Show me your Yvonne Raley and Cecile Raley Designs!

[apacherose]

I have been longing for a thread showcasing Yvonne's lovely gems and jewelry. Katharath was the one who really introduced me to Yvonne, and I hope she posts her gems and jewels here; and sungura and limosun, too!

I will start with a spess camellia; I bought the ruby earrings first and wanted a ring to go with. Yvonne suggested spessartite garnet. I love being matchy (I know I am a nerd I can't help it) and got studs to go with since I have two pierced holes in each ear. I trust Yvonne and enjoy working with her; grateful she puts up with me and has such attention to detail.

I was never an orange fan as I used to get orange topaz so much as I am a November birthday. But I am glad I took a chance on this suggestion as I find the garnet to be bright, sunny, and juicy and I wear it often!

 

[fel]

Amazing ring. Love it. Can you show a gallery shot?

 

[apacherose]

Ok , here is a try. The camellia is different from her sunflower in that the petals go to your finger, with no undergallery. The sunflower can have a flush band, the camellia cannot. I hope you can tell what I mean from my photos. Here I will try to include it with a band, too, so you can see what a large gap there would be.

 

[fel]

Wow -- how she did the two layers of petals is different and special. Wish I could afford one of those.

 

[apacherose]

Thanks, fel! I agree, the three dimensional aspect of the petals is interesting and special. I know on the cost! I bought the gem first and waited and then bought the ring. It hurt less to do a little at a time.

 

[Acinom]

Gorgeous metal/petal work on the ring
I love that you have a jewelry suite with matching studs. You have made some great choices. Please post more pics of your set.

Thanks for starting this thread!!

 

[minousbijoux]

That is a beautiful orange spess and a lovely suite.

 

[lilmosun]

Thank you for posting your spess and starting this thread!

Love love love your suite ...it's inspiring. I have not ventured into CS earrings or bracelets yet and only have a few CS pendants. I'm afraid that I do enough damage to the account with just rings

I will add some pics later...maybe figure out how to do a collage like sungura does to save real estate, lol.

 

[apacherose]

Thank you, Acinom, Minous, and limoson! I'm going to start adding pics, I'm hoping for a pic heavy thread, I love those.

These are Katharath's mahenge spinels :

 

[lilmosun]

Ok...not very polished but best I could do during halftime

Here are my Purples from Yvonne

The top is purple garnet surrounded by spinels
The bottom is an unheated purple tanzi with brazilian alex and purple sapphire sides

 

[lilmosun]

My Camellia rings from Yvonne with Haunite sidestones (for those who recently bought some that she picked up in Tucson, my first ring with Yvonne was to make use of mine..then I loved it so much, I had to make another )

The top is a moonstone ring and the bottom is a paraiba cab (which also had diamonds on the outer leaves)

 

[lilmosun]

Finally, my spess with mint garnets and pink spinels.



Not her styling, she also made the stack rings for my paraiba and cobalt spinel. She is also making one for the bixbite I purchased (yeah..I caved)

 

[lilmosun]

I covet katharath's mahenge pieces...

 

[apacherose]

I covet katharath's mahenge pieces...

Ugh, me, too! And your pieces are utterly gorgeous, lilmosun, thank you for adding them! I honestly would love to own all of your rings- I wish I was able to get 'in' on some of the hayunite and Paraiba she got in Tuscon. Your moonstone and Paraiba rings are out of this world.

Who had that diamond ring with the hayunite melee? That is a dream ring! I can't find it.

 

[lilmosun]

Thank you Sungura --- it's hard not to love everything Yvonne makes. Her eye and ability to come up with amazing color combinations result in pieces that are truly one-of-a-kind. At first, I thought her settings were a little too dainty for my large fingers but I bought the hauynites about the same time she came out with the camellia ring and now I'm addicted to working with her.

Who had that diamond ring with the hayunite melee? That is a dream ring! I can't find it.

The killer piece belonged to DianeM. I don't think she posts here anymore and I miss her. Pretty sure that she is the one who pointed me to Yvonne when I was looking for a mahenge. Yvonne didn't have what I was looking for (old stock magenta hue) and even though I had never bought from her before, she volunteered to look on her next trip to Prima Gems. They had already told me that they didn't have any left but somehow she went and found one! I've been a fan of hers ever since.

My mahenge Yvonne picked out (the setting was bought at Intergem)

 

[lilmosun]

I trust Yvonne and enjoy working with her; grateful she puts up with me and has such attention to detail.

Laughing...its like you are quoting me...especially the part in bold

 

[pregcurious]

I love that color combo.

 

[mtsapphirelovingannie]

Beautiful colors!

 

[lilmosun]

Ooops..my apologies for the name mixup in my call out apacherose. In my haste, I confused two fans of Yvonne's with lovely pieces and too late to edit.

 

[katharath]

Apacherose- thanks for the shout out!! I'm here . I'm enjoying the thread, but my phone is almost dead so I probably won't post too much tonight. I will definitely come back and post more pics, I'll see if I can find some of my older stuff too. Yvonne has really come a long way fast with her settings; they used to be pretty minimal/simple, but within the last 1-1.5 yrs, she has seriously stepped it up. At least, IMO . I buy gems and settings from other vendors, but Yvonne is my "primary" and I consider her a friend, too.

I've been trying hard not to buy much while she's been in Tucson, bc I bought a pair of OMC diamonds from her not terribly long ago, and they were a decent sized purchase money wise. They are @ 5 mm each, tcw is just under a ct, H/I and si1 I think? Then shortly after, I bought a pair of dangly earrings - I don't think that I've posted either purchase over here, the OMCs were not on her etsy page but the dangly earrings were, so some of you may have seen them already. Anyway from Tucson - I ended up getting a pair of pink spinel Vietnamese pears from her (not the same ones she posted on etsy, although I loved those) - mine are a smaller and nice fat pear shape, I think they're 5.75x4 mm, about .85 cts tw or something like that. Just bought them yesterday based off of one quick pic - but as you all have said; I trust her too, lol. I'll use these for accent stones most likely, but not completely sure yet. Mainly I wanted to see how the pink Vietnamese spinels compare to the lavenders - I've seen many Burmese and Tanzanian spinels (add mahenge in there), but never pink Vietnamese spinels. So that should be fun.

Ok I went on way longer than I meant to so I'll include a couple pics now too, lol...sorry!! These are my more recent yvonne buys, but I'll look for pics of completed pieces tomorrow! Good night for now...and thanks for starting this thread

 

[katharath]

I covet katharath's mahenge pieces...

And thank you!!! You know I love many of your pieces too!!

 

[Lovinggems]

Thank you for the photos, every piece looks scrumptious!

 

[Sungura]

apacherose thank you so much for starting this thread. I'll be back to post later today

 

[Sungura]

Here is my collection of jewelry from Yvonne at Cecile Raley Designs



Clockwise by quadrant beginning with upper right quadrant:

Merelani mint garnet pear with diamond and tsavorite melee in rose gold (my very first collage for pricescope)
My purple garnet and color change garnet collection in rose gold: pendant, ring and petal danglies
Some stackers I had made in platinum silver: unheated Montana sapphire, colombian Emerald, grayish blue Tanzanian spinel and dark grey Burma spinel
Gotham pendant with Ceylon blue spinel in platinum silver
5mm tanzanite studs in white gold
Tanzanite pears in silver petal danglies
6mm rhodolite garnet studs in silver
Rhodolite garnet, tanzanite and lavender sapphire 5 stone ring in silver
Merelani mint garnet, mint tourmaline and tsavorite 5 stone ring in silver
Spessartite and Mahenge spinel 3 stone ring in Rose gold
Pale green Tanzanian oligoclase trillion in Gatsby setting in platinum silver

Oh and I can't forget my avatar: paraiba and tanzanite pendant in rose gold. I purchased this paraiba melee last February 2015 after her Tuscon trip before paraiba was everyone's obsession. Hoping to do a coordinating ring this year

 

[Desertrose]

Gorgeous Sungura, and everyone else! Can't wait till I can post my new Yvonne stuff here!

I detailed one set in the 'show me your paraiba' thread...

Then there will be a hauyne ring/earring set coming too!

She makes great gem choices, and I really appreciate the accuracy of her photos.

 

[caf]

All beautiful.

Sungura - you have quite the lovely collection. Enjoy.

 

[lilmosun]

wow...so cool to see your beautiful collection in one place Sungura. Drool on the mint pear ring...Yvonne and I discussed a ring in her beautiful pear setting but that further down on my list...so many projects, so little money

 

[mochiko42]

I have a few Yvonne pieces.
Hauyne earrings and Columbian emerald & diamond pendant.

The two rings on the top and bottom are from Yvonne. I sold the tsav 5-stone but still have the Mahenge and chrysoberyl hexagon 5-stone.


Just purchased. I haven't received these yet.

 

[Acinom]

Stunning new additions ladies. I love this thread!!! Yvonne sources such amazing stones and I love the feminine and organic style of the designs.

 

[katharath]

Sungura, love your montage/pics, so cool!!!

I have sold a lot of Yvonne pieces as I've changed my collection, but here are a few more pics of some of my stuff. I'm just posting pics of things I still own, bc my old pics are on old phones and I can't get to them, lol.

The pendant is a piece she made for me a few years ago, and I wear it every day - I love it. There's a story behind it but I've posted it a few times here so won't go into it again. It's lightning ridge black opal in 14 k rose gold.

The rings are emerald; mahenge and mint; mahenge and Burmese spinels (and teeny diamonds); and the other twin stone ring is blue cc garnet. I've held onto the blue cc garnet ring even though it's an old piece and simple in style bc, although you can't tell from the pic, the cc garnets are GORGEOUS in person. Very beautiful blue green color, but they always photograph looking steely blue or purplish, (purple is the color they change to). They're one of the nicest pairs of these I've yet to see, not too dark, and nicely cut. I keep thinking that at some point I'll have them reset into something nicer, so I hang onto them

The earrings - studs are mahenges, still the nicest pair I've owned. And the other pair is all Burmese spinels and little OEC diamonds.

Love this thread, enjoying every pic!!