By Natalie Steen
Natalie Steen is a Houston personality known on Instagram and her blog as @TheNatNote (76.5k followers). Steen is a former lawyer who has a flair for the creative and loves to shop which she parlayed into a weekly newsletter, sharing the latest products that have caught her keen eye. Natalie is a Cuban American Houstonian by way of Miami who loves vintage and accessories.
That morning, Jamey’s mom surprised me with a necklace that she was passing on to me. The necklace, composed of multi-strand Angela Cummings pearls with an opal stone in the center, blew me away — both because it was unlike anything I had seen before and because it was my first fine jewelry family keepsake.
I didn’t really have an occasion that called for the kind of formality the necklace demanded. It sadly was stored in the box it was presented to me in until five years later. We were packing the house for our big move and I came across the choker once again. I knew I wanted to repurpose it into something I would wear often.
I wanted to hand it over to a place I could trust, a place that understood family traditions, a place that was local and allowed you to design your own jewelry. After hearing the story behind the necklace, the Zadok team invited me to dream up an alternative setting for the opal. They asked me to bring ideas to the table and encouraged me to walk the showroom floor and try on pieces for inspiration. There is much to consider when designing a custom piece and repurposing old jewelry, and the Zadok team made sure I considered and gave my opinion on every detail. After the custom jewelry designer from Zadok showed me a CAD design of our ideas, I could visualize our creation and gave the final green light to proceed.
The end result is an east-meets-west cocktail ring that has all the things I wanted and more. It feels more me and has become a favored companion whenever I’m getting dressed up. But of course it is more than that. It is the opal that once adorned my fabulous mother-in-law and was given to me on my wedding day. And the pearls? Zadok Jewelers kept them intact for me. I’m already dreaming up how we can use them on our next project together. One day I’ll pass on this magical opal ring, photos and all. Thank you to the team at Zadok for helping me add a bit of me to an already magical family heirloom.
