My middle daughter, who is a widow, had her engagement ring made into a necklace (a circular gold piece with the diamond imbedded) for my granddaughter, her niece, for her 21st birthday. I now gave her my mother's wedding ring set to have it done for the other granddaughter for her 21st. My wedding ring set was stolen from my oldest daughter's house when she had a home invasion.

You know the 'yesterday, today & tomorrow style pendants? Maybe have a pendant designed so that there's a circle of all of the smaller diamonds & then..'dangling from the top center of the inside of the circle-have the 2 larger diamonds hanging down from a bar. Yellow gold or white gold rings? There's a gorgeous chain-(Penny's) called a 'bead & bar" chain that is awesome in yellow gold. You can also check ebay for this style chain. It's very durable due to the design of the chain-no fear of it breaking under normal conditions. I have 3 different lengths of this chain as well as 3 in the white gold. Every diamond droplet or pendant I wear on them-are perfect, as the chain just glistens!

We had d three-stone ring set in platinum made from my mom's diamond (1 carat), the diamond from my engagement ring (1/3 carat), and a diamond from a ring that was my grandmother's (1/3 carat). When the jeweler looked at the two smaller stones he told us that they were perfect together. One was old and one was new but the size, shape, color and clarity of the two were like they were made to be together. So now the three "girls" hang out in a beuatiful ring, and I have the best of all worlds, present, past and future ;o)

A friend of mine added some rubies (her birthstone) to the diamonds from her first wedding ring to make a cocktail ring.

I'd have a cocktail ring made simply because I like rings, but they could possibly be incorporated into a bracelet if you like wearing those, or into a pretty pin or even into earrings.

We inherited three diamonds from my DHs family. One was from his great uncle's pinky ring. We had it made into a drop pendant of the diamond only in a thin rim of silver, and hung it on a slender chain. That was a gift from us to our only daughter to wear on her wedding day with the diamond studs her groom gave her.

We have about a 1 carat diamond from his grandmother's ring, and that stone has been offered to our son to put in a setting for his fiance, whenever he finally decides to get engaged.

DH also had a mother's ring made for me, with stones for our 3 children--two emeralds and one sapphire. But it looked too dark and needed sparkle with those dark stones, and so we put in the center of them a smaller diamond from his grandmother, which is the April birth stone, the month we got married.

Those stones had sat in the safety deposit box for many years. One is still there. But we waited to use them when the occasion seemed to call for it. DD looked beautiful on her wedding day with her great, great uncle's diamond hanging from a slender chain around her neck to match the earrings her groom gave her.

You all have some great ideas! I cleaned the rings and am letting my imagination go wild!!!

Actually, in addition to the 2 solitaires, there are also 8 small baguettes and 6 small round diamonds, 2 round sapphires (from a pair of drop earrings) and two other rings with smaller stones that could be diamonds or could be cubic zirconia. There were no appraisals on those for me to know if they are diamonds or not.

I'm thinking that I could have enough to work with (discounting the cubic) what with the other assorted diamonds and even the saph's to come up with a stunning pendant necklace....that's where my head is sort of going at the moment.

Does anyone know of a design-your-own site? I haven't found any.

Work with a jeweler who designs and whom you know you can trust with your family heirlooms. We have a good one in our neighborhood strip mall who designed with our input the pieces I describe above. Ask around in your town for local recommendations. If you live in southern California, let me know and I can share my recommendation.

Thanks Sheilajoyce. Good advice...don't want any switcheroos when I'm not looking. I'm across the fruited plain in Florida, but have 2 jewelers I've done business with over the past 25+ years, so I might get some opinions from them too! Anyway, it will be a fun first for me...never had some nice stones to do anything with!

This place has a few ideas that may work!

OMG Lydia,

That site has spurred my ideas.....

Thanks!