Each diamond is unique, so there is a diamond for every budget.  Our blog post today gives a good example of the characteristics of (1) a high quality diamond, (2) a diamond that is a good balance of quality and value, and (3) a diamond that is a good value without sacrificing quality.  These characteristics are for a round brilliant diamond, which is the most popular diamond cut.

Highest quality diamond - The highest quality diamond will have a D, E or F color grade; a FL (flawless), IF (internally flawless), VVS1 or VVS2 (very, very slightly included 1 and 2) clarity grade; a depth percentage between 60.1 and 62.8; and a table percentage between 53 and 57.

Good balance between quality and value - This diamond will have an G or H color grade; a VS1or VS2 (very slightly included 1 and 2) or SI1 (slightly included) clarity grade; a depth percentage between 58.5 and 64; and a table percentage between 52 and 60.

Good value diamond without sacrificing quality - A good value diamond will have an I or J color grade; a SI2 or SI3 (slightly included 2 and 3) clarity grade: a depth percentage between 57.5 and 64; and a table percentage between 52 and 60.  And although this is a good value diamond, you still maintain the quality necessary to have a nice diamond.

Carat size does not affect quality, but just affects price with larger carat sizes costing more.

If you have additional questions, you can always contact us here.  Visit DesertBrilliance.com to purchase a premium quality custom diamond engagement ring at a great price.

Many people have experienced the discomforting feeling of having a ring stuck on their finger.  Here are some tips for getting a stuck ring off.

1.  Hold your hand above your heart for an extended period of time–at least 15 minutes.  This will decrease the amount of blood in your hand and may allow you to remove the ring.

2.  Soak your hand in a bowl of very cold ice water.  Same idea as number 1.

3.  Spray Windex or another glass cleaner on the ring and give it a tug.  The benefit of the Windex is that it will be easier to clean off the ring than lotion or other soap.

4.  If the Windex doesn’t work, try lotion or dish soap.

5.  Wrap dental floss fairly tight and close together about twenty times around your knuckle working from the fingertip side of the knuckle towards the ring.  Once you have covered the whole knuckle, slide the end of the dental floss under the ring and then begin unwinding it.  As you unwind it, the dental floss will hopefully help to get it over the wrinkled skin.

You may also want to combine several of these to see if you can get it off.  If that doesn’t work, you may want to try a jeweler, the paramedics or the emergency room.  And make sure you keep the ring because it may be cheaper to fix than you think.  (Although you may want to have the ring enlarged!)

Visit DesertBrilliance.com to design your custom designed diamond engagement ring.

Here is another Christmas wedding proposal idea.  Santa had a real surprise for this girl.

Don’t forget that you can get your custom diamond engagement ring now and save 10% during our Holiday Jewelry Sale.

A diamond’s cut refers to its shape when viewed from the top (although there are descriptive terms used to describe a diamond’s shape from a side view also).  The cut is created by cutting symmetrical facets on a rough diamond to form the desired shape.  The most popular diamond cut today is the round brilliant, which constitutes a large percentage of the diamonds sold in the jewelry industry today.  Multiple standards have been developed to grade diamond cut.  Unfortunately, there is no unanimous agreement in the industry as to what proportions create the best diamond.

The quality of a diamond’s cut is evaluated by trained gemologists and reported on a diamond grading certificate with the highest grades given to diamonds whose symmetry and proportions most closely match the standard adopted by the grading company.  The depth percentage of a diamond is most important characteristic in determining a diamond’s fire and brilliance and each diamond shape has a different ideal depth percentage.  For example, an ideal round brilliant diamond should have a depth percentage between 58.5-64%.  A rule of thumb for princess cut diamonds is the 65/65 rule, meaning that the table percentage and the depth percentage should never exceed 65%.

Here is another romantic holiday proposal that seems pretty easy to pull off (if you have the cash to pay for her whole family).  This guy paid for his girlfriend’s family to attend the Radio City Christmas Spectacular in New York.  He and his brother dressed up as snowmen and walked around handing out candy canes before the show.  When he found his wife in line, this is what happened …

I was looking for some great engagement stories this morning and found this one. I have watched Gilbert play basketball since his days at the University of Arizona. I love to see successful great athletes having the same simple fun we all enjoy. Big kids with a huge talet enjoying their lives with their families. Great job Gilbert on this one! 

Gilbert Arenas wrote this on his blog:

You all want to hear about the big moment, huh? It started off as a surprise birthday party for my girlfriend, Laura. The party was on the 20th and her birthday is on the 21st. To set up the surprise party, I had to figure out how to surprise somebody who wants a surprise party? I mean, how do you do that? Basically, you start off with a whole bunch of lies. That’s how you do it. I called all of her family and told them I’m throwing a surprise party and I said that it might be an engagement party too, so don’t say anything. Nobody wants to slip up and leak an engagement, so I figured everybody would keep their mouth shut about the party. But, as it always goes, if you tell enough people that somewhere down the line there’s going to be a slip up. During the month of September a couple people called up Laura and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I can’t make it to your party.” Laura was like, “What are you talking about?” So, of course, she started asking questions. She started asking me and her friends and family what we were doing for her birthday. We came up with something to tell her that wasn’t a lie, but it was sort of a lie. We told her that she was going to meet Obama. It wasn’t a lie actually, because Laura didn’t know about it, but I was actually invited to have dinner with Obama down in Miami on Friday, September 19 but it got cancelled. I told her that we would go down to Miami on Thursday, have dinner with Obama on Saturday and then fly to the Bahamas on Monday. That was the plan. That’s what I told people close to me to tell her to throw her off the trail.

So once she found out she was going to meet Obama we made sure to get her a new dress and had people come out and fit her for her clothes. Now, meanwhile, I got my surgery on Tuesday so I used that as an excuse of why I couldn’t fly down to Miami with her on Thursday. I told her that I was going to go see the doctors, I was going to check out my knee and see how it is and then I’d fly down to Miami to meet her on Friday morning. So Friday morning came and she was calling me but I didn’t answer my phone, I didn’t answer my phone because I was taking care of last minute party arrangements. Finally I answered and she asked me what time my flight was and I said I was supposed to be at the airport around three o’clock, but I was supposed to see the doctor at 2 p.m.
I got her brother in on the act, too. I told her that I kept calling him to get a ride to the airport because I couldn’t drive myself because of my knee but that he didn’t answer until four o’clock. So, I missed my first (fake) flight and missed my first (fake) doctor’s appointment. The story continued that her brother took me to the doctor at four and I rescheduled my flight to 6 p.m., the last flight of the day down to Miami. I bought myself more time to continue party planning by saying that I was at the doctor until 6:30, so I would have to take the first flight down to Miami on Saturday morning. So now it’s Saturday morning and Laura is calling me again, and I don’t pick up my phone. I’m busy taking care of all her friends and family that are arriving to D.C. for the surprise party. So, the party is starting at four and we had to figure out a way to get her back from Miami and to the house by around 5 p.m. But, at the same time, we didn’t want her getting mad that I didn’t come down to Miami and upsetting her and ruining the whole thing. I kept my phone off in the morning, pretending like I was on the flight down there already. I was really looking up what times flights were going from Miami back up to D.C. There was one at 2 p.m. that would be perfect. She would get to the airport around four o’clock and be at the house by five. So, at 11 a.m. I had her brother call her and tell her that I fell and I hurt my knee and that I was at the doctor’s office and in a lot of pain so she needed to hurry up and come back home. She was panicking and booked the 2 p.m. flight back to D.C. Her brother told her that he was going to take me back to the house after I see the doctor and would take care of me so she should take a cab from the airport when she arrives.

Meanwhile, the party was kicking off. It was like a wedding. Of course, we had ice sculptures. We had an ice bar. We had one of those jumpy things, a Moon Bounce, in the back for the kids. We had the pool open. We had a D.J. We had a chef preparing great food. There was salmon and other things for lunch from 4-7 p.m. and then dinner was at 9 p.m. It was the first day I was off crutches, I was walking, everybody was having fun. So 5 p.m. came and went and she wasn’t at the house yet. I’m thinking, “Where is she?” I called her and pretended like I was on meds:

(Real weak sounding) “Hellooooooo. What are you dooooooing?”
“I’m on my way, you all right?”
“Yeahhhh, but I’m hurting though. Where are you atttt?”
She’s like, “I’m right by the gas station, I’m like 10 seconds away from the house.”
So I’m thinking, “dang it, she’s on the way.” So I put the phone on mute and I’m like, “Everyone! Hide in the garage! She’s coming!” As soon as the cab pulled up everybody burst out of the garage, “Surprise!!!” and she just burst down crying in the car. This was the first time all of her family and my family had shown up at the same time. All her friends, all my friends, we were all together in the same place. Right before dinner I was thinking about how I was going to propose. Everybody wants to make it memorable, but I have this statistic that I’ve never, ever asked a girl out and I didn’t want to change that. Never, ever. In life. I was like, man, I got to keep this streak going. I was thinking up ways to do it, you know, maybe I’ll do like an Easter egg hunt for the ring or something. But then it came to me, I was going to kick it back old school with a “Do you like me?” note that you would do in elementary school. Only, I couldn’t write the note, because that would be like me asking her. So I got my friend to write on a piece of paper “WILL YOU MARRY ME?” in big block letters with two boxes to check off, “YES” or “NO.” Then the final step was for him to write “(READ OUT LOUD)” at the top of the note.

The note. The ring. The future bride. Image courtesy of Gilbert Arenas

I folded it up and had it in my pocket. So there we are at dinner and all her family is there, my dad, her dad, her friends, my friends, Antawn Jamison showed up, Mos Def and a couple people from Mos Def’s crew showed up. At the end of the meal, in front of everybody, I tell her that I have one last gift for her. I told her, “This is my gift” and I handed her the note and I sat down.

She opens the note and she reads it and she says, “Read out loud,” but sort of to herself under her breath because you know, you’re always going to read something to yourself before you blurt it out to the room. Then she reads silently, “Will you marry me?”

Then she flipped the note over to see if there was anything written on the back and then looked at me weird.

I said to her, “You have to read it out loud.”

So she goes, “WILL YOU MARRY ME?” out loud so everybody could hear her.

It worked. It turns out she ended up asking me to marry her.

I was like, “Oh my Gosh!!!” and started screaming like the girl who gets asked normally does.

“I can’t believe you asked me!!!! Of course I will!!! Oh my Gosh, it’s been six long years, what took you so long???!!!??? Oh my Gosh!!! This is unbelievable!!!!”

Everyone started cracking up and laughing. But we still had the ring to take care of.
It’s not like I had it and was going to get down on one knee because first of all, I only have one good knee as it is, and second of all, she’s the one who asked me. But, I had to produce the ring. I had three Ring Pops ready with three plastic red Solo cups covering them up. I took her over to the cups and told her that whichever one she picks, that’s going to be her engagement ring.

So she flips over one and it’s a cherry Ring Pop. She goes for the second one, it’s a grape Ring Pop. She flips over the third one, it’s watermelon.

She’s looking at me like, “Where’s the real ring?!” but I just go, “Hey, no ring gets any better than that!”

Everybody was laughing.
But I had really given the ring to my son. So I go, “Give it to mommy,” and my son actually gave the ring to her.

So, for the record, she asked me.

Visit Gilbert Arenas blog for more about him and his future.

A diamond’s color (or really the absence of color) is graded on a scale of D to Z with a D-color diamond being absolutely colorless.  Because completely colorless D-color diamonds are extremely rare, they are more expensive, while diamonds of lower color grades are progressively less expensive.  You can find more about diamond color grades in our diamond education pages.

But how does understanding the diamond color scale translate into information that you can use to make an informed buying decision.  Diamonds with a D, E, or F color grade are considered “colorless” diamonds.  Because a diamond will reflect the color of the metal in which it is set, we generally recommend diamonds with a colorless grade of D, E or F when a diamond will be set in platinum or white gold   In other words, it doesn’t make sense to spend the extra money for a colorless diamond if it is going to be set in yellow gold because the diamond will reflect the gold color of the setting.  On the other hand, diamonds in the “near colorless” range of the color scale, which includes diamonds with a G, H, I or J color grade, are ideal to be set in platinum, white gold or yellow gold and represent a good balance between quality and value.  In fact, the large majority of diamonds used in diamond jewelry today are of a G or H color because these colors offer the best combination of quality and value.  Diamonds with a color grade of K or less will start to show hints of yellow or brown and are considerably less expensive than higher color grades.  We do not sell diamonds with a color grade less than J.