So What’s in a Pearl?

What Do You Know About Pearls?

Well, sad to say, June has come to an end . . . where has this year gone to? . . . and because I am one of those June Baby Boomers, I love to find out information about my birth month as well as others. But for this last day of June, I wanted to share information from a blog that I follow.

Did you know that the Pearl is the gemstone for June? As jewelers, we try to keep up on information about gems and other types of stones. The 3 Funky Divas make it a point to use the highest quality materials for each piece of jewelry we design and produce, so it stands to reason why we look for good pearls. While we do use a variety of freshwater pearls, we often use a selection of glass pearls by Swarovski because we feel the quality

Swarovski Glass Pearl Set

and appearance provide the look and feel we know our customers expect. We have even gathered a few samples from Florida’s east coast and from the Gulf of Mexico on Galveston Island. But did you know the United States is well known for some its freshwater pearl farms and that Iowa was the center of manufacturing for pearl buttons until WWII?

Recently, while reading one of my favorite blogs by Rose Marion from Wire Sculpture.com I found some very interesting information about pearls. Because I was not aware of some of the historical meaning behind the cultured pearl (most of what I knew, I was told about as a child or saw some documentary on PBS). What Rose shared in her Blog post entitled: “Pearls: It’s a Cultural Thing”, (Marion, 2012) I wanted to share with you.

4-6mm Pale Pink & Rose Swarovski Glass Pearls

“Just imagine: all the pearls we take for granted today, worn on bridal headpieces, in corsages, and to a nice evening out: all of those would be completely unaffordable were it not for the work of Kokichi Mikimoto, commonly celebrated as the father of the cultured pearl, who produced cultured pearls starting in 1916, right around the start of the First World War. This is how late Edwardian jewelry came to feature so many pearls: it was the start of a new era for pearls, leading up to such a proliferation of pearls that the “50′s housewife” of course had a pearl necklace: the pearl was so common and affordable by that point. Just 50 years prior, pearls were painstakingly collected and matched to form just a single strand worth thousands.”

Hand strung triple strand Swarovski Pearls

If you are interested in more from Rose on the pearl, we encourage you to read her blog and check out some of the resources she listed on the history of the pearl, and how pearls are made today; we think you will be surprised. Please visit her blog by clicking HERE. And while there, please be sure to leave a comment and let her know Kathy with the 3 Funky Divas sent you 🙂

As Rose concluded her post, so we shall do the same for ours by saying. . .

“hope you enjoyed this look at pearl culture! Happy birthday to all of the June-born readers and followers.”

I am sure some of you will learn something interesting or that you didn’t know about the pearl by reading another blog and the resources she included.

Check back and read our blog tomorrow, July 1st . . . you won’t want to miss our special entry or the great surprise we have planned for everyone who adds a comment tomorrow! It will be well worth your time!

Until then. . . Chow darlings!

The Divas -Kathy, Kristin & Emiley 

P.S. If you just gotta have one of our pearl designs pictured here, visit our ETSY shop to place an order. Use the link on our Contacts Page. If you want to see the images in a larger view, visit our Jewelry Collection located under our Portfolio Collections.