We ventured outside of Portland this week for an apple picking adventure! We spent an excellent hour or two on Tuesday afternoon at Orchard Hill Farm in Cumberland picking golden delicious apples (more pictures from that trip later in the post!).

Adrianne, Emily, and Aubin in the apple trees!

Our featured rings this week are our Alivia Vintage Pearl and Diamond Engagement Ring and our Julia Vintage Diamond Engagement Ring (named for Vintage Style Council Members Alivia of Brunch in April and Julia of Jeeze, Julia respectively). Julia wrote about her namesake ring in the context of classic literary couples and Alivia styled her ring for a chic day in 1950s New York.

Alivia Vintage Pearl and Diamond Engagement Ring

We also answered some commonly asked questions this week in our posts “Do your wedding bands need to match?” and “Does your engagement ring have to have a diamond?” Both posts explored the alternatives to traditional rings and recommended ones like our Gold Pink Tourmaline Engagement Ring and our Organic Gold Wedding Ring. Do you have any jewelry questions you’d like us to answer? Email us at [email protected]

Are plain rings not your style? How about an organic textured artisan wedding ring?

And now the moment you’ve been waiting for! Here are some pictures from our apple picking trip:

Emily picking apples

Aubin taking a break to see if anyone on Twitter has any good apple recipes

Adrianne picking apples her own way

Emily, Aubin, Adrianne, and Alicia after a successful afternoon of apple picking!

We’re still at work preparing our holiday catalog (we can’t wait for you to see it!) so this past week at Turtle Love Co. headquarters has been delightfully busy! We still found time, however, to share with you posts from our Vintage Style Council members Christine from The Big Mac Blog and Michelle from Maine Belle who told us why they love their namesake vintage engagement rings. You can read the post about our Christine Vintage Diamond Engagement Ring by clicking here and the post about our Michelle Vintage Diamond Engagement Ring can be found here.

Emily modeling one of our new silver necklaces

We also introduced you to a new engagement ring in our collection in our post Meet the Designer: Elizabeth Ryan. The ring in question is our Lovebirds engagement ring, which is available in sterling silver or white gold with either a topaz, sapphire, or diamond. Elizabeth Ryan is the first prize winner in our 2012 Engagement Ring Design contest.

Elizabeth Ryan’s winning design, the Lovebirds Engagement Ring

On Sunday our customer service and graphic guru Alicia showed us different styles of wedding bands in her post “From plain to fancy.” What’s your preferred style of wedding band? If you’re looking to buy a ring for your partner and want to surprise them you may not only be wondering what their style is but also what their ring size is. To help you find the right ring size without giving away the surprise Emily put together a post with some tips, including looking at existing rings and enlisting their friends’ help! You can read more tips about finding someone’s ring size here.

Today we took turns modeling some of the new necklaces and earrings that will be on our website in time for the holidays. We did take a brief break, however, to pose with the Turtle Love Committee! After this picture the camera went off again, surprising all of us but making for a photograph too funny not to share.

Emily, Aubin, and Alicia with the Turtle Love Committee

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Do you have any fun plans?

With the onset of cooler weather in the Northern hemisphere, we’ve been falling in love with rose gold all over again! Its color not only reminds us of the beautiful changing leaves of fall but it has a warm feeling that is comforting to see as we get ready for winter. On Tuesday, Aubin showed us two different styles of rings offered at Turtle Love Co. made from this gorgeous metal: the modern, streamlined designs of Jeannie Hwang and the more textured, organic rings by Dahlia Kanner and Midori Ferris Wayne. You can read the full article by clicking here.

Solar Flare Wedding Band in Rose Gold with Diamonds by Jeannie Hwang

We recently put out a call for questions on our Facebook page and received many interesting ones (if you have a question about anything jewelry-related, just email [email protected])! Many people are interested in learning about alternatives to traditional wedding and engagement rings so Alicia and Emily put together articles that help explore some of the alternatives out there. Alicia’s article about “rings that walk the line” gathered together some rings from Turtle Love Co. that transcend common stereotypes of gender and mix both feminine and masculine style elements. Emily looked at some engagement rings and wedding bands in her article that aren’t your standard plain gold ring, including our sterling silver Laurel Leaf Ring by Laura Serrafero. To read Emily’s article, click here.

Rings by Midori Ferris Wayne

In other exciting news we had our first local meetup of the Vintage Style Council this past Wednesday. The Vintage Style Council is group of bloggers from around the world who help us spread the word about Turtle Love Co. and we recently let them name a collection of vintage engagement rings (which you can view on our site here). Erin from Just Plain Lovely, Laura from Fore Front Fashion, Alivia from Brunch in April, and Laura from Sweeter Salt joined us at Flatbread in Portland for a lovely dinner and some excellent conversation where we talked about everything from our pet dogs to the differences between New York and Portland and everything in between! Thanks to the Maine members of the VSC for coming out to the meetup and we can’t wait to have more gatherings in the future!

That’s all for now from Team Turtle Love Co.! We have some exciting announcements about a new service and new products next week, but if you’d like a preview in the meantime just hop on over to A Practical Wedding and read Adrianne’s guest post about what’s new at TLC!

Everyone at Turtle Love Co. headquarters has been very busy this week with activities ranging from photographing newly arrived jewelry for our winter catalog to attending social media conferences. Still, we had time to bring you some excellent blog posts. This past weekend we embraced September’s gemstone and put together a list of sapphire rings available on our website, like these pink and blue stackable sapphire rings:

To learn more about these rings, click this picture

We also gave you a sneak preview on our Facebook page of one of the new products we’ll be offering this spring, our Black Sunfire Post Earrings:

Black Sunfire Post Earrings from Turtle Love Co., coming this winter

While everyone at Fashion Week was focusing on Spring style, we’re excited to see the trends for Fall weddings. The Turtle Love Committee has spent the morning looking over the latest issues of Southern New England Weddings and MarryME and gathering ideas about Autumnal wedding fashions. What’s your Fall wedding style inspiration?

Our Turtle Love Committee enjoying Southern New England Weddings and Marry Me

Hooray for September! It’s the beginning of fall, the start of a new school year, and one step closer to cardigan weather (which we’re all fans of around the office).

This week we announced our Vintage Style Council Member of the Month, Christine from The Big Mac Blog! You can read our interview with her about her style, favorite jewelry, and inspirations here.

Christine from The Big Mac Blog

We also took a look at some unusual jewelry with Monday’s Currently Loving post by Brooke from Highly Fashion-able about our Bronze Peanut Necklace. Saturday’s post looked at three unusual celebrity engagement rings and their Turtle Love Co. counterparts. You can read that post here.

Turtle Love Co.’s Bronze Peanut Necklace

Lastly, Alicia showed us 7 three-piece engagement and wedding ring sets for under $500, including this beautiful Delicate Silver Band with Gold Nugget set and Delicate Silver band for $355.

Delicate Silver Band with Gold Nugget set from Turtle Love Co.

This afternoon our Turtle Love Committee is enjoying our garden in these last few days of warm weather. How are you spending your Friday?

Our Turtle Love Committee enjoying the garden