Christmas Evergreen...Freshmans Style!

You can keep your wreaths or pine boughs. For Christmas, we prefer this 14k white gold ring with diamonds and Chatham emeralds.

The Chatham emeralds are a man made gemstone that have the exact same chemical properties as natural emeralds, but since they are man made, they are a great value. Since they have less imperfections than natural emeralds, they tend to be a bit tougher than natural emeralds, making them a great choice in a ring.

Rob and Lindsey's Ring

Rob and Lindsey were a blast to work with! We designed this 14k white gold wedding set with a bezel set diamond and pave set diamond accents. The sides of the rings were hand engraved and the edges were millgrained to give it a more vintage feel.

Congratulations to both of you!

Why Pay To Have Your Ring Sized When You Could Just Pay $800 For A New TV?

We always urge people to make sure their rings are sized properly. Its a common mistake to get rings too loose. When the winter months roll around your finger will shrink and your ring can come flying off.

Case in point, this article from tech blog Gizmodo.

"... According to Gizmodo reader Brian, the photo above was taken just a few moments after he accidentally flung his wedding band at a television while trying to play a Kinect game for the first time."

"...the lesson to learn from Brian's misfortune is that you should always get your rings sized properly..."

Please contact us if you have any questios about sizing your rings or any other jewelry repair.

Do You Bleed Red or Blue?

Big game coming up, the rivalry won't be the same after this year. If you bleed red or blue, come in to see us and pick up some free mardi gras beads (shaped like footballs of course) in the appropriate color. While you are here, we will clean your rings for free as well as check your prongs for wear.

I've Got Bad News...

...but we'll get to the bad news in a bit.

This platinum ring was made using diamonds and a sapphire that was previously in another ring. We cut out all the old stones and came up with a nicer layout. The sapphire was re-polished to make it look like new and set in this custom-made platinum mounting.

And now for the bad news. When the ring was delivered the client told us she had some bad news for us. Because of the overall experience workign with us, she's a customer for life. We love it everytime we hear that type of "bad news".

Labor Day closing

Have a great, safe holiday weekend. We are going to enjoy it by being closed tomorrow and Monday.

Geek Jewelry

I came across this collection of Geek Jewelry on Mashable this morning and it made me think, what fun geeky ideas would you like to have made?

I'd love to hear your ideas, even if it's just for fun. You can comment here, on our Facebook page, or on our Twitter account. You could also email me your ideas.

Here is the link to the collection

And Now A Public Service Announcement

We had an interesting thing happen yesterday that I wanted to pass along. We had a woman come in who was 7 months pregnant and couldn't get her ring off of her finger. It wasn't uncomfortable, but her doctor had warned her that the hospital wouldn't admit her if she couldn't get the ring off.

Normally in this case we can just cut the ring off and its not a huge deal, but this time was different. She had a Platinum eternity band with two rows of diamonds. Because the diamonds were set edge to edge, there was no place that we could cut through.

She came back in the shop, sat at my bench and had to hold her hand there while I cut out 4 diamonds, so we had somewhere to cut through. As if I wasn't nervous enough, before we started, she informed me she was a concert pianist so her fingers were kind of important. (GULP!)

Thanks to our pneumatic handheld gravers and our microscope we were able to get the diamonds out without spilling a single drop of blood. We also were able to remove the ring in a manner that repairing it won't be a huge deal. (ER residents, firefighters or EMT's won't be so careful...I've seen their work)

The moral of the story: Ladies, BE VERY CAREFUL WEARING YOUR RINGS DURING AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER YOUR PREGNANCY

There's Nothing Mellow About This Fancy Yellow

Got a case of the Monday blues? Maybe a look at this fancy yellow diamond can perk you up.

This head turner features a natural, fancy colored yellow marquise diamond weighing in at just below 4.00 ct. It is set in a custom platinum mounting that is holding about 1.25ct of round diamonds.

Salt Lake Jazz Festival Parking

The Salt Lake Jazz Festival starts tonight at Washington Square (aka The City and County Building). Our Facebook fans get free parking in our lot. We'll also be announcing how you can get free tickets to the Jazz Festival via Twitter and Facebook, so if you haven't signed up already, hurry up...and pass it along!

A Few New Items

To help you get over the post-holiday blues, we have a few new items in stock to share with you:

Ultra Fine Round Nose Pliers: These have the same fine tip as more expensive pliers, but are a great deal at $6.95

We also have some new nylon pliers. These have non-marring nylon jaws and are available in 3 shapes: Round/Flat Nose, Round Nose, and Chain Nose. These sell for $9.95 each. Replacement jaws are also available.

All these are currently featured in our "New Items" section of the store.

Holiday Closing

We will be closed Saturday, July 3rd and Monday July 5th in observance of Independence Day. Have a great 4th everyone!!

Aaaaand We're Back.

Ok, everything should be back to normal. If you have any problems accessing the store, please let us know. Thanks for your patience and have a great weekend.

Store is offline for a bit

We are running a major software upgrade today. Because of this, the online store will be down for awhile. Of course we are still her to help you out. You can call us at (801) 521-6327, email us at claudia@freshmans.com (or zachary@freshmans.com), or hit us up via twitter or our Facebook page.

We'll post here as soon as things are back up and running. Thanks for your patience.

From Your Imagination To Your Finger

There are people in this world that don’t want what everyone else has. They want to be involved in making their jewelry from the very beginning and they want a quality piece when they are done. This customer had a vision in their mind and we helped them finalize the details and turn their vision into this two tone ring with cognac diamonds pave set into 14k yellow gold, and a cognac diamond set into a yellow gold crown. They are delighted with the results.

Another Field Trip

It was nice of Brittany Golden to stop by with her students for a tour of our shop. Brittany teaches metalsmithing and jewelry out of her studio in Provo. These students fashioned a wax ring which Freshmans will cast for them and then they can turn it into a finished piece.

A Little Help Please??

I know the blog has been pretty quiet lately. I do have some custom designs I am waiting to get permission to share. In the meantime I have to favors.

First, would you mind leaving us a review on our Yelp page. Yelp is a great community that is really taking off in the Salt Lake Area. you can find our page HERE

The second favor is really important. Would you please go VOTE HERE for the Brighton High School Fine Arts Metals Program. If they are in the top 10, they will receive $50k to upgrade their jewelry program!! As much as I love seeing kids get in the business, this is especially important to me because the Brighton Jewelry program was where I cut my teeth getting started with soldering, and basic jewelry skills. please go support them.

Temporary Downtime

Just a heads up, due to maintenance upgrades, our online store will be experiencing intermittent outages this weekend. I am not sure how much we will be affected, but everything should be back to normal by Monday morning.

We apologize for the inconvenience. If you need something we will be here Saturday from 9-3 and you can call us at (801) 521-6327

McCall and Cody's Ring

I may have messed up by forgetting his name at first, but everything else on this custom made 14k white gold ring came out perfectly. This cushion cut diamond should fare better than your loaner ring. Congratulations to you both.

Here is the computer rendering we emailed to Cody for a design approval. This allowed us to save him at least one drive into Salt Lake City.

Porter and Andrea's Ring

There are many jewelers in the Salt Lake Valley. Some sell jewelry and some truly make it. But custom made jewelry is one of the things we do best. Porter wanted to include some very old family diamonds in a ring for his intended. He gave us a few ideas to show us the style of ring that he wanted and then it was our job to incorporate these Old European cut stones into his dream ring. Some of the design approvals had to come by email because he lives out of town. We think it turned out very nicely and according to Andrea, it's been turning heads since she put it on.