"To Be Continued" Jewelry!

There are three very popular pieces of jewelry that can be added to for significant occasions, like birthdays, anniversaries, and the birth of a child:

• The Mother's Ring
  
• The Add-a-Pearl Necklace
  
• The Diamond Eternity Ring
  

THE MOTHER'S RING

This is a ring that holds all the birthstones of a mother's children. Some parents choose to include the mother's birthstone, and even the mother and father's birthstones. There are many styles that can hold up 16 stones. Sixteen children? Am I serious? Yes, but those rings hold both the children's, and the grandchildren's birthstones.

Mother's rings are enormously popular and are a great source of pride and joy for mothers. Today, there is also an entire line of what's called "family jewelry" that uses the same principle of adding birthstones for each child. Pendants and pins are popular types of family jewelry.

THE ADD-A-PEARL NECKLACE

This is a necklace that comes with a select number of pearls initially, either in a uniform size, or tapered, with a large pearl in the center. Loved ones and friends can then buy single pearls on a card for birthdays, Christmas, and so forth, and the new pearls are added to the necklace by restringing. I often sold a beginner's pearl necklace to grandparents upon the birth of a granddaughter, and then they would continually buy pearls to be added with the goal of the granddaughter having a full strand of pearls by her 18th or 21st birthday.

THE DIAMOND ETERNITY RING

Usually, the husband will buy this ring for his wife on their tenth anniversary, and it will have ten diamonds already set in it, one for each year. Then each year, he returns it to the jeweler, and adds a diamond, until the entire circle of the band is filled with diamonds.

What's really nice about these "to be continued" pieces of jewelry is that people always know that there's something they can buy as a gift that will be greatly appreciated, and will definitely not be returned!