So looking in, did you did you notice any trends in Vegas? Did you pay attention to the social media stuff happening?
So I paid attention to the social media stuff that was happening with JC with Jamie with JCK and Agta. I, I tend to buy and shop and source before the shows. Because I mean, it's one of those things where I don't want to feel rushed, and I don't want to bide by. And so I go to I used to go to Vegas, and Vegas used to be one of my favorite shows. But it's just become one of those shows where I can do the same type of networking. I can do the same type of buying, I can find what I need at my own time. Not going to Vegas doesn't give me the connection with couture. But then with shows like Mellie I have it. So I don't really know I didn't have I had FOMO last year when I think oh, I really did. This year, I had FOMO for about two hours. And then I was like, I'm good. Like I'm, I'm good. Like,
I That's funny. I didn't have FOMO last year and this year I had FOMO I don't know why. But I stocked everything. I saw it all. So yeah,
did you What made you decide not to go because you used to be like, you were in it like girl. I mean, I have never seen you were like an Avenger. When you were in Vegas, you were like moving a mile a minute. It was amazing. Well, thank
you. And I still do that at trade shows a little bit. But um, I don't have any clients who do Vegas anymore. So for me, yeah, so for me, it's like, it would just be like a networking trip. And it's a very expensive networking trip. So it's
more expensive than Tucson these days. I mean, round, I think for that trip by the time I was done, and I priced everything out. It didn't it didn't make sense. It really didn't. There were other things, there were other things that I wanted to do and other places that I wanted to put business funds into, then go to Vegas, and I'm not a retail store so I don't need to do Vegas. But I get going to Vegas, for certain people, I do I do. There is a logic to going to Vegas for certain type of designer, if their dream is to end up in contour. Going to Vegas is a great place because you can network with the right people to get to get that step ahead. And know who to talk to, you know how to network with with people who are not afraid to kind of just do it and throw themselves into the ring of fire. But if couture is not where you want and there's other shows you want, you want to focus on. That's, that's what I say, focus, focus your attention.
Totally, there's more emerging design, which you know, I love emerging and independent designers. It's they're more women. And that's an easier trip for me. So yeah, that's where my No but I did have major FOMO this year because there is like, I mean, you've been to couture like the end Vegas in general, like the community that like everybody, it feels like very, very community centric, which I love. So, yeah,
I felt that I I just I just became a member of AGS. So I use conclave as as that as that form for me, because it's so small and the networking is so strong. And there is a big mix between the retail environment and the wholesale environment. So that's kind of where I get my my few my few days of being a social butterfly and then I can go back into my house and be like okay, guys.
No, I'm fine. Totally. Well, let's let's like kick this off formally. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell everybody who doesn't know how you got started?
Okay, so hi everybody. Thank you Liz for having me. I'm so excited to be part of this. I I've actually been watching what you created and totally stalking you for the last few years. And I think it is. It's, it's so needed. It's so fantastic. And you create a network where people can really really trust each other and really trust you. And I think that is absolutely key. So I love what you've created and because you've really given a phenomenal platform for so many people who really needed it. And I love it. I'm America summer glide for anyone who doesn't know I create did a social media gemstone sourcing and custom design company called dermology. Geek that five years ago, and the initial focus was gemstone education. And it expanded past education into sourcing into coaching into and custom design. The main aspect of my career was always in manufacturing and jewelry engineer. So I have a lot of like manufacturing and engineering and putting the pieces together and suppliers and vendors and factories. And so that was like the bulk of my, my life in corporate, I worked. I was the headstone buyer for two to three Africa. I was a lead engineer and Product Manager for David Yurman. And a bunch of other things along the way. And then five years ago, I started Tamala G eek. And that's how Liz and I connected, because I just decided to create a giant nerd page for a bunch of geeks was like, we'll see what happens. And five years later, six years later, it's pretty cool. Pretty cool. Yeah. And
when you start it, like gem ology geek, you create it, like quite a splash in terms of like, your social media presence and growth and things like that. And you're so good at social media, how did you create and grow an engaged following? I know, it's different than
it is now. You know, I want to say it didn't change. But from the algorithm and the analytic perspective. It, it did. I don't like rules, I'm really not a good rule follower. I follow the rules. But I don't want to be told how I should create how I should design how I should run my business. And I say that because when I started Tamala, G geek, I used it as, like a blog format, versus anything else that might be out there. So a lot of people were using it to post pictures and to post some pieces, or to post whatever they did. This is six years ago, this was when filters were still huge, and no videos. So you had very little and then videos came out. And I just decided that I was going to show people the things that were coming across my desk. I started it, and then I got a job at David Yurman. And I couldn't do anything. And it's sad, it's sad cold for about a year and a half. Until one day, I was in the district and I came across like a rough piece of, of Burmese, Sapphire, lice, these pieces are like impossible to come across today. And I kicked myself because there was an entire tray of them and they were cheap back then. And I took a picture of it posted to social media, I posted like three different three different like, facts about it, nothing major, those three facts turned into gem occations, which is what I became known for, which is a layman's version of the full facts of, of that new gemstones. And so, to answer your question was I I just tried to stay true to myself, you know, I, I never, I never followed what everybody else was telling everyone to do. I just posted what I really loved. Um, I did have, I did have a plan when I was posting, I did create, you know, a calendar, and I did say, okay, you know, we're going to mix it up, we're going to do videos, we're going to do posts, not I don't have a million hours to write all these justifications every single day, because I was spending a lot of time writing them and then editing the videos and making sure the content was correct. Making sure there was no fuzz or fingerprints, making sure my nails looked good, like these little things for each video. And I that's how it really started and that's how it took off. And years later, I say I stay true to that. I you know, I don't really like to show a lot of my face on social media, which Yeah, I know I should. But I found that if I stayed, I found that staying true to myself and who I was, was much more beneficial to my brand than posting a bunch of nonsense that people would look at and kind of get confused what I was actually doing. Um Now that's not to say that sometimes I throw in weird and crazy things occasionally for videos and like to throw glitter all over my apartment. Not saying I don't do that either. But it worked with the brand. I have I kept having, I really, when I developed homology, I really knew what the brand was, which I know not everybody knows what their brand is, or the identity. And I knew what genealogies identity really, really was. So I could always post and I always had that in the back of my mind, even when I took a picture of a of a stone, I would say, okay, is this worthy of a being a Jumanji post, and not all of it was. So you kind of have to like, sit back and trust your gut. And when you really know your business and your brand, do it. But also, don't be afraid. I mean, there are posts that I put up that I was like, Oh, this is gonna like, this is gonna flop. And months, weeks later, they did, they did quite well, they brought me clients, they brought me new designers, they brought me attention in ways that was really positive. I think the best way to throw in a little bit of advice in there, because you really focus on the emerging designers is you gotta trust the process. And I hate that, like, I hate when someone tells me that I'm like, if you tell me that I'm going to go run or the other way and throw glitter against a wall. But you have to, you have to trust the process. And you have to know, you have to know yourself well enough to say, Okay, I did a collection, the collection is great. But it's not really my the DNA that I want it to be and build upon it make changes every season. And I think what people like, and I have this conversation with some people, I think people still like that old school mentality of Instagram, of going to a page and seeing identities, seeing a brand and not just seeing a whole bunch of random posts. And with no story attached to it, no, no content. And they're just like, oh, okay, it's, it's a ring. Great. But to ring on just a plain background. And it's beautiful. I think people like to see it in the world. And they like to see it in context of how it can have, how it, how they can use it, how it can affect their lives. And I know that for my clients, the pieces that always sell the best. The stones that always sell the fastest are the ones that I put into a narrative of some sort. I give it a story. So people can feel connected to it.
I love that because you do have like definitely, like a very clear voice and you kind of came out the gate with that. But how did you kind of come into it with such clarity about your brand?
Um I think I think what it was was it was finally a time in my life that I be who I really was. And I had worked corporate for so long. So I was other people's identity, if that makes sense. So like, I wasn't designing like, so I was a designer for Alexis BatAAr. So I had to alter how I designed how I created to fit that world that I went to David Gorman and Judith Ripka and several other designers along the way. And I had to keep kind of changing, not changing, but I had to keep a debt altering what my style was. So when I was getting ready to leave your men, and I was able to actually say like, Hey, I'm I'm gonna start this. It was easy. So I had always loved gemstones. And I think what really helped was the first five or six posts were not the best. They were all pictures. They weren't the best, but they got a lot of attention. And then after when I went to Tucson, that first Tucson was a really tough Tucson, and I came back and I had a lot of content. And I think that's when I really found my voice and I really found what I was good at. Because big spectacular gemstones that I could shoot well became became my thing became my thing. And I really don't have a better answer other than that, boys probably was always there. I mean, I was always a nerd and a geek in high school was always the art kid like I I may have like, I may have had style but like i i was i is awkward. I mean, like, you know, I'm not gonna say like, yeah, I was so cool. I had a lot of friends. No, but I like I knew who I was, and I was okay with it. And I think I woke up one day and was like, alright, Jamala cheeky is about being who you are, um, and it, it helps me help heal in a lot of ways because it became this place of like, accepting being this nerdiness geek about this about facts of the jewelry industry. And I think that's what helped me build such a large network of people was because it was a safe place for everyone to be exactly who they were, no matter what they were. And that's what I wanted. And that was the biggest thing for me.
Yeah, and I think that that's what's interesting about your following. And that's what's been so interesting about you the whole time is that you have this like engagement, like, within your followers, like you don't just have a large follower account, you have an engaged following, which is not hard to make, which is not easy to maintain. It's very challenging.
Yeah, I mean, I think those numbers do fluctuate, and there are times a lot of those. That engagement that did change. It did go a lot private, which was really kind of weird for me to digest, because I was like, Oh, you're not reading this on the post, you're now sending me this long message privately. Okay, I'm okay with this. Like, I'm, it's fine. But I realized that it, it was and you know, the best part is that when you I do get, I do get comments, and people are really engaged. I was a big blocker. I mean, you know, this from day one, I went on blocking parties, like it was my job. Could you imagine he could have been bigger, right away? Absolutely. But I hate spam accounts. And I hate fake followers and I, it's this whole, I live in this world of the power of a handshake, like the old school Jewish mentality where it's like, ethics and honesty and integrity. And that's how I ran the business for so long. And I still do. It's how I run the business. Because it's like, if you're not real, I don't want you following me. I don't want you taking my content. And I just, it was, it was like, a thorn in my side, when everyone was buying followers and paying for bots and all these things. And I was seeing people grow massively. But then all of a sudden, they had zero engagement, they had the exact same engagement. That's going alright. You do you do you? You must like the private
and I like this too. I mean, I'm, I've gotten over my vanity, the vanity metrics of likes, and followers and stuff like that. And I love having one on one TM conversations. I think that that's, I know, like that I, you want the ease of like posting once and like a lot of people seeing it, but there's something really special about the one on one interactions. And that leads to like, longevity and clients and like really deep connections. Yeah,
absolutely. Um, it's funny, because a lot of those conversations now, like get out of Instagram and go into the text message. Because messages just get like lost in the hole and the whole world, right. But I agree there, there is something so nice about being able to message someone privately and say like, I really love the piece you did. And you don't need to say much more. Or you can just say it privately. And you know, at first kind of like, Well, why didn't you not tell the whole world you like my piece? Like, come on, be out there. But not everybody? Not everyone's like that. You know, some people want to be private, some people are on social media that same way, the same way you and I are right. And we kind of have to sit back and accept that. But you're right. Those are the coolest conversations, especially when you have especially when people reach out to you when they need help. Yeah, those are those are the best ones.
Um, how do you think that social media is impacted? We know how it's impacted your business like I mean, essentially your business was created on Instagram wasn't it an end to like networking and talking to people offline too but how has it affected like the gemstone industry as a whole
good and bad yeah. So when I was so okay, I believe and and correct me if I'm wrong. I may have been one of the first to strictly do gemstones strictly terms of influencers. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to take I don't want to sound like Oh, I was the first to do it because I don't like being that person. But between like Ben, you, Hannah. Danielle. Well, my Mr. Becky,
I didn't do any stones.
You didn't do anything with gemstones. Becky really didn't do a whole lot of some sometimes she did some gemstones up. But mainly it was a lot more antique jewelry. Hannah did more. Hannah did her doodles and some gemstones. I Miss Hannah. Yeah, I detail. She good content. If
anybody remembers diamond doodles from like, when she like first started, she did doodles with gemstones. And they took a long time to create them. And that's why she doesn't do
much anymore. But she was she was super talented. So two things happened. Um, it was great. It was great for my business, because I was one of the first and they gave access to a lot of people, especially during COVID access to find gemstones and, and things that they didn't have access to, and especially into those 19 as well. Except, what ended up happening was the overseas markets saw the benefit of what was happening in the US where suppliers and vendors who are part of the Agta world EGS world WGA, the major organizations and the major trade shows who were creating Instagram accounts to show their product not to sell it, but to show it. The overseas market saw that as Oh, they're selling their stuff. So now we are to, and this is going to answer to your questions. A create a lot of fraud, and a lot of dishonesty with a product that's out there. Because you have a lot of overseas suppliers who actually don't own the product, who don't even have that product on hand. And if you look at it, and you compare 20 pages, the pages are identical, they are bookmatched to each other. The other thing that's major was that people couldn't trust, people saw everyone posting every gemstone, so then they had a hard time knowing who was legitimate and who wasn't. Okay, so Eric was on the scene. And Paul is on the scene. And Kim Collins is on the scene and people like that who are doing it and we see it and they're trustworthy. Great. And there's a lot more people I could have that list, but they're just people that came to my mind really quickly.
Yeah, that was oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, no, cool. Were you. Somebody I forgot which what we were talking about when this question came up. But Lindsey, who's listening now she was wondering, like, how, who you can trust in terms of like the the Instagram gem dealers like to buy from, you know, how can you trust that? And how do you figure it out?
You want my honest opinion, because I'm gonna get into a lot of trouble for this.
I mean, ask get references, right? You
ask, you get references, and you go into each of those Instagram accounts, and dead serious little top three buttons, click it and click about this cow if their location is hidden. And it says that they've changed their Instagram account, like 15 times, or five times or 10 times. Don't touch them with a 10 foot pole. Not so good. I don't do that. So check locality of where the account was created. It's also a way and this is really screwed up. It's also a way for you to see if any of the accounts were stolen accounts. Because if it says that account was was their name was changed five times in the crowd was started in 2006 2007. That was an eight. No, no, no, sorry. 1718 That's another way you could do it. But you have to be very careful. Um, I It's one of the reasons I became an ag na GTA member. It's also a reason I became an AGS member, because there is a lot of fraud on Instagram. And there's a lot of dishonesty with the overseas suppliers. But I'm not saying that all of them because there's dishonesty with us suppliers too.
It's a tough, tough, tough world. You have to ask the question. I don't love to do this, but for your network was I will.
If somebody is looking for something and they see something on a page, shoot me a DM And I will do my own little investigation work to see if they're legitimate or not. Because there's a lot of designers who It breaks my heart, I walk through, I walk through trade shows, I walked with couture, I walk through Mellie. And I see synthetic material that designers believe are natural, or extremely treated. I'm super small fact, for everyone who's listening. Lab grown Tourmaline hit the market. And it's getting close to being identical. But look for gas bubbles, you can see them. There's gas bubbles, and if you loop it, or even just with your naked eye, look for gas bubbles, or ripples. Little facts I'm like. Yeah. But yeah, so I would just ask the questions as people where they were they so three things I would say off the bat. If there's a stone you're interested in, ask the supplier where they're located. If they send to the United States, what type of carrier service they used. Okay, because you want to make sure it's fully insured. After you have the introduction. Play the game alone. How long have you been selling gemstones? That's the first or second generation company, third generation company? Do you have a stone on hand? Or is it part of a network and then ask for additional pictures. And ask for additional pictures with something really stupid in the picture like a fork, or a knife, or a crayon, or a marker. Because then you can prove the color. Be really, really careful. And I know Liz, you've actually talked about this before, but be really, really careful of saturation and tone changes. Of, of images, there's a lot of Tourmaline a lot of spin a lot of carbon out there that's in some of these accounts where people increase these the color to make everything look better. But kind of use your own judgment, look at nail tone, look at skin color, look cuticles before you jump and say oh my god, that by car tourmalines amazing. And then again, the male and it's not what you bought, probably
the best thing you could do if you could write is go to Tucson and like make in person connections.
To Sun is is one of the is one of the best things you can do. Also video chat, or video chat with some of my clients, I hop on video and I just throw up stones and I'm like, hey, the colors a little off in the room. I swapped out the light bulbs in my in my office occasionally. Because if if it's really sunny out, I go to a cooler color in the office to balance out make sure that you know the stone that they pick is that color and not when they go outside. Now there is always you know, shifting colors and high chromium. So you know there's always gonna be a little shifty shifting but you are working with a natural natural material.
Totally. I listened made a good point in the chat here that it seems like Instagram created a consumer who would ask for stones that are not realistic to source regularly or affordably.
The dreams Yeah,
people dreaming of, you know, something? Yeah, the uniforms. So it probably sounds a lot of designers on these like wild hunts for stones that they're not able to find in the customers price point.
Well, yes, especially when that stone doesn't form in that color. And they're like, Oh, but I saw it on Instagram. Like yeah, you did it was lab growth. And they're like, No, it was and I was like buy it. Take a risk buy it, send it to a lab i i don't i don't touch that territory because it's like I when you're doing what you when you're doing what I'm doing for so long. There's a certain common sense of like I saw that on Instagram. That's not the way the earth works. Like that's just not that's not how this works. Now I've come across bizarre things, bizarre things and I bought them and I I've sold them. But they're sometimes so bizarre that I send them and get tested before I send them before I sell them to make sure that they were bizarre that I wasn't like, Oh, hey, this was kind of too good to be true. So you have to do that you have to do that back end search. And this goes back to the other question. You know, if you have a supplier or vendor that you trust that you can have these conversations with the hard conversation, and the honest conversation, you'll have better outcome with the product that you're using than anything else. Because you can trust them. You can trust the process, you can trust who you're talking to, you know, Instagram, you log on to Instagram, and there's some vendor who has a seven carat tri party color Tourmaline that's this big. And there's no inclusions in no. And it's this big. Use your judgement, if it was that big. And it was as many colors as it is. There is a very good chance it's treated and dyed. And the reason I say that is because the mineral market has really saturated a lot of the good Tourmaline from our side of the industry, they if a good crystal is able to be sold as a crystal even if it's broken, they'll sell it as a crystal, they'll get more money than if it being faceted. So you just have to be really careful. Um, you know, there's a lot of like the Madagascar material that's coming out right now is really cool, vibrant colors, the garments on the sugary side. So if you if there's like designers out there who liked the more included stuff, you can get really beautiful. Searching garnets, Mandarin garnets, they're gonna be on the sugary side, which is like little tiny crystals. But the price point is really good. The biggest thing you have to kind of worry about is like those unicorn stones that are tourmalines that are everywhere on Instagram. Or maybe it's just my page.
There were like bicoloured terminally like bicolour tourmalines in general, I think are having a moment I think they were like everywhere in Vegas. That's like one of the big trends I saw. Did you notice any specific trends?
Um, you know Orange is a hot color right now. So it was a it was in Tucson. So I saw orange being really hot. Spinelli is having a major comeback, especially if you can get your especially if you can get your hands on those like icy purples. And even the even the deep even like the deep grays. Um, what else? Oh, gosh. Orange Garnet across the board. Tourmaline mint Tourmaline lagoon, if you can find it. What else? I'm thinking, Reba.
I mean, so hot right now. Haribo
is really really hot and there's actually some good material that is not insane, insane. Prices, you just have to be cautious about where it's coming from. A lot of the Mozambique material even the Afghani material can be really pretty and break the bank to too much versus the Brazilian material.
And pearls, pearls to vibrant or like bright. I feel like is in right now.
I would tell people to wait on pearls. And there's someone having Can you guys hear us? Oh no. Okay. All right. Okay. Um, so pearls are pearls are having a major moment just be really cautious buying buying expensive pearls because the price is going to begin to drop. Do you know the story about why pearls like all of a sudden became the most expensive thing on the planet in the last two years? Do you know that story was no I don't the influencer.
I didn't hear that. No.
So super quick. There was an influencer in Japan who went to the Hong Kong show. She bought a few pearls when live on Instagram. And she sold like a quarter of a million dollars in Afternoon selling pearls are the Chinese side of the Instagram world. An investor invested in her and attempted to buy a bunch of the farms and invested in the farms. But then what they were doing is they're buying up all the product at the at the auctions. So drove the product up so quickly and so fast that accoya is before COVID Were like, a few dollars, and now they're 20 or $30 for a stone. Maybe more than that. ropes are outrageous. Tahitians are I don't buy pearls because the prices are just incredible. So what happened is you have all of these things that were occurring. And you have the you have this major influencer, you have major investors who are buying and I drove up the product price. So wait, the Prices, prices are coming down. They're coming down slowly. But it's not a great time, or buying investment level pearls because they will come down, they're not going to come down drastically, but they will come down. And you know, I I work with, I work with some of the auctions I you know, I can get you stuff at a little bit better price so they can work. I can work on some works around some of the political issues. But yeah, so that's what drove prices up.
Wild. I didn't know that. Do you see this question in the chat here. I'm having trouble knowing how much to pay for stone, I mostly work with Rose cut calves, and generally pay less than $10 per stone. But I've seen some fancy cut stones for 2300. If I want to eventually move into fancy cut sapphires, emeralds, etc, what kind of prices should I look for? Or for somebody who's like new to stone buying? Okay,
so this is my best advice. If you have the client, start training your client on better materials now versus not. And I'm not saying you need to drop $2,300 on a stone because that's a I remember the first time I did that, and I thought I was gonna have a panic attack. You know, and, and, and it it gets easier $10 turns into 15, which turns into 30, which turns into 50, which turns into 100 You'll get there. Um, but the biggest thing is when you're working with Rose cuts, look at the color that you want, focus on the color, focus on the cut, and then focus on the price. Because if you find great material, you may want to spend a little bit more because then you can, you can price up your jewelry, and you can balance, you can balance other things out, you have to be careful with gold prices right now. But if you do that, I'm spending $2,300 on a rose cut. I mean, if you're working with diamonds, I say that can it's very easy to drop that. But it's very hard for me to tell you to tell anyone what price ranges they should focus on. Because there are people that I know that focus on the $2,300 price range and not. And they they're lucky they can sell 20 pieces a year. And then I know people who focus on the 10 to $30 price range. And they're they're doing extraordinarily well. So if that price range works for you. Tape, keep it if you are in the ability to move from $10 to $12 or $12 $15. It does put more money in the bank at the end. But it isn't more of an investment in the front, which is scary. The other thing is that when you start using better materials, especially at the gate, you have a lot less inventory. Later on, you you you buy smarter, you buy more carefully. You don't just you don't just buy to buy buy to buy for stock you buy what you need, versus, you know, I know some designers who have a massive amount of inventory and they're never going to use that because they bought whatever they bought, what they needed or what they thought they needed. And then six months later, styles change or trends change or their own personal designs change So don't go crazy with that when you see something special, maybe it's $100. It's a $200. Rose cut. Try it. See if you have a client for it. You never know sometimes you do.
So say somebody say a designer doesn't have a DIA or doesn't know a ton about gemstones and maybe isn't interested in like a full gi certification. Do you have any other tips for like learning more about gemstones? That was not a questionnaire. Sorry,
there is a book? Can I have a second? I might have it. Just
because I think the pricing stuff is tough to to start to understand it, um, like what things should cost and what you should be paying for things. I think that's tough.
It's very tough, and you're not going to find anything with pricing for periods, you're not going to find anything that you actually should trust regarding pricing, because pricing is dependent on pricing is dependent on the market. And currently it's really being driven by the stock market heavily. Okay, so there are two books. One, one second, okay, so there are two books. I actually bought these books. I'm not downplaying any of you by saying this, but I bought these books for my niece and my nephew, because they want to get into rocks and minerals. And they've learned a lot because they're easy. They're by the Smithsonian. So I've used this book as like a good like go to because it has basics of formation, most hardness and then color option. If you want to talk more, like geology, and like mineral mineralogy is this book. So those are the two that I kind of keep on hand when I need to, like there are five my own my own logic, my own stuff. But GAA is not for everybody. Either. Is you show
the first book again, sorry. Yeah. Then maybe send me a picture after?
Yeah, yeah, hearing.
Perfect. screenshot. Okay,
perfect. So and they're not that expensive. I think this book was like $13 and this one was 24. In Canada was 30. Sorry, guys. Did you Yeah, so those are those are good ones. What's other, um, you know, ask people. I'm, I'm dead serious with you. If you go to Tucson, or you go to college, or you go to Vegas, gemstone people who love to talk about their rocks. I mean, these are not people that these they like to talk about their rocks. So, you know, ask, and you're more than welcome to ask me to. Um, so Ga Ga is great for basic. But it doesn't teach you everything. I remember when I got on GIS, I got this. I know everything. We're good. I went to Tucson I knew I went to Tucson. Two years later. I knew nothing. And when I say I knew nothing, I knew nothing. Because I thought I knew everything. And you realize that you know nothing because you're in a room with doctors, and scientists that have multiple doctorates in, you know, Crystal and whatever. So, you know, there's always someone who can teach you more, ask the questions. The basic stuff, the books are good. The books are good. Just be careful with look at look at cleavage. So that's a big one, and that's what's going to cause a stone to crack or fracture. And that's if it has a really big cleavage. You want to make sure that you're not using too much pressure with the stone. The rule of thumb that I always use, especially when I used to set stones, I used to tell myself set everything as if it was an opal and then you don't break stones. cuz if you trade everything with kid gloves and you're a little bit, you end up with a little bit more luck than putting too much pressure and snapping stone.
And also, I do also want to mention that like, has two songs, not the only jump show, there's local gym shows too, and like they're smaller, and they're not going to have the same, you know, amount of people you can see. But if you're like, looking to just try something out, there's definitely local shows. Also a question from Jennifer, do you have recommendations on where to send stones for testing?
Yeah, so, um, IGI I'm trying to pull up the link right now. So I like IGI. Lab. Yeah. I'm gonna put the I'm gonna throw the link in the IG IGI will do color and they will do diamonds. Um, they're cheaper than DIA and they're faster than gcia. If you need if you need locality, it's a little tougher. That's going to be a little bit more expensive. But, so there's IGI. There's, I'm going to send another one. There's a guy in New York, Travis. Okay, trying to find AGL. Oh, AGL is great to AGL. As you guys know, AGL AGL is good, too. That's
what at least should set in the chat here.
Yeah. I, what do you actually do? What do I actually do?
I meant to ask that in a different way. What What services do you provide? Or like offer? Because you do some of this like sourcing and like, yeah, consulting, right. Yeah.
So I do all of that. So like, I have clients. So okay, so the easy is like, you call me and you're like, hey, I need a sapphire. And I go, Okay, give me five minutes, let me look at an inventory and see if I have it, I'll ask you the details of what you need. There are only been a few things I can't find, I'll be honest, I'm good. I'm really good. Because I have a big network of people and I can almost find anything. And if I can't find it, I'll get a cut. Um, so I work with a lot of local lapidary arts, but I also work with people all over the country as well. And so my the services I provide is sourcing, supplying, you can use me just like any other gemstone supplier that you may come across, I post Instagram, my website is fully set up. Their pricing on the website is for retail. So just shoot me a DM and I'll set you up with a private code. That's your code. So the pricing changes to wholesale. And that's kind of that's kind of what I do. And then I do coaching with, with different aspects of the industry. So like, I'll do coaching with manufacturing, and advice on design development. There's a lot of different things. I am very customizable because of my background. But I generally focus on the sourcing, the manufacturing and the production of pieces. And then when the sourcing is easy. You just send me an email, send me a DM and you're like, hey, I need a I need this. And what do you have? And I probably have it in stock. If I don't have it in stock, I can pull it in, um, and anything can be done on memo, you know, and it's pretty, it's pretty simple. I mean, I can do the weird and the rare. I mean, talking about tourmalines. I mean, I have I have these guys just sitting on my desk right now. But yeah, so I do that I also did these designer boxes, where if you have a client and you're working on a custom and the client wants to see a few options, I do these boxes that I can send you and I can send them to you as fully set or I don't know which one I just picked it up or just a few and so I can like set them up for you. So you have a bunch of things that you can show your clients. The labels are all removed and they're set up for you to to display for your client.
Nice. Do you do? question in the chat here your sourcing services are they for law Are there stones only or can you find smaller ones as well?
Now, I mean
it sounds like anything like your that Yeah.
Yeah, like here's a here's a 130 Garnet Melissa discuss shifts. This gets really cool and he glows bright red. Yeah, that one and then I have like a I have a Malaita 407. So nice. Yeah. So, inventory I keep anything from point. I mean I have Mally to so inventory, I keep anything from like one millimeter up to about five. And then if you need bigger I can source bigger. But then I also have like the weird and the rare stuff to like I have I have dinosaur bone. I have purple lace cow Sedney. I have Opal black, coral, um, none of the weird stuff. Because I also do, I also do specimens. So I like I can do meteorite as well. So if you need meteorite source, I can do meteorite. And then I can also do crystals, crystal as well. If you're looking for pieces that you want to cut, or you want to custom do, we can do that as well. Very cool. Very cool. Um,
okay. Any last questions from the group? I have to keep this to an hour, I would love to talk to you for like two hours like we did on Instagram. But maybe we can have you come back to talk about manufacturing a little bit more, because they know people have questions that anybody have any questions? And Erica, do you have any final thoughts? Oh, people are DM are going to DM you? You're gonna get some DMs.
Great. Oh, great. Do you? So thoughts for the group? Oh, go ahead. Um, yeah, I'm easy to work with, like, you know, text me Call me whatever you need. I normally can have what you need in about two, three days. I mean, if it's crazy, and it's a unicorn, you gotta give me a week. But I can work that way. Um, last there was a question that I was going to answer. Mm hmm. Do we answer everything? Oh, so the my last thought, if you guys have any more questions, um, is, just be cautious where you're getting your materials from right now. That is my last thing I'm saying to you. And that's not like to pump business. To me. That's just for caution. I say to everybody, there's a lot of there's a, there's a lot of imitation, there's a lot of LAB color coming out, that's being used more and more. So just be cautious where you buy. And sometimes if the price is too good to be true. It may be too good to be true. Because you also don't want to be in a situation where you spend a lot of money, and it's not what you thought. And then you're stuck sending it to a lab which costs you more and do that. And the biggest thing is ask questions. Ask ask questions. If you're unsure, ask them ask was asked me. If there's somebody that you know you're unsure about vendor or supplier, I'm happy to help. And if I can't help all I'll connect you to someone else to That's
what I'm saying. I won't be able to help with gemstones. Like I have no idea. I actually didn't think this was actually an eye opening chat for me. And I know I need to do more chats about materials and manufacturing and process and like being at the bench and stuff. That's not something we've tapped into in the state gold collective a lot but it's such a huge part of an independent designers business is the sourcing of gemstones. And I know that but I just like don't think about it all the time and your client doesn't think about all that goes into that either. So dumbing down that conversation and really trying to educate them I think is super important.
Well it is and like here's a given example. I'm actually here are three things you guys should have if you guys don't, and I would say invest in it right away. Is sorry, my desk is is a really is an IT they're expensive, but a small mini way just to just to check wait. I carry this with me in Tucson, because it may it validates the wait And the price and so I can double check myself and a good loop. And that's an I would say that even if you're not sure how to use it you can always message me You can Google it. I mean, it's it. They're not easy. They're not hard to use, but a good loop. And then
now I think that the box is a is a three way light. That will also do black. Because a lot of the cool garnets that are coming out right now.
Yeah, the color change stones are crazy. But uh, yeah.
I'm like this guy, this guy shifts hard. Lessons really well, I don't know if I can get this one to shift in front of you guys. So this one will shift.
Oh, yeah.
So a lot of like an and you just have to be careful with it. Because if you buy it on like a stormy day, like it's raining really hard in New York, and the sky is really, really white. And then you take it outside and it's very yellow, there is a good chance that stone is going to be redder when you take it outside. And it could be almost like Ruby, that magenta red versus hot pink. So you just have to be cautious. Same thing with blue. sapphires who'd be very careful with is that that that level of element sometimes can look different in different states under different sun. So have fun.
Out there, everyone.
Good luck. No, but no, I'm happy to help. I mean, I really am. And that's why it's important to know where the locality of the stone came. Because you can know if a stone is going to really shift or not. And you can ask people if it's going to shift, if you buy from a vendor who doesn't have a black light, or even a color change light on them, be cautious that they're not checking themselves. Because if they're not checking, then they don't know if the stone themselves is color changed color shift or isn't stable. And that's the other thing you want to make sure of. and a weird fact. If you're working near a window, and you have your stones in a jump box, turn them upside down when you're not working with them. Because light can affect them. And some stones aren't stable, like coincides not stable. Some courses are not stable. So they can bleach out over time. Now I'm not talking about like, five days, I'm talking about like a month or two months. But so just be just be cautious with that. That's why like I keep all of my stuff in a double lined box. Because I don't I don't want to deal with I dealt with it. I've dealt with it. And it's a it's a depressing story when you buy something and then a month later to turn.
Totally. Well, thanks for all of that there. And tips in this conversation. And I am now fascinated by all this. I don't know why I hadn't thought about it so much the sourcing of stones and all of the things you have to think about as a designer when you're choosing them, but this was very helpful. We appreciate your time. Well,
thank you all for having me. And Liz, congratulations on this. I mean, I know you're no I know like I'm saying like, Oh my god great job. No, but it's like you've been rocking and rolling for this for so long. And I know that what you have done is so appreciative. And people really love it.
Thank you.
It's a good needed. It's needed. Totally.
I mean, we need we all need a community so and it's a good to have a place to like for everyone to talk to each other and ask questions and all of that and like then people like you come on and you're like just DM me and it's great to have like all of the resources. Yeah, if
you so I'm going to just throw my Instagram link down just to make everyone's life easier because I feel like if I don't do that, people might not find me because they're mean I'm not that hard to find it and I'm
on it. I got you.
Oh the shownotes to and the websites the same to the website. New sounds are going to get dropped. The last thing I'll say I work with everybody. So don't get impeded by pricing. Really don't. I really I like to. I want to negotiate with you. I am not the type of person where it's like, Oh, don't ask me for a better price. You know what if you're just getting started ask me for a better price. Maybe I can, they can help you out. Um, I've done collaborations with people before. So just ask the question, what's the worst that happened? Someone says No,
that's no, that's the worst that can happen. Cool. I love that. Well, thank you so much for your time. And thank you.
Thank you, everybody, and have a wonderful day. Thank you guys. Bye bye.
