Cynthia Renée

Cynthia Renée https://cynthiarenee.com

30+ years bringing clients the beauty & power of fine jewelry & colored gem

Cynthia Renee Inc.’s founder, colored gemstone expert Cynthia Renée, guides clients through the intricacies of the colored gem market, the creative process of transforming rough minerals to faceted stones and, finally, creating jewelry designed to perfectly complement gem and wearer. From traveling the world hunting for a discerning collector’s dream gem to working with a novice collector creating

an heirloom jewel, advising women on jewelry style and wardrobing, Cynthia’s lifework has been bringing her clients the aesthetic and intellectual connection to something great and enduring: the beauty and power of colored gemstones. Jewelry Care & Storage Resource List:https://kit.co/CynthiaReneeJewels/jewelry-care-storage-must-haves

09/03/2026

What does your jewelry box remember?

A birthday.
An adventure.

A dream you had twenty years ago.
A new beginning.

We choose jewels because we love them.

Then we live in them.

And somewhere along the way, they begin holding pieces of our lives.

Maybe that’s why pulling them all out and playing with them really is...
the best therapy.

08/20/2026

I had to reach over and stop her hand.

We were at dinner.
Her chihuahua in the handbag,

Neither of us sits on our hands, and hers had been moving the entire meal.

Emphasizing.
Feeling around for the word she wanted.

On it, a ring I made her in 2016.

Green grossular garnet, 9.16 carats, carried home from a buying trip to Tanzania, magenta tourmaline on either side.

Watching one hand petting her dog.
The other one flying.

I felt like a cat.

Hold still. Let me look at it.

WhatAGem podcast asked me recently how I let my pieces go.

It isn’t hard.
I get to visit them.

On the table beside her, an unset fuchsia rubellite tourmaline.
Her next one.

She’s already chosen what’s going beside it.
What do you think she chose?

08/19/2026

Sunset.
A horse who didn’t like being told what to do.

And two hours before I knew a haboob was coming for us.

Somewhere in that ride, past the Palo Verde and their scarred seeds waiting for water, I thought about the year I was 29 and everything cracked open.

Years later I went looking for a cenote in Mexico.

Turquoise water deep enough to hold me.
I never found the cenote.

But I found this blue instead.

A tourmaline I still dive into, every time I put it on.

That’s bespoke jewelry design.
Not just decoration…
A place to keep returning to.

07/30/2026

“I think sixty deserves a ring with a little gravitas.”

That’s what Christine told me.

She’d fallen for two gemstones.
Lavender jade.

And a blue-green tourmaline all over Instagram, called “lagoon.”

Except “lagoon” isn’t a gem.
It’s a marketing name. Made up years ago, for one tourmaline, from Namibia.

Clever. It worked.
But that color was never only Namibia’s to claim.

So instead of an “okay” lavender jade...
I brought her something from my own collection.

An exceptional lavender chalcedony.

Then, two blue-green tourmalines. From Afghanistan, not Namibia.

Same color she loved.
Different mine. Different price. Same spell.
She wasn’t giving anything up.

Still just a sketch here.

Waves curling in. Diamonds scattering like sea spray.

This is what a custom made ring looks like, before it’s finished.

And, this is what it’s like to work with me.


BespokeJewelry agta_gems LegacyInJewels WrittenInStone MilestoneJewelry

07/29/2026

Some mornings start with coffee.
Mine started with this.

07/23/2026

This custom paraíba tourmaline ring became a beacon through the dark.

Sometimes we’re baptized by fire.

Sometimes, by grief.

Tricia raised her hand for a small blue stone. That rare electric blue that only comes from one hillside in Paraiba, Brazil.

She didn’t know yet what it would become.

The months that followed, she calls her year of puzzlement.

A threshold she didn’t choose.

Learning to walk forward into the dark, without knowing where the path led.

Losing a husband will do that. Rebuilding a life, alone, will too.

Somewhere in that dark, she started gathering. Pulling the pieces of herself back out. Not because she knew the shape they’d take.

Because she had to keep walking.

We built her a comet to inspire her ahead.

A one-of-a-kind custom, hand made ring with the paraíba as its head.

Behind it, diamonds scattered at first, flung wide off the stone.
Then, slowly, finding their order.

Is there a season in your own life quietly asking for its form?


jewelrystorytelling

I’m getting ready for my close-up.A client trusted me with this back for the week…her extraordinary strand of golden Sou...
07/23/2026

I’m getting ready for my close-up.

A client trusted me with this back for the week…

her extraordinary strand of golden South Sea pearls, black opal and diamond clasp.

Not every day I get to play with a jewel like this.

So I laid it across my old clasp sketches, just to see them side by side again.

Golden light. Golden pearls. A little vanity involved.

I regret nothing.

07/21/2026

Yesterday’s meeting: yes to a tiara.

Queen Mary of Denmark energy, old European cut diamonds for the center, and her opal collection is coming out for a shoot.

Come peek.


07/09/2026

She kept a ruby in a box her whole life.

A Sweet Sixteen gift from her own parents:
glowing red, nearly five carats. Beautiful.

And she just... never wore it.

Her daughter remembers slipping it onto her little girl fingers.
Playing with it.
Putting it back.

Years later, I made her mother a sunstone pendant. Something warm, something wearable.
She wore it often.

I think her daughter had been showing her the way.

Her mother passed six years ago.
It takes time to rewrite yourself after that.
To reconcile.

She came to me wanted to honor her mother.
That’s where we started.

We laid the diamonds out and something lifted off the table.
Not just honor.
Aliveness.

The ring her mother never gave herself.
Her daughter gave it to her.

If you have a jewel sitting in a box, a stone in need of a story, or simply a feeling you haven’t yet found words for, let’s talk.


LegacyJewelry OOAKJewelry BespokeJewelry JewelryStory agta_gems LegacyInJewels WrittenInStone

07/02/2026

Every bespoke jewel begins with a story.

A love.
A milestone.
A leap of faith.
A promise.

Then life happens.

The jewel is worn...
through ordinary Tuesdays...
extraordinary celebrations...
and quiet moments no one else ever sees.

Over time, it becomes a message in a bottle.

Passed from one generation to the next,
where someone you love adds another chapter.

Your life...written in the language jewels..

InheritTheEarth WrittenInJewels

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By Appointment
Cary, NC
27511

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