Margaret Ellis Jewelry offers custom stone selections for Mother’s Day gifts

At Margaret Ellis Jewelry, the gift was not a finished necklace but a starting point: a semi-precious stone chosen from a 40-plus-year archive, then turned into a made-to-order piece in the Berry Hill studio. The ME Archive Stone Selection Event was set for Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 10:30 a.m. and Friday, May 1, 2026 at 4 p.m. at 2809 Bransford Avenue in Nashville, with appointments suggested and walk-ins welcome.

The format made sense for Mother’s Day because it shifted the emphasis from shopping to authorship. Margaret Ellis Jewelry said new one-of-a-kind semi-precious stone necklaces were available online and in the studio, but the more compelling option was to choose a stone and build from there. The studio also offered pickup, home delivery within 10 miles and complimentary ground shipping, a practical set of options for anyone trying to turn a custom commission around in time for a holiday gift.

What matters most in an appointment like this is not simply color, but how the stone will live in the finished jewel. Margaret Ellis Jewelry handcrafts each piece in Nashville in sterling silver, bronze, 18k gold and 22k gold, using traditional metalsmith techniques. That means the buyer is choosing more than a gem; the buyer is deciding on scale, metal tone and setting style, the details that determine whether a piece reads as an everyday staple or a keepsake with enough presence to survive a lifetime of wear.

The archive itself is part of the appeal. Margaret Ellis Jewelry dates to 1983, and Mclaine Richardson relaunched the business in January 2013 after purchasing Margaret Ellis, Inc. from founder Margaret Ellis on December 31, 2012. Richardson kept the Margaret Ellis name to honor Ellis’s 30-year design history and the collectors who had built a relationship with the brand long before the revival. The company says scrap metal is recycled and stones are ethically sourced, which adds another layer of value to a piece built from an old archive and a new design commission.

For shoppers weighing whether to spend on a custom piece, the real question is whether the stone has enough personality to justify the cost of labor, metal and design. Here, the answer is built into the premise: a stone with history, a Nashville bench and a necklace created around one specific gem rather than a passing trend. That is how a holiday gift becomes a jewel worth keeping.