Jewelry Jargon

I have spent time thinking about this Blog. This is in fact, a great communication medium and I really want to explore the side of using it while keeping it relevant to my website. Afterall, I am hoping that anyone interested in reading it is also interested in the overall theme of jewelry and being more specific about earrings.

Jewelry just like any other trade has its own jargon. It deals with materials, techniques, tools. These definitions indicate in many ways the way a piece will look and feel at the end. Although the terminology can get fairly complicated and terms such as "annealing" (which means heating a metal to high temperatures for enough length of time to allow a desire transformation happen) - are not necessary for the regular customer to know. I think this blog will provide a excellent way for me to publish an ongoing glossary of terms that anyone can feel comfortable using. I intended to cover stones, materials, findings, tools so the list may become large. But that is Okay, that is why blogging is a great medium, each day I will have a small glossary to cover some terminology to the best of my knowledge, and if time permits I will work on pictures too! I will try to keep it organized in some sort of alphabetical order although this may not always work perfectly ;) ... Of course, I will not have everything, I still learn about new terms and techniques on a daily basis, but then contributions are always welcomed. Knowledge is to be shared.

Glossary:
AB: This term stands for Aurora borealis (which means "northern lights"). Aurora borealis is usually associated with Swarovski crystals and rhinestones that have a type of iridescent finish and gives a shines with many colors (a bit of rainbow effect) . This is actually the result of having a thin layer of metallic atoms placed on the lower surface of the stone. This process was invented in 1955 by the Swarovski company together with Christian Dior.