in Canada, and all of our  travels, interests and friendships. Whether we are designing engagement rings or other fine jewelry in Santa Barbara, we are inspired by our entire lives.

Inspiration for a  unique ring design can  begin with the stones or from a ring that has already been made. The David Gross Group Yellow Sapphires in the 2 ring designs  covered in this blog are particularly nice in color. Sapphires already have a natural brightness, and the nice polish on their stones really enhances their look. The stones demanded a lot out of the structure of the ring. The Sapphire was deep and the diamonds were long, so the under structure had to support the wide span and also look elegant and proportioned. 

Jim approached us to make diamond earrings for Sandy to celebrate the big 60. Jim is a stone cutter/faceter so we started the design by meeting with him to look over his stash of cut and loose stones. He was prepared to cut something new for this special occasion. He had to be really careful to meet with us when Sandy thought he was somewhere else because she is clever and therefore attentive to his coming and going from home. 

When we started these earrings we were sure that David, DGG, would appreciate their simplicity, making the rubies the stars. His stones are particularly beautiful. They are clean, bright and beautifully cut. After the drawing was approved we threw it into CAD so we could size the design precisely to his stones.

For the Gregore and Jennifer-Rabe jewelry workshop in Santa Barbara, butterflies and moths  are primarily a thing of beauty, their delicate form  elicits images of gardens, mesmerizing movement and exquisite color. There are thousands of species, that vary greatly in size, and color, colors  that shimmer and glow in the presence of light.