July’s birthstone is the ruby, and, boy, do I have the ruby ring for you! It’s good-looking, has a good story and promotes a good cause.<\/p>\n
First I’ll give you the good story and explain the good cause. Monica Stephenson, the tall drink of water <\/a>who writes the jewelry blog iDazzle<\/a>, founded ANZA Gems<\/a> in 2014. Through ANZA — a word that means “begin” in Swahili — Monica offers a transparent journey from the gem mine to the customer. She personally sources ethically mined, colored-gemstone rough from Tanzania and Kenya; brings the uncut stones back to the U.S. to be faceted by gem cutters here; and then has them incorporated into fine jewelry by designers with whom she collaborates.\u00a0 At least 10% of the proceeds from every sale goes back to three East African schools that Monica supports. As she explains on ANZA’s website<\/a>:<\/p>\n “ANZA Gems creates a circle of development, beginning with fair trade prices paid directly to gem dealers in East Africa, supporting artists to create the finished jewelry, and then donating a percentage of sales to schools in gem communities. This includes education at the primary level, and also at the jewelry trade level with vocational schools that teach Africans marketable skills of gem cutting, grading and sorting.\u00a0 Our goal is to have East Africans facet their own gems, design their own jewelry and fully participate in the global gemstone trade.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n When I saw the first designer collaborations by talented peeps including Jennifer Dawes<\/a>, Vicente Agor<\/a>, Rebecca Overmann<\/a>, Erika Winters<\/a> and LilyEmme<\/a>, I got jealous and was like, “Um, Monica, where are my ANZA gems?!” We met to discuss a big orange garnet. While we were looking at the garnet and a few other substantial gems, Monica brought out a pair of tiny rubies. She described how she acquired them in an email to me:<\/p>\n “I purchased two rough rubies in Tanzania. \u00a0I wasn\u2019t planning to buy these particular gems, as ruby requires additional export documentation to prove the origin isn\u2019t Myanmar<\/a>. \u00a0But they were being sold by a woman, and I wanted to support her if I could, so I paid her in TZ shillings so she wouldn\u2019t have to change American dollars.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n She brought the rubies to U.S. gem cutter Peter Torraca<\/a> to facet, and he turned them into a pair of emerald cuts<\/a> (meaning they were cut into a rectangular shape, not that he waved a magic wand and turned rubies into emeralds).<\/p>\n Most of the designs being created for ANZA have used larger stones, so I liked the idea of doing petite stud earrings for variety. I was briefly disappointed when one of the rubies turned out to have a natural internal fracture that could lead to breakage. (It happens.\u00a0 You never know how much rough is going to be usable.) After about two minutes, I cheered up because I knew what I wanted to do with the one good ruby. I made arrowhead dangle rings earlier this year<\/a> …<\/p>\n\n