Blog — women's jewelry association

On October 1st, WJA Philly hosted a talk and live demonstration with engraver Tira Mitchell. This was one of our best WJA talks so far! Tira talked about her history as an engraver, working at trade shows, and running a business with her husband. She also gave us an in-depth look at her work bench set-up, and a magnificently zoomed in engraving demonstration. About Tira "Tira started engraving in 1994 working on motorcycles in Fairfield, California. Inspired by mater engravers through the Firearm Engravers Guild of America, Tira expanded her work to a host of unique projects. Engraver.com was founded...

On Tuesday, August 25th, Philadelphia jewelry designer Angela Monaco of Ritual Shoppe joined us for a Women's Jewelry Association virtual event. During the event, Angela discussed health and wellness, meditation, crystals, tarot cards, oracle cards, and more. Angela also offered up a basket of goodies from her shop in exchange for donations to Project HOME, a "Philadelphia non-profit organization empowering individuals break the cycle of poverty and homelessness through affordable housing, employment, healthcare, and education." Image source

  From the Women's Jewelry Association: "WJA Announces Lineup of Speakers and Sponsors for Virtual 2020 Awards for Excellence July 27 Keynote presenters include notable authors and a TED Talks speaker on corporate leadership. WJA will also host sessions on diversity and mentorship. Event sponsors include Natural Diamond Council, Boston Consulting Group, Citizen, Forevermark, and Jewelers of America The Women's Jewelry Association (WJA) has announced its keynote speakers for its online 2020 Awards for Excellence celebration, taking place at 7 pm EDT on July 27. Jim Hemerling of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Dolly Meese of Brighthouse (a BCG...

For WJA Philadelphia’s first virtual event, we hosted a webinar with gem dealer and world traveler, Yvonne Jiew. She gave a short presentation via Zoom, which was followed by a Q&A discussion. Then, we had exclusive access to a private screening of her upcoming short film, Chasing Color. Image source: Rockstoc LLC on Facebook   Yvonne's passion is colored stones. Originally from Australia, she is a global gem sourcer and the founder of Rockstoc LLC. She spoke to us about how she spends many months of the year traveling around the world to buy directly from miners, cutters, and dealers,...

Thank you to Joshua Hyman, GG (GIA) of Philadelphia Jewelry Appraisers for spending time with us this past sunny Sunday afternoon!Josh is a 4th generation Philadelphia jeweler with an interesting journey, both on Jeweler's Row and off. He showed us the tools he uses for his appraisal work, as well as his fascinating collection of gems, minerals, and crystals. As always, he entertained us with the stories of where the different pieces of his collection came from. Right before we arrived for his lecture, he and Lauryn Volovar had just recorded their newest podcast episode of Gemology Worldwide. Make sure...