Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged earrings

Marolsha Jewelry

When you live in a city like New York or Chicago, it's fairly easy to find your way around. For the most part, urban planners patterned these cities on a grid with numbered streets indicating one direction (East/West) and avenues or named streets indicating the perpendicular other (North/South). So if you're at my favorite Mexican restaurant in the East Village and want to get to my favorite all-veg diner in the Lower East Side, you can do so with ease simply by knowing the cross streets.

Designs Inc Jewelry

For all the traveling I’ve done in India, I haven’t yet managed to make it to Goa. The Southeast coast of the country was colonized by the Portuguese (and the Dutch and the French), and—from the architecture of massive churches to the spice blends in the cuisine—that influence is still felt in South India today. Goa is a hotspot for travelers who want a reprieve from ‘traditional India’.

Fashion Muse Jewelry

I’ve never been a fan of shopping. This is somewhat because it is difficult and frustrating to find cute clothes that fit well when your body size and shape don’t match the norm (anyone out there want to design for a corpulent woman over six feet tall?), but mostly I’m just really good at talking myself out of making a purchase. Contrary to the problem many people have (that they buy too much), I am perpetually buying too little.

Zosterops Jewelry Shop

Zosterops' Jessie Cheng is a doll. Not an empty-headed plaything, like Barbie or Bratz, but the kind crooner Frank Sinatra used as a term of endearment. Jessie is the kind of gal who's so lovely and sincere that you immediately want do nice things for her.

Emerald and Pearl Earrings

I just got back from Bangkok, Thailand. My partner and I spent the holidays there, as we were both in need of an escape from the chaos and grime of Kolkata.

Green Arm Cuff with Wooden Marble Buttons / Flax Farm Hoop Earrings / Face Scrubbies

I have a proud family history of hand-me-downs, secondhand stores, and thrift. My mother once had a bumper sticker: “This car stops for yard sales.” I am familiar with “rummaging” as a sanctioned, communal activity for acquiring goods; have visited flea markets in several countries; filled paper sacks at $1 “bag sales”; and as a child, I often accompanied my realtor father to tag and estate sales. For years, I have longed to visit the Highway 127 Yard Sale.

Black Lip Mother of Pearl Round Earrings

Today is Black Friday, the mother of all shopping days in my country of origin where business profits turn from red to black and bank accounts from black to red. Someone in the mid-sixties must have had one hell of a sense of humor to time this day to fall directly after Thanksgiving. One day Americans join with their families in (mock) appreciation of their conquested homeland and the next they begin an altogether too similar conquest, only this time it's consumer goods they're after instead of arable land.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head Earrings / Lady Robot Red Pocket Mirror

I used to be a fussy gal when it came to keeping up appearances. I obsessively straightened my hair, checked my makeup many times a day, and had a sizable collection of collared shirts. Along the way—between the radicalizing of my politics, inheriting much of my grandmother's wardrobe, and deciding that what I call ugly chic best represents my humble upbringings and current socioeconomic situation—I put my flat iron in storage, threw out all of my makeup (save for a mascara wand for special occasions), and gave away all my collared shirts that required starch.

Wings Earrings

When I was coming up, it was all the rage to pierce your ears in multiple places—the higher the potential risk for infection, the better. Multiple holes in your cartilage was not only standard; it was expected. I knew guys who wore safety pins in their ears, whether they'd been professionally pierced or not. I had a friend who let her high school boyfriend pierce her nipple with a safety pin too.

Green Meadow Earrings

When cold weather settles over the Northern Hemisphere, it's all I can do to get out of bed in the morning. I live far enough north that the daylight time literally cuts in half—what was once a twelve-hour-day becomes six measly hours of cloud-covered sunshine. In addition to bundling in many layers, pulling the cat in for extra snuggles at night, and cranking up the heater, I try to keep my appearance fresh. I can all too easily spiral into a dark months depression.

Tooth-y Post & Live Life/Love Life Earrings

I hover in that funny in-between space of generations. Having come into this world in 1980, I teeter between Gen X and Gen Y status. I remember the Reagan presidency, the first Gulf War, and the fall of the Berlin wall—though I didn’t really understand the impact of any of these things at the time.

Teatime in Bombay Earrings

Swingy, playful and pretty, the Teatime in Bombay Earrings also work well for cocktail time in Manhattan. Equally attractive is the quality construction and affordable price.

Turquoise and Carnelian Sterling Silver Earrings

You can’t get Mexican food in Kolkata to save your life. Sure, some places say they have Mexican, but when you get there all you find is some wack version of nachos that are so tasteless and bland that even the most spice-phobic person would beg for something to liven up the dish. You can get passable tapas if you’re willing to spend a pretty penny, but that's hardly the same. In other words, if you want the real deal, you’ve got to make it at home. This lack of Mexican food here makes no sense to me considering the abundantly similar ingredients used in Bengali and Mexican cuisines.

Cherrystone Earrings

When I was a kid, my mom would stop at the same gas station every week to fill the tank. The spot was a local affair with a tiny convenience store attached that housed assorted odds and ends. I always looked forward to those trips to the pump because my mother's way of occupying my sisters and I during the seemingly endless flow was to give us a quarter each to buy ourselves a piece of candy.

Freshwater Pearl and Blue Topaz Earrings

I’m going to my first Indian wedding this December, a celebration I am enormously excited about because of the sheer enormity of this type of event. Indian weddings are multi-day festivities filled with family, friends, fun, and (best of all) food. The wedding I will attend will be a particularly exciting culinary event; it is sure to include a sampler of delicacies from West Bengal, the Punjab, and Burma, a feast that is a reflection of the multiple and overlapping ethnicities of the bride and groom. Now, I’m not a wedding kind of gal.

A Case of Olive Jade Filigree Earrings

When I was in middle school, I became obsessed with all things macabre. From [R.L.

Lapis Birds with Malachite Earrings

I have to admit, I have a weakness for unconventional, handmade jewelry, so I was quite eager to own something from Black Rabbit Handmade Jewelry. The business is run by a mother-daughter team based in Vermont who have a passion for creating jewelry inspired by nature.

Mystical Orb Dangle Earrings

The sky dimmed and dark monsoon clouds began to roll in as I sat down to type out this review. I put on Bjork’s Vespertine to further capture what seems to my American sensibilities to be a melancholy mood.

Migration Earrings

Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Just like me, they long to be close to you. —Karen Carpenter This is the song that first came to mind when I admired the Migration Earrings handcrafted by Sheryl Pang of Bohème Jewelry.

Birds of Paradise Earrings

Not ever being one to splurge on jewelry, I’m often times frustrated by the cheap and mass produced items I find myself buying off racks in department stores. I am no stranger to a green finger, a necklace that breaks as I’m putting it on for the very first time, or an earring that manages to fall off in transit, which always provides for a few strange glances once I arrive at work.

Lean and Sexy Stiletto Green Pearl Earrings

Most of the time pearls remind me of housewives circa 1950. Well, maybe into the '60s too. I just started watching the first season of Mad Men, and pearl jewelry seems to be a common gift guiltily given to the suburban, home-bound wife after returning from an afternoon in the city with the bohemian, Beat-loving mistress, or to the sexy secretary banged by the boss.

View From Above Earrings

I'm going to use a word that I detest. You know how there are some words that just grate on you nerves when you hear them? In the past decade the most popular obnoxiously overused word was probably nucular, the oft-repeated Bush botching of the word nuclear. But aside from mispronunciations, are there words that make you grind your teeth when they flow off someone's tongue? Perhaps what ticks you off is cursing, or hearing the anatomically correct words for one's "down there" junk.

White Elephant Necklace / Raspberry Earrings / Pig Earrings

I am so thankful that my fabulously dainty ‘white elephant’ necklace does not live up to its name. Neither a possession of disproportionate upkeep costs, or a regift from a bad party game, the newest tiny charm on a chain comes courtesy of Cornyness, a delightful online jewelry shop. Cornyness, run by a super nice gal named Danwei, offers a variety of handmade accessories to suit just about anyone with a taste for the quirky and cute.

Turquoise & Gray earrings

There is something about Scandinavian design that is at once incredibly stylish and timeless. It seems that the further north you get, the more beautiful things are. Norwegian jewelry maker Hilde is an artisan whose work captures the exquisite beauty of the northern Nordic states. In addition to some of her more subtle pieces I now own, Hilde makes a lot of her jewelry from pearls and crystal. Her creations are elegant but reserved, and based on the earrings I posses, I have no doubt about her crafts(wo)manship and style.

Chestnut and blue bracelet and matching earrings

Amanda Yu—who runs several Etsy shops under her own name and the Exotic Flavour moniker and blogs about her latest creations—has an incredible eye for fun color combinations and visually intricate but simply made jewelry. All of Yu’s Exotic Flavour accessories have a similar look, but the pieces don’t lack their own special charm.

Bleeding Chanel Necklace and Microphone Earrings

What do a straightedge vegetarian German jewelry maker and I have in common? Besides our love of a drug-free lifestyle and animal-free eating, we like the punk-rock aesthetic—and if I do say so myself, a delightful mix of the ideals. PorcelinaZERO, an online boutique run by an exceptionally friendly woman named Tanja, is filled with cute charms, funky rings, brightly colored cameo necklaces, and hip earrings. As I type, lightweight miniature microphones dangle from my earlobes.

Vintage glass earrings and vintage hairpins

It’s funny how a big jewelry gal like me can be so easily persuaded to scale down. Despite my love of large, obnoxious rings and bulky earrings, I recently found myself browsing the classic designs in Karuski’s Etsy shop. Filled with vintage-inspired clutch purses, brooches, rings, earrings, and hairpins, the shop owner Minna keeps things simple and chic, and most of the wearables are on the smaller side.

Vintage Cameo Earrings

If you’ve ever read a Bronte novel that wasn’t on the syllabus or if you just have a taste for the intellectually exquisite, these little jewels might just fit your style. Angel Court Jewels has made the old new again and put a fresh spin on the cameo with these revamped gems. Not exactly a jewelry connoisseur, I can’t tell if they’re trimmed in real gold, but their warm glow and weightiness leads me to believe they are. The pair tips the scale at .3oz (which is about ten times heavier than my next heaviest pair).
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