Jewelry lines are offering some great deals this season, but this one from Ruff & Cut caught my eye. I've been a fan of the Ruff&Cut line for a while, the brand makes rough diamond jewelry using only recycled metals and ethically-sourced diamonds in each of their unique pieces, as well as giving back 10 percent off all profits to charitable causes that support mining communities in Sierra Leone.

Now through Christmas Eve, Ruff&Cut is offering 50 percent off all of its one-of-a-kind fine jewelry. To get the discount you need to enter the promotional code HOLIDAY09 when purchasing. The piece shown above, a lilypad-shaped, texture-enhanced medallion necklace designed by Tracy Matthews and featuring an octahedral rough diamond has a regular price of $5,970 but can be picked up for $2,985.

The flu kept Elizabeth Taylor from attending the opening of a Beverly Hills jewelry boutique which features her House of Taylor jewelry. Taylor was expected to be at the opening of Luxury Jewels of Beverly Hills and the AFP reports that guests waited three hours for her until her spokesman announced she would not be arriving.

It's been a rough few years for both Taylor and her eponymous brand of couture jewelry. Taylor has suffered several health crises and the loss of beloved friends including Michael Jackson. Her jewelry line began in 2005 when Mirabelle Luxury Concepts and Techline Jewelry merged with entities owned by Kathy Ireland and Elizabeth Taylor to form House of Taylor Jewelry. The new company struggled to gain footing and eventually was delisted from the Nasdaq in 2008. In November 2008, House of Taylor Jewelry, Inc. filed a voluntary petition for liquidation under Chapter 7 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, Los Angeles.

The House of Taylor opening was attended by Marilu Henner, Maria Conchita Alonso, Kevin Sorbo and Frances Fisher among others. The jewelry remains on display at the Luxury Jewels of Beverly Hills store.

Let's face it, outrageous bling can be a bit frowned upon these days. Perhaps that's why some rappers and other celebrities are turning to black diamonds. Black diamonds have a more subtle appeal, a look that is still flashy but not quite so attention seeking.

Rafaello & Company Jewelers is the work of five families who first journeyed to the United States from Uzbekistan back in the mid 1980s. The family worked in the jewelry wholesale business for years but Rafael Aranbayev, Avi Aranbayev and Gabriel "The Jeweler" Jacobs started their high end jewelry line, Rafaello & Company Jewelers, in 2009. The brand has made red carpet pieces and customized jewelry for a variety of stars including Jamie Foxx, Alicia Keys, Ne-Yo and many athletes. This summer they premiered their latest jewelry collection called "The Blackout" which features black diamonds. There are pieces for both men and women. The brand is committed to using conflict-free stones and 10 percent of their proceeds go to All As One a nonprofit in Sierra Leone that helps orphans.

Another case of big stones, big money. Prices on small diamonds continue to stagnate but the big stones are selling at auction at the high end of their estimates. The stunning pear-shaped 39-carat, D color Evening Star diamond brought in $5.4 million at Christie's this week, just below the high-end of the $3.6 million to $5.5 million estimate. This stone is a type IIa diamond the type which was found in India's famous ancient Golconda mines. It is certified to be VVS1 clarity and is accompanied by a working diagram indicating that the clarity may be potentially internally flawless.

The stone was part of a small sale of ten pieces from one collector, the "Magnificent Jewels from a Distinguished Private Collector" sale held on Thursday at Christie's New York. The name of the stone came from the owner's habit of wearing the stone to evening galas. A matching pair of diamond ear pendants with two pear-shaped, D-color diamonds of 10.21 and 10.51 carats, also type IIa stones were estimated to bring in $1.7 million to $2.5 million and sold for nearly $2.1 million.

Most rare stamps are sold on their own but a version one of the world's most recognizable misprinted postage stamp, the "Inverted Jenny" was once put in a locket. The glass locket with a gold rim was created as a gift for the President of the Texas Midland Railroad, Col. Ned Green to give to his wife. It contains the Inverted Jenny back to back with an example of a correctly printed 1918 24-cent airmail stamp. Mabel Green kept it until she died in 1950. The locket will be part of a public auction of rare stamps at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City on December 12 being held by Heritage Auctions. It has a pre-auction estimate of $200,000 or more.

The only known examples of the Inverted Jenny error came from an original sheet of 100 stamps purchased at a Washington, DC post office in 1918. According to Harvey Bennett, Director of Philately at Heritage Auctions, Col. Green bought the entire sheet from a dealer for $20,000, and began selling off individual stamps and small blocks. He had one of the stamps made into the locket for his wife.

Bvlgari finished off its 125th anniversary year in style at Christie's New York with an auction to benefit Save the Children. To close out its 125th anniversary year, the jeweler hosted a star-studded crowd at the auction house and put 11 incredible jewelry lots and seven timepieces up for sale. Stars in attendance included Morgan Fairchild, Rose Byrne, Jessica Lange and Ricky Martin, who posed with model Esther Canadas. Bvlgari raised a total of $1,546,500 including $270,000 for the diamond Lucea choker seen in the gallery below. The company will be working with Save the Children again next year.

Often after a jewelry store robbery the jewels are broken up and disappear into the black market never to be seen again. But police in Lyon, France got lucky. The AP reports that they have recovered nearly 800,000 euros ($1,181,900) worth of jewels stolen which were taken last month from the Cartier jewelry store in the southeastern French city. The jewels were stolen in a smash and grab on November 26 in which thieves rushed in during business hours, used a sledgehammer to break open reinforced glass and then grabbed handfuls of jewelry and watches. Police were searching the apartment of a suspect in another jewelry theft when they came upon the treasure trove of stolen loot. The suspect has not been caught.

Temple St. Clair has been afflicted with wanderlust her entire life. A southern girl who grew up spending summer vacations in Morocco and Bavaria, went to an International Swiss boarding school for high school, and received a masters in Italian literature in Florence, St. Clair has been traveling her whole life. Her vast knowledge of art and mythology coupled with her travels to the ends of the world to find rare gems makes her process and collection entirely unique.

We spoke with St. Clair, who still retains her charming Southern accent, about the inspiration for her stunning and elegant jewelry collection. The Temple St. Clair line is not for every woman. It's for a woman who doesn't follow the rules, in fashion or in life. It's for a woman with an endless search for knowledge and adventure, a woman with an innate sense of class and elegance, a woman a lot like Temple St. Clair herself.

When did you know you wanted to be a jewelry designer?

It wasn't a clear-cut decision. It was something that sort of evolved in my life. I lived in Italy for about twelve years. I started living there after I'd been living in Italy in the 80s and I started having a few pieces made for myself. My background is in Italian Renaissance literature, Italian art history, and I was inspired by the things I was studying that were around me in Florence. My goal was to make a few things for me and then other people started seeing them and friends and family asking me to make things for them. And it grew from there, and supported me continuing to live in Italy and travel and study. It wasn't an exact moment that I decided. Life decided that for me.

What were your early influences?

I had my masters in Italian Renaissance literature so I was reading Dante and Boccaccio, so I was spending a lot of time in the museums there. So early on I was looking at everything around me in Florence. I would say early inspiration was certainly Mediterranean. I was traveling a lot in Turkey and North Africa and of course all around Italy, so definitely the early influences came from there.

Who is your ideal customer?

I think my ideal customer, it's not like, I can describe to you what kind of woman is attracted to my collection. My customer has certain characteristics, typically, and they usually are very confidant women, very secure in their own individual styles. They don't let fashion dictate to them. They like to put their own mark on things, and put things together for themselves. And my collection lends to that. And you know, that's how I feel about fashion and life in general. You know I prefer to be more of an individual and I guess that translates through my jewelry and attracts that kind of woman.

Your collections feature a lot of really unusual stones. How do you source materials and pick different stones?

I've become known for my use of really beautiful and unusual color and fine gemstones. I do use a lot of different colors of sapphires. I do use a lot of different aquamarine and tourmaline and really rare pieces, which really are quite difficult to work with, because sometimes I can only get one stone of a certain kind. So that very much differentiates what I do from a usually jewelry manufacturer that might be making everything in colored quartz for example, where you can get all you want.

So the sources for these materials are widely distributed around the world. I work with cutters in Germany. I work with Indians. I work with Australians. I have people bringing stuff out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is particularly difficult these days, as you could imagine. I work with really beautiful tourmaline coming out of Mozambique, minerals coming out of Madagascar, just really, really interesting unusual material. One thing I always say is, it certainly doesn't make it easy when you're working on some new pieces, just sourcing materials is very, very difficult, but that's the way I like it.

Is that what sets you wide apart from other lines?

I think so in many ways, because otherwise it's just too difficult. It's not a practical business model, let's say. But I think I come to things from a more artistic perspective, and a more historical perspective where I sort of see myself in the history of jewelry. If you look back at important jewelry, things weren't produced in multiple, multiple pieces. You have one special piece, pieces like Elizabeth Taylor has collected, that were owned by some great European monarch who collected centuries before. Those pieces weren't made in the dozens. So I think a little bit, I work in that way, that I'm really creating these treasures to be passed down. A lot of people refer to them as modern classics. I like that. These are pieces that will stand the test of time.

What's your work process like once you have an idea to the time that it's actually being created?

I work on a fashion schedule. I present two collections a year, a spring and a fall collection. At the same time, as I find interesting stones, they'll be other pieces that I'll add in during the year. Typical these days I'll be working on a seasoned collection, nine to twelve months ahead of time. That doesn't necessarily mean that's how long it takes a design to happen. I am constantly working on different designs. And if a scene comes along that strikes me, I'll go in deeper on a particular design.

I have a few different collections that are somewhat thematic. One that's celestially inspired, that takes into account some old drawings of constellations and have some astrological motifs, old almost pagan motifs from studies of astronomy and astrology. I love myths and stories and legends, so I'll go in deep and not only read the stories, but look at old drawings and things.

I find inspiration, just out of my imagination, and you know references already existing in the world. So it depends. Some times something hits you and it's very fast, and other times it's something you're sort of working on over a period of time. So, it works both ways. And sometimes it's just I'll get a beautiful stone and everything will come from that stone. I'll just be motivated to set it a certain way.

Is there one piece in your collection that you think every woman should have?

In my collection, typically the most signature, iconic piece is my rock crystal amulet. And that tends to be the piece that, if someone is just getting to know my collection, that's the piece that they tend to be drawn to. That's the piece that I encourage as a starting collectible because it is so versatile. It can go with anything, and at the same time, with the rock crystal amulet, I add several new ones with each new collection. So there are many to choose from. So it goes back to that idea of the customer wanting her own personal individual item, and she can find that with her choice of the individual rock crystal amulets.

To read more about how Temple St. Clair's worldly life influences her gorgeous designs, check out her expansive book Alchemy: A Passion For Jewels. It's a must-have addition to any art book collection. Click through the gallery to view more amazing pieces.

These bullet earrings are a new twist on recycling that might be a great gift for eco girls with an edge. The earrings are sterling silver hoops with found reclaimed brass bullet casings from the mountains of Colorado. Each pair is unique and sells for $125 from Cake Jewelry.

It just keeps getting better. We've been covering the various luxe Hello Kitty collections over the past few years with delight and wonder -- this year Hello Kitty is even sparklier and more fabulous than before.

Simmons Jewelry Company's Hello Kitty collection (available from Zales) now includes more than just jewelry -- how about a pink crystal studded Hello Kitty compact, or even a 2GB USB flash drive (right, $125.00)? We love the cute rubber watches and the glittering, multicolored sapphires, tourmalines and rubies in the current collection, as well as the "big rock" pendants and rings created by Kimora Lee Simmons for Hello Kitty's 35th Anniversary (available from Neiman Marcus).

To check out some of our favorite picks of the litter (haha), see below for photos and prices.

For even more Hello Kitty bling, check out these exceptional Hello Kitty iPhone covers. Wow!

Pretty, isn't it? This Calendar Necklace is available from Dalla Nonna Jewelry and was recently spotted on Jessica Alba (December 1st).

Each Calendar Necklace is custom; you pick the metal (silver or rose, yellow or white gold in matte or shiny), the month, the date (or two), and the jewel, which can be any of a number of colored sapphires. You can also opt for a Calendar Bracelet, which comes on pretty-colored faux suede.

The necklaces are available for $150.00 to $415.00, and ship in three to six weeks. If you'd like to get one for someone this holiday, you can have a "gift notice" sent to your recipient in plenty of time for the big day.

These pieces are great to commemorate an anniversary, birth, engagement or other special date -- they're lovely and unusual, and will have everyone asking you why that day is special.

Bonhams & Butterfields will hold its annual holiday auction of Natural History on December 6, 2009, in Los Angeles. Amid the crystal specimens and faceted stones are several fine examples of lapidary art. The most stunning is The Winter Palace, an illuminated music box made of rock crystal quartz, diamonds and aquamarines. It was designed to resemble a Russian onion-domed palace tower and was created under the direction of the German lapidary artist, Manfred Wild. It is decorated with 641 small diamonds and the music box key is made of 18K gold with a cabochon aquamarine inset on each side. The doors of the palace open to reveal a tiny model of a Russian dacha in 18K golf with a snow-covered roof rendered in diamonds. This piece carries a presales estimate of $250,000 to $300,000.

The auction also features an 18.36 carat orange-pink padparadscha sapphire. The pear-shaped gem has a presales estimate of $350,000 to $400,000. Also up for bid is "The Cat's Meow," a 47.80 carat cat's eye chrysoberyl ring estimated at $120,000 to $140,000. A huge blister pearl, The Palawan Princess, is also up for sale. The five-pound product of a giant clam is estimated at $300,000 to $400,000 and comes with half of the original giant clamshell showing the point of attachment where the pearl formed.

Stuart Weitzman's luxury diamond and gemstone embellished shoes always attract attention, usually on the feet of a starlet at a red-carpet event. But Weitzman's "Million Dollar" platinum shoe has received a unique honor, a country postage stamp issued by the Spanish government. The shoe features 464 Kwiat diamonds with a total carat weight of 61.92 mounted on a platinum mesh frame. The creation of the shoe was a collaboration between Platinum Guild International, Kwiat Diamonds and Stuart Weitzman. The stamp bears Stuart Weitzman's name and a picture of the show. Weitzman was celebrated at an event held at the National Shoe Museum in Elda, Spain, marking the 50th anniversary of the internationalization of the Spanish shoe industry. Weitzman's factories have been located in Alicante, Spain's shoemaking headquarters for the past 37 years.

Hong Kong's fall sales have been great for records, for Christie's in particular. After several were broken at the art auction this week, the gem scene was ignited. A pink diamond no larger than a chickpea went for $10.8 million, according to Bloomberg News. The stone had the second-highest rating available (potentially flawless) and a weight of 5 carats. It shattered the per-carat record set back in May. Back then, Hong Kong property investor Joseph Lau picked up a 7.03-carat blue diamond at an auction in Geneva for $10.5 million.

The pink diamond was sent under the gavel by Graff Diamonds, a London-based jeweler. The stone was sold to a phone bidder who beat out Liu Yiqian and his wife, Wang Wei. But, those two have bought enough already, right?

Overall, the 255 lots sold (an 89 percent sell rate) brought in HK$372 million, with the action pushed forward by mainland Chinese, a growing trend in the auction world this year. Donald May, a ruby and sapphire dealer based in Hong Kong, attended the auction and told Bloomberg, "There's a lot of mainland Chinese buying; either they didn't know what the items are worth or they wanted them so badly that price didn't matter." He believes that prices were pushed way out of control.

There were other records set in Hong Kong, as well. A sapphire weighing 16.65 carats, set by Van Cleef & Arpels, brought in HK$18.6 million, also setting a per-carat record.

[Photo courtesy of Christie's]

Bloomberg calls it a chicken-egg-sized diamond but the 507.6 carat rough stone found at Petra Diamonds' Cullinan mine in South Africa in September could earn some serious scratch. The diamond was part of a haul of four large stones found at the mine in September. The other stones, including a 168-carat stone sold for $6.28 million last week, have all been sold off. The other two stones sold for a total of $2.8 million. Now BMO Capital Markets is predicting a possible price of $31 million for biggest stone. The price is just an estimate.

Petra is still considering what to do with the stone. Stones of this size aren't found too often and the company is taking its time and pursuing all angles before any potential sale. The company's goal is obviously to get the biggest price for the stone but also to help make sure that the stone's legend lives on. Unlike many small diamonds, large stones tend to carry the name of their source along with them. It's hard to say what the final carat count will be. Rough stones can lose half their carat weight in polishing. Depending on the inclusions and other flaws that the diamond cutters will have to work around this could yield several substantial cut stones which could each go on to command their own multimillion price tags as they head down the supply chain.