1. Stick With What Works

When it comes to jewelry, girls are creatures of habit. The variety they impose on their earlobes, necks and wrists rarely extends beyond a double- versus single- chain dangly earring, or a round pendant versus a square one. This makes your job (should you choose to accept it) quite easy. All you have to do is open your eyes. If she wears a pair of plain gold hoop earrings almost every day, get her another pair of gold hoop earrings that have a slightly different look - hammered to provide some texture, or only 3 quarters of a circle. If she adorns herself with large stone necklaces or bracelets, keep in mind that chunky and fun, not thin and delicate, is her style.

Choosing Metals: Along that same vein, unless she has specifically mentioned that she wants to shake things up in the gold versus sterling silver category, it is safe to assume that if she has a lot of one or the other, what she has is what she prefers. She will not likely want to wear the new gold bracelet you have given her if she has no other jewelry to match it.

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2. Pick Colors Strategically

Ever heard someone say to your girl, "that color really brings out your eyes?" Well, we guarantee she has, and she's not likely to forget it. There are a couple of hard and fast rules to finding a color that complements skin tone, eye and hair color. The first is that when two colors are close to each other, opposites enhance, but similar tones clash. That means that if your girl has beautiful red locks, a big green necklace will make both colors much more striking, whereas an orange necklace would probably dull both down to an unattractive, orangey mess.

The second rule is, the farther away you go from the source, the more likely that similar colors will catch and augment each other. In other words, any jewelry that is meant to bring out the green in her eyes should also be green, since eyes are small and far away from most jewelry. If, however, you are trying to draw attention to her fabulous tan, we recommend that her bracelet, necklace or earrings be white to create up-close contrast.

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3. Choose Something With Meaning

When it comes down to it, we know she wouldn't ever give away that necklace you bought her no matter how horrid it was, because she is way too sentimental for that. But wouldn't it be great to buy her something she can form both a superficial and an emotional attachment to? The easiest way to do that is to buy jewelry that features her birthstone (yes, someone appointed a stone to every month of the year!) or an anniversary stone, if appropriate. For an extra-special touch that won't take much effort on your part, do some quick web research (we recommend our own Gemstone Chart) and print out a history of the stone, including the origin of its name and its mythical powers. This may be the one exception to rule #1 - if she has none of this stone in her collection currently, we are quite sure that after she reads that it is meant to guarantee a happy marriage (Aquamarine), she will quickly make it a staple part of her wardrobe.

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