TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Jungle Gems jewelry store
expands to the concrete jungleFor years sisters Kim and Valerie Moore talked about Valerie joining Kim's jewelry business.
"We've always kind of teased about it back and forth," Valerie said, but she had a successful career in public relations.
Until the end of July, anyway, when she left her position as vice president of corporate and public affairs at Stryker Weiner & Yokota Public Relations Inc. to expand the business her sister and brother-in-law started on the North Shore some 15 years ago.
Kim Moore and husband and jewelry maker Brent Lindberg founded Jungle Gems at the Haleiwa Shopping center after a buying spree at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, Kim said.
Valerie and Kim plan a Nov. 1 opening for the second Jungle Gems store, which is at Ward Warehouse in the old Tropical Clay location.
The Ward Warehouse Jungle Gems, about 900 square feet, will be decorated in a jungle theme with handcrafted bamboo-themed jewelry cases designed during a trip to Bali in early July.
"Valerie's store will be a little different flavor," said Kim. "Mine is casual and beachy," while the Ward store may carry fewer ankle bracelets and belly chains, she said.
Valerie, not knowing what her sister had told TheBuzz, said her product mix would likely be more suitable for professional clientele, "so maybe not as many belly chains."
As he does for the Haleiwa store, Lindberg will design and make jewelry for the Ward store using unique stones, such as Burmese rubies which are dark red and opaque; moldavite, which is a multifaceted gemstone carved from a meteor that fell to earth in Czechoslovakia; and different types of tourmaline, to name a few. About 10 percent of Jungle Gems' inventory is made elsewhere.
Aside from jewelry, the store carries items like fossil stone wine goblets; a tall, lighted piece of quartz crystal; and white onyx bowls and vases, Valerie said.
Public relations was consuming her life, she said, and while she realizes running her own business will be that way for the first couple years, "I'm working for myself," she said.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com