Thanks for the compliments. The metal is 18K white gold and the surrounding stones are diamonds (1.5pointers in the pendant and .5pts in the earrings). I am not entirely happy with the settings. I don't like the 3 prong setting in the earrings, and the pearls are covering up the diamonds as they are not perfectly circular. I might change the earring setting. Also, in the pendant, I hoped the seed pearls would be right next to the bigger pearl -- I don't like the slight gap between the two. The gap is more apparent when you look at it up close and especially from the back. Am I picky?
Why I chose white gold and diamonds -- I put the pearls next to 18K yellow and white gold. Next to white gold, the blues in the pearls looked awesome and the predominant color in the pearls is several shades of blue. Yellow gold did not complement the different shades of blue as much, only the stronger shades looked good, but, with the white gold I could see all the different blues. Also, I put the pearls next to ruby, emerald, sapphire, diamonds etc to see if any of these colors go well with the pearls. Diamonds and light blue transparent sapphires seemed to complement these pearls best. I am thinking of wearing the pendant on a strand of tiny blue sapphire beads.
Why I chose 18K gold -- All my jewellery is either 18K or 22K, so, I chose 18K. In case you are wondering why 22K -- I am of Indian origin, and most of my jewellery is from India. And, my jeweller deals mostly with 18K gold. He said I would be mostly paying for the workmanship (an arm and a leg
). Cost of gemstones was extra, but it is not something I could add later without redoing the whole thing.