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Destination Australia

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Last Friday, we launched a brand new show titled “Destination Australia.”.  Before I kick things off, first I want to …

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The Basel Show

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Earlier this week, I spent a few days in Switzerland at the Basel watch and jewelry fair.  If there is ever a show to gain inspiration and feel the pulse of the luxury and high- end market, this is the place!  Exhibitors spend a minimum of $100,000 for the smallest square of space up to well over $25,000,000 for a booth the size of a small apartment complex to exhibit their newest collections.  With an attending audience, waiting to be wowed from all over the globe, world wide exhibitors pull out all the stops to showcase their brand and their take on the newest trends.  To say this is a luxury event is an understatement!  In 3 days, we covered every inch of 4 large expo halls with 2 floors each looking at the latest trends and meeting with old friends.

While part of the reason for this trip is to be inspired and see upcoming trends, in a way it is also for us to run some checks and balance for our own styling that we have already set forth and produced.  One aspect, which makes me very proud- as part of our design team is that some of our ideas from both our past and present collections were on full display from some of the leading and most legendary jewelry houses.  Some of the items, which we have brought in the past have been reinterpreted by these major brands and were being featured as the “hero” images for their marketing.  To a degree, it makes me very happy to know that our ideas may have influenced their collections.  I have always believed, there is very little separating our collections from theirs aside from name and price- points.  When I look at our production, I know the amount of time and effort we put in to the details to produce beautiful jewelry.  From the actual selection and source of the materials to the detail work of casting, stringing, setting or even polishing and finishing!  Our inspiration has always been to offer beautiful quality jewelry to you at more affordable prices so that everyone can enjoy our gems.

For my Mom and I during this trip, this was a major highlight.  The Basel show is known for being the most prestigious exhibit in the world.  While we saw beautiful and extremely limited pearls from jewelry houses who have cemented their own place in history for well deserved reasons, it reinforced my notion that our collections, especially Prestige Pearls, could fit in to the same categories.  At the end of the day, these same historical jewelers and my family share the same sources for our pearls and an unwavering dedication to detail.  I bring this up, because I want you to feel the reassurance that you are getting the same gems that are offered by these major brands with little separating them but price.  However, there is a little twist.  With all due respect, I feel that my family and I represent a deeper degree of personality in our jewelry.  Knowing that the 3 of us have personally selected, matched, and oversaw production of our jewelry adds a more artisan and personal aspect to our pieces.  For my family and I, ultimately it is our love and passion for jewelry which leads us to our hands- on production methods.  However, the underlying factor when looking at the Basel collections is that I want our jewelry to be prized not because of the price that is paid or even the name brand on the piece, but because of the love of beautiful gems.  In the end, beautiful gems are beautiful gems regardless of the producer.  Much like jewelry, individual style varies from person to person, and when it comes to picking your pieces, it should not always be about price or value, but your individual style.

With this in mind, I can’t help but feel as if the show was missing our Prestige Pearl collection.  A collection that celebrates the rarity, organicness, and amazing work of nature.  Yes, we saw some pieces that are comparable to our beautiful Palawan golden South Sea 14mm baroque earrings or one of Robert Wan’s 14mm Tahitian pearl necklaces.  However, knowing that we brought these gems from the best farms in the world and selected them for uncompromising quality to display our interpretation and philosophy on pearls is what I think puts our Prestige collection up there with the best of them.  I hope you are all enjoying our shows today!  Have a great weekend!

The Guessing Game

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After reading through all of the guesses on our Facebook page, this contest was really really close!  The combined weight was 15.98 grams with one 15mm Palawan golden South Sea, one 15mm Australian white South Sea, and one 14mm Robert Wan Tahitian.  I must digress; there was a deeper meaning to this contest than just the giveaway.  The point of this contest was to draw attention to the weight of the pearl and the variance that you will have not only due to the millimeter size differential you have within each category, but to also show how deceiving the weight can be not only from different pearl types, but more importantly, based off of farming practices and care for the mollusk and the natural environment which nourishes them.

While we often times discuss the time interval in- which a pearl is cultured in the water, many times this doesn’t give the most accurate picture of quality or nacre content (which translates to weight).  I have said before, that in clean nutrient- rich waters, with well placed mollusks and dedicated farm hands working in collaboration, culturing can actually be done in shorter intervals while still maintaining thick coatings of pearl nacre!  How else can you explain Robert Wan culturing for 2 years and harvesting the heaviest Tahitian pearls in the islands?  The reality is, there is no magic number when it comes to time and culturing.  There are many variables that must be accounted for, and the truth is, that all of these variables have a hand in a beautiful harvest!

I mentioned during our last shows and in several of my last blogs that while the odds are heavily stacked against the pearl farmer, great advantages can be gained from having clean waters and careful collaboration among all farm hands.  However this all starts with having the proper mindset behind your pearl farm, which to my family and I lies in sustainability and responsibility when culturing pearls.  Culturing pearls should never be about attaining vast quantities of pearls, but attaining strong quality and origin and species specific character in each of the gems.  This is why I chose to showcase a pearl from 3 very distinct farms.  Collectively, these which are separated by locale and pearl species, but are joined by a unique care for the waters and the art of sustainable and responsible pearling.

While we will sometimes bring you pearls from other farms outside of Palawan (Philippines), Brome (Australia), or Robert Wan’s lagoons in Mangareva or Marutea Sud, my family and I pride ourselves on our partnerships with farmers who share a connection with their gems and embrace the difficulties of pearl culturing with the vision of sustainable harvests translating to quality.

In the near future, look for the items you purchase from us to come with a new card to point out specifics about the area where your pearls come from and some insight on how we select them!

If you haven’t had a chance to read up on some of our philosophy on pearl selection and farming, check out these posts!

Robert Wan Tahitian Pearls

Four Points On Pearls

Is Weight Worth The Wait?

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Robert Wan Tahitian Pearls

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Robert Wan As gem lovers, we are taught to look at only the surface of a pearl and make a …

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Four Points On Pearls

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1. A cultured pearl will have an irritant added to the mollusk by a human. This process mimics the natural pearl creation process. Rather than a natural irritant such as a grain of sand or a parasite entering, we will use a piece of tissue and/or a nucleus.

2. Mollusks can be reused a few times depending on the type, but each time they are reused, the chances of a successful culturing decrease. To get an above average sized pearl such as a 11mm Tahitian, 9mm Akoya, or a 14mm golden South Sea pearl, you must have a strong mollusk that the farmer has used previously to culture a pearl. Each time you reuse a mollusk, the chances of a successful culturing decreases as the mollusk becomes weaker. The result of many of these 2nd or 3rd generation culturings are pearls with low levels of nacre translating to low color and luster.

3. You need time and patience to culture a beautiful pearl, and even with time and patience, you will most likely not get a “perfect” pearl!!! The size of a saltwater and freshwater nucleated pearl is aided by a nucleus but more importantly, size should come from the coatings of nacre. To get nacre, you need to give the mollusk time to produce it, and the longer the mollusk is in the water, the higher the likelihood that the pearl will be off- round and have blemishes.

In- addition, the nacre will give the pearl it’s species specific characteristics such as color, orient, and weight, which make the pearl more valuable. When we look at pearls, we place a higher value on these characteristics, and in our opinion, color, luster, and weight are many times better than shape. As we have moved out of the time where pearls were all considered white and round and moved in to different types of pearls with different sets of characteristics, a bigger emphasis is being placed on luster vs. shape. This brings back in to focus what makes the pearl special. It is definitely not the shape, but more so the colors and the luster. However, with a greater emphasis on luster and color, greater emphasis must be placed on nacre and time- which brings us to blemishes.

The longer the mollusk is in the water, the higher the likelihood of blemishes being present in your harvested pearls. Do blemishes mean bad pearls? I do not think so. In fact, I feel minor blemishes actually help add to the “realness” of your pearls and show that their “imperfections” help define their naturalness. Of course, the most valuable pearls in the world are blemish free perfect round pearls, but is it realistic to expect millions of pearls to come blemish free and perfectly round? If we are looking at shell or glass pearls, it is realistic, but since we are talking about real pearls, it is not even close! We do not cut pearls down from a piece of rough to make them as clean as possible, we are subject to what Nature brings us in the harvest. Minor blemishes happen at every farm no matter how strong your farm practice is. To put it another way, if you are looking at a strand of 15mm semi- baroque natural golden South Sea pearls with minor blemishes and high luster and deep golden color with red undertones at an amazing price, would you say no because it has some blemishes? I would not! The overall factor in determining your pearls value not only depends on color, weight, and luster, but also how much you as the wearer likes the pearl and a few blemishes, so long as it does not cause the pearl to be chalky or dull, should not deter you from buying a pearl.

4. Weight is extremely important in determining not only the value, but also in determining the authenticity of your gem. When purchased from the farms, pearls are usually purchased by the gram or “momme,” which is a Japanese weight measurement. You see us pick up pearls and roll them and feel the texture, but one of the other reasons we go through this practice is to feel the weight. A lot of the behind the scenes work with pearls is based on touch and feel, and the weight of a pearl makes up a big part of that. In- fact, the weight of a pearl can tell you a lot about what you are purchasing. For me, this is a telltale sign for me to determine if a pearl is natural or treated. When the weight is light compared to the size of a pearl, this will tell me that the levels of nacre are not appropriate for the pearl to have a high luster or a deep color, meaning it has been enhanced or treated.

A Fresh Interpretation Of Pearls

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The Art Of Pearl Carving (Click for a short video)

For the last month at Shop NBC, I have been dropping hints about an upcoming product launch that would be unlike anything we have ever seen before.  With this in mind, my family and I are proud to announce our partnership with Galatea Jewelry By Artist and it’s founder Chi Huynh, who are the leaders behind the carved pearl movement.  Most recently, Chi was awarded the “Visionary Award” from the International Pearl Design Competition for his forward vision and unique take on pearls and refers to his pearls as “pearls without boundaries.”  In carving them, he has applied non- traditional techniques as a way to uncover beauty within the layers of pearl nacre.  Essentially, we are looking at the application of traditional gemstone techniques being used to create a very non-traditional pearl!  Using a pearl as his canvas, art is created on our organic gems, bringing a fresh twist to an old tradition.  While some may frown on the idea of a carved pearl, I would urge you to be open minded about this process and see how the application of non-pearl and gemstone techniques can add to the pearl and create beauty.  Over the past 19 years, we have asked you to think outside of industry norms when it comes to pearls.  To look beyond the traditional and what I consider to be unrealistic standards of always seeking round and white, blemish- free pearls and focus on the unique qualities that each particular pearl posses.  To allow the pearl to connect with you based on it’s color, luster, organic shapes, or size, forming a connection with the pearl based on it’s natural and organic characteristics so it becomes your own unique gemstone.  As a family, we instantly fell in love with the process of carving pearls and Chi’s interpretation of the pearl.  While we have a deep appreciation for the natural and organic characteristics of a pearl, the idea of “pearls without boundaries” falls directly in-line with our family philosophy on pearls.

To allow you to get to know more about our upcoming launch of Galatea, I would like to share with you some questions and answers from Chi about his carved pearls, his inspiration, and vision for pearls.  Enjoy and I will see you this coming Tuesday morning and Wednesday evening to proudly bring these new items to you!

Nick:  Typically pearls are looked at as an organic gem stone and are prized for their unique natural aspects, yet you chose to change the way pearls are looked at by carving them.  Can you tell me why you chose the pearl as your canvas to carve?

Chi:  I began to carve pearls because I had cracked a pearl’s nacre or external coating while creating a setting for one of my Diamond in a Pearl collection. I never like to waste anything, so I started to experiment with the tools at my bench. The results were beautiful. I began to see that after carving and polishing, it was able to bring so much of the depth and beauty of the pearl to life. Yes, I ran into some criticism from people who didn’t like what I was doing. But now I see a good number of them have come around to my way of thinking. I like to call my carved pearls, “Pearls without Boundaries.” It means that pearls are breaking out of the constraints we normally reserve for them, meaning that we are open to experimentation and the beauty it brings.

Nick:  What is your inspiration when carving the pearls we are bringing to Shop NBC.

Chi:  The Queen Bead Collection has 39 unique carving styles. Everyone is a small work of art, a sculpture, if you will. I am an artist and I use the pearls as any artist would use a piece of marble. When creating the Queen Bead Collection carvings, I took inspiration from the ancient Japanese art of netsuke, small sculptures usually made from ivory (now mammoth ivory), wood or metal. They are a tiny, beautiful sculpture in miniature. I hoped the Queen Bead Collection would offer the same type of wonder and beauty when collected. And they are designed to be collected, mixed and matched as desires.

Nick:  In an industry that many times does not accept change easily, I am sure that people have pushed back against your idea of carving pearls much like people laughed at Robert Wan for culturing Tahitian pearls or Jewelmer for culturing golden pearls. What is your driving force behind your art and quest to create beauty and art, and what was it like to win designer of the year last year?   

Chi:  Yes, last year I received the Visionary Award for the Queen Bead Collection from the International Pearl Design Competition, organized by the Cultured Pearl Association of America. The award states what I set out to accomplish beautifully, since it is given to a company or designer that has “redesigned the iconic pearl strand and shifts the perception of cultured pearls for today’s buyers.” I loved the way they wrote this because “shifting perceptions” is what I am all about. I love to invent things, to create beauty in many different ways. Sometimes I am inspired by many different things, but I always try to look at things differently and sometimes the result is something like carved pearls. No, not everyone was happy with me when I started to carve pearls, but now, I have many admirers. It’s also not easy to create carved pearls, although some say I make it look easy. The actual process is done completely by hand. I wish I could tell you more about it but it is a relatively secretive process.

 Nick:  Can you share a little about your background as an artist and who you draw inspiration from? 

Chi:  I loved to paint and draw, even when I was a little child. When I was new to this country and couldn’t speak the language, I communicated with the children in my classroom by drawing pictures. It won me many friends. I am a jewelry designer but my first love has always been creating art. I paint in oils, and I always experiment with color and form. Some of my favorite artists are the old masters: Monet, van Gogh, Renoir. And I love surrealism, so Dali — who also designed jewelry — is a favorite. But overall, I am most inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, whose blend of inventiveness and artistry just takes me, even today, to another level.

Nick:  When carving pearls, talk a little bit about the patience and practice needed to create a beautiful carving. 

Chi:  We have two factories now filled with artists (I can’t call them workers, because they must be highly skilled artisans) who carve pearls all day long. I have trained each and every one of them myself. This is the process: We must look at each pearl to see the design that they will best serve. Some of our designs need pearls of a specific shape or color, for example. The artisan draws the outline of the carving on the pearl by hand. They are then carved with tools that I designed to cut through the pearl nacre without cracking it. When it is completed, the carved pearl is polished to a high shine. It is at this point that you can see the nacre (pearl coating) in all of its glory. The colors dance and shine. There is no business in the world that can make you happier than creating objects of beauty like this. I am very blessed.

Looking Back on 2012 And Forward to 2013!

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Over the last 20 years on TV, we are very proud as a family to say that you have grown with us and without your loyal support, we would not have the opportunities to continue chasing our passion of jewelry.  It seems that every year, we start with for lack of a better phrase, a new years resolution.  A statement for us of what we would like to accomplish over the coming year.  As a family, this was a year that we can look back on and know that we laid foundation for many exciting things in 2013, yet we can be very proud of for what we have accomplished together.  That being said, I want to reflect on our year of the dragon and even to what we can look forward to in 2013!

During our Chinese New Year show, I mentioned that the year of the dragon was going to be a fast paced one filled with plenty of excitement, new energy, and opportunity.  Looking back, there is no better way to describe this year!  It has been a year filled with unique challenges for us.  However, as we always say, with challenge comes opportunity.  The opportunities came in the form of being able to bring to life new ideas and concepts and travel even more to begin and continue projects at the farms and with emerging artists.

Looking back on 2012, here are some of my favorite moments from our presentations (in no particular order!):

  1. Launching our dream collection in “Prestige Pearl.” This show gave us the opportunity to open our personal vaults to all of you and bring out some of the pieces we have collected over the years, but also to showcase some of the most unique and exotic pearls in the world. Our vision for this show was to “bottle” the energy that we feel at the farm when a beautiful pearl is found and really show you what care, patience, and time can do at the farms when collecting and remaining dedicated to strong culturing methods.  Prestige also allowed us to bring the story of many of the smaller and even more well known farmers to the forefront.  In this show, we were able to showcase the story of the pure island of Raroia, Robert Wan and his families intense dedication to quality Tahitian pearls through meticulous farm practices, and the Philippine golden South Sea pearl, which showcased their unique collaboration with Nature resulting in the very best quality golden South Sea pearls to you.  The point in this collection is that pearls of all sizes, shapes, and types of pearls are unique, rare, and beautiful!
  2. Bring you the “Edison” freshwater pearl as a Today’s Top Value.  For many years, we have been bringing unique freshwater pearls in different organic shapes and sizes ranging from 2mm- 14mm.  The Edison was a natural progression for the freshwater pearl.  Since 2003, we have brought you nucleated freshwater pearls in coin shapes and large baroques.  However, with the past nucleation processes, we have not seen many round- near- round pearls with intense metallic tones in pink shades.  This is where the Edison fit in for us!  Being able to bring a metallic pink pearl was something very unique, but limited.  At the same time, it was a pearl we knew that you would instantly love!
  3. Showcasing the 11-13mm and 8-10mm Tahitian pearl necklaces.  With all of our presentations, we strive to educate about our gems, their unique story, and how our family selects them- even further differentiating them.  I have always felt like the easiest pearl to purchase visually and understanding wise is the round pearl in white tones.  Seeing the Tahitian pearl take off for the last few years, especially in baroque, semi- baroque, and other non- traditional shapes like circles has been very exciting for us.  As a family, these types of shapes are the pearls that are most often appreciated by pearl lovers in pearl producing regions.  When selected correctly for beautiful luster and color, they can be some of the most beautiful and unique pearls in the world.  The pearl is a story of an organic gem, one which we have very little control over, so why not celebrate the uniqueness of the entire gem?  Personally, you know that I gravitate towards baroque, semi- baroque, and circle pearls because of the character.  It is the same characteristics in the pearls that I select for myself and my family that I wish to share with all of you!  I often feel that appreciation of non- round shapes of pearls is an advanced love of pearls, in that we most often times hear about only round or white pearls, but the reality on the pearl farm is that very few pearls come out in perfect round or even near- round shapes in any size, unless the pearls are cultured for very very short periods of time- resulting in lusterless pearls.
  4. Show another side of our production and design.  This year we were able to bring a new style to our shows with the addition of the dragon spinnel ring.  This ring was not only very intricate in the setting, but it also showcased a level of detail in setting and styling, which we do not get to show as often as we would like.  When I meet with people to discuss my family and jewelry, I often times refer to our color stone and setting work as the “hidden gem” in our jewelry line.  As jewelry craftsmen and manufactures, we pride ourselves on being versatile in what we produce and the styling which we bring you.  Having the opportunity to bring this type of item to you was very exciting in that hopefully we will be able to bring more ornate settings in the near future!
  5. 5.    Continuing to showcase the story of the farmers and the collaboration we have with Nature in our quest to bring you the finest quality pearls.  One of my passions in life is learning.  Weather it is learning more about something new or deepening my level of understanding.  It is very cliché, but every day has something new that can be learned.  I often tell my wife that if I was not doing what I do now, I would have loved to have been a teacher.  I joke with our friends and family that WE went through her masters is education program together.  The reality is that she did all of the hard work, and I edited until my eyes wanted to pop out, but I learned valuable lessons helping her study for exams and in editing her papers.  The point is, being able to bring the stories of our gems and production techniques to you, and in a sense teach about them is something that I embrace and love very much.
  6. 6.    any times in our presentations, I know my inner pearl geek comes out.  However, it is my love of pearls and their special story, which I love to share with all of you.  I feel that many jewelry professionals and even labs and institutes shy away from pearl education because it can be a very tricky and intimidating process with so many different types and the difficulty in accurately quantifying something that is extremely subjective.  The best pearl education is at the farm level, and it is that experience which I love to share with all of you!
  7. 7.    Bringing a full show of carved jade.  Jade will always be very close to my heart.  Aside from the reverence paid to this stone in Chinese culture, but it is more the family history we have with jade.  With rapidly rising prices of jade, this was a show that was very difficult, which it was!  Once again, we opened up the family vaults and used some of the rough, which we have been collecting for nearly 40 years!

It has come time to say goodbye to 2012 and usher in 2013, where we will be celebrating our 20th year on TV!  In all honesty, we could have never done any of the things above without all of you!  Even though we will be moving in to the year of the snake, this upcoming year promises to be very dragon like in that we will have a lot of new and exciting things for you!  Thank you from my family and I to all of you for making this such a wonderful year!

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Is Weight Worth The Wait?

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A few days ago on our Facebook page, I was discussing the differences in the weight of certain pearls based …

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Our Newest Today’s Top Value By The Numbers

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In preparation for the Today’s Top Value we have coming up on Monday evening, here is a quick inside look at what it took for us to produce this! This is definitely an interesting way to look at this, but to also see some of the necessary steps we had to take to provide a necklace that we are all very proud of! Enjoy!

3 years is the minimum amount of time each mollusk was in the water to culture a pearl.

8 trips taken to French Polynesia over the last 12 months to collect the pearls for this Today’s Top Value.

18 months to collect the needed quantity of pearls.

– Over 100,000 pearls were originally collected and selected down to the final amount of 25,000.

25 percent of all pearls from the original 100,000 were accepted and used.

8 years is the maximum amount of combined time the largest pearls need to culture.

0 percent of the pearls have been treated or enhanced.

100 percent of these pearls were x- ray inspected by French Polynesian government officials to guarantee adequate amounts of pearl nacre.

2 years is the time needed for an oyster to grow from a baby seedling to a juvenile, when it can be cultured

1 year is the minimum amount of time typically needed to culture a Tahitian pearl.

.8 millimeters of pearl nacre is needed around at least 60% of a pearls surface to legally export them from the islands of French Polynesia

.1 millimeters of nacre is what is typically found in the average Akoya pearl.

10,160 air miles is the distance to travel from our office to Tahiti and back

176 hours or 81,280 miles were flown just last year to accrue the total amount of pearls needed to complete this item.

9 different islands contributed pearls for this item.

1 pearl is cultured each time the mollusk is seeded for pearl production.

– The Pinctada Margaritifera iscultured 3 times before it can no longer culture pearls, however each time it is reused, the likelihood of pearl production decreases- meaning 11mm and larger sized pearls are the most rare of all Tahitian pearls.

70 percent decreases in mollusks for pearl culturing over the last 3 years have contributed to a shortage of Tahitian pearls.

6 millimeters is the smallest nucleus used in the production of an 8-10mm Tahitian pearl giving it about 4mm of pearl nacre.

– 12 days of inspection were required to x-ray and visually check the pearls with 5 inspectors working an 8 hour day.

Over 192,180 total grams of pearls were used for all of the necklaces with the 11-13mm option weighing about 78 grams per necklace and the 8-10mm option weighing about 45 grams.

– 500 lbs of pearls were physically carried back from French Polynesia over the last 18 months!

– 50 drilling machines were burned out with countless drill bits and remade engines were used in our production. In- fact, we have an engineer on staff who kept rotating the engines and machines out so we could keep drilling clean holes.

Over 25,000 knots were tied between pearls.

– 432.25 grams of gold were used in the clasps.

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New trends- Organic and non- tradtitional pearls

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I am so sorry that I have been fallen so far behind on the blog! It has been a very …

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