Tetra Bridal Sets with Trillion Garnet and Lab Sapphire

A couple weeks ago I finished a set of 4 rings for an awesome couple. They wanted matching bridal sets each from my Tetra collection which incorporate trillion cut faceted stones. For their sets they chose a lab created blue sapphire and a Mozambique garnet set in palladium with a matching 2mm contoured wedding band.

Bridal ring sets made in palladium with Garnet and lab created sapphire

The rings are also available now on my web site as Sapphire or Garnet bridal sets or just the garnet ring or lab sapphire engagement ring each. 

The lab sapphire ring can be made with a standard lab created sapphire or a more expensive Chatham  created sapphire. 

The garnet ring is also available with a Rhodolite garnet which would have more a raspberry color instead of the warm red Mozambique garnet color.

Palladium ring with trillion cut lab created blue sapphire

Palladium ring with trillion cut genuine Mozambique Garnet

It was fun creating these bridal pieces with those colorful gemstones. They are part of my Tetra collection rings which I have been making for years mostly as statement or cocktail rings. It's nice to bring this line now into my bridal selection too. I already offer a moissanite version too and can create it also with diamonds or genuine sapphires upon request.

The couple has been very happy with their rings too. Here the note I received from them: 

"We received our rings this weekend and couldn't be more thrilled with them. They are beautiful pieces! Thank-you again for creating them for us." 

Happy customers means mission accomplished!

One-of-a-kind Wooden Ring Box

So you finally found the perfect ring to give, now it's time to think about how to propose to the person you love and want to spend your life with.

You don't need to hire a flash mob to make your big proposal day a special event. That kind of proposal isn't for everyone. Sometimes a small romantic gesture is all that is needed to make your loved ones heart melt and shows them how special they are. You should know them pretty well at this point to have a feel for what they like or not. Taking clues from your happiest moments spent together can be great inspiration. After all you want to make it a very personalized and unique experience. Such clues could be memories form vacations taken together, love letters (or love emails/SMS) you received from your partner, concerts you went to together, your favorite hangout spaces, ... anything that shows them that you cherished every moment you spent with them.

One of my dear customers made a very romantic gesture by crafting a personalized ring box for the ring he ordered from my shop. He had ordered a ring from my Saw Cut collection which has a texture similar to cut wood. Jeff gave it to his partner Phil as an engagement ring along with a meaningful box he made to go with it. He created the box from a piece of wood they found together on a hike in Yosemite.

The piece of wood is so unique and makes a beautiful ring holder with a personal touch. Such a romantic gesture.

The ring he ordered is similar to this Saw Cut wedding band.

Each ring has a one-of-a-kind unique texture just like the grain on each piece of wood is unique. It's a wide rustic wedding band with a carved texture of uneven fine lines that gives it the look of cut wood.

The ring line was inspired by the German wedding tradition of log cutting. After the ceremony is done, the bride and groom have to cut a log placed on a sawhorse. It's the first obstacle the couple has to accomplish in their married life. It's quite an exhausting task done without any power tools. It's especially hard to accomplish considering it has to be done wearing a suite and big wedding dress. This symbolizes their teamwork and shows how well they work together to complete the task.

Jeff's wooded ring box was perfect with the theme of the ring design, although it looks like he did use some power tools when creating his special box.  I really like the 2 nails too keeping the top and bottom perfectly alined.

Please check also out this personalized ring box for a Tourmaline ring.

Melissa's and Jessica's Rings

I got a really nice surprise note a couple days ago from Melissa and Jessica. I had made their engagement rings last year in Spring and then a couple month ago their matching wedding bands. They brought some happy tears into my eyes by sharing photos from their wedding in August and giving me one of the best thank you notes one can hope for.

What a sweet couple. Congratulations to Melissa and Jessica!
Photo by Dawn Hartman

Melissa wrote: 
"We wanted to drop a line and say thanks again for our beautiful rings. We were married on August 10th, and it was a WONDERFUL day. One of the highlights of the ceremony was when Jessie slipped my wedding band on, and I just stared at it and said "....wow...." -- and then the crowd laughed. ;) "

Ahhhhh, this is why I love my job so much.

Here a couple more photos they shared. These were taken by their wedding photographer Dawn Hartman at www.dawnhartmanphotography.com .

Photo by Dawn Hartman

Photo by Dawn Hartman

The engagement rings I made were done with Fair Trade cushion cut Malawi sapphires from Columbia Gemhouse. Melissa had expressed her wish for a sustainable option for the rings. The palladium for the rings was already recycled precious metal as all the metal I use is recycled.
Luckily I knew of a Fair Trade supplier for the sapphires. The stones Columbia Gemhouse sent me to select from were gorgeous and came in various green to blue shades. After checking with Melissa we went for slightly different color hues for each ring, one has a green-blue sapphire and the other has a darker blue one. Both sapphires were set in a half bezel design from my Fold Collection.

Palladium engagement rings with Fair Trade sapphires which were mined in Malawi.

 
The matching wedding rings were also done in Palladium. They were custom made as shadow bands to match the side contours of each ring. Jessica got a hammered textured band and Melissa opted for a polished band with 3 flush set recycled diamonds. The diamonds were Harmony diamonds from Hoover & Strong. These 100% recycled diamonds are the ultimate eco-friendly diamonds, as they do not cause destruction to our Earth. This saves on energy and water usage as well as emissions and has a lower impact on the environment to name a few benefits. The diamond melee is painstakingly cleaned, sorted and graded by Hoover & Strong. It's a great way to get some added sparkle for anyone who prefers natural stones over lab made moissanites.

Palladium wedding bands with hammered texture and recycled diamonds

 

It was such a pleasure working with Melissa and Jessica. May their married life be full of laughter and love for each other forever and ever!

Handmade Proposal Box for a Tourmaline Ring

I love when customers share their proposal stories with me. It feels great being a part of their big moment. I especially love when they send me pictures of the new ring on their loved ones hand.

One of those very special Thank You notes I received in April was from Clinton. He created a personalized proposal box for the ring I made. He took some previous hints from his girlfriend Geraldine to his heart about her loving something handmade from him. Here is his sweet box:

The quote in the card is from an email she sent him a while back. So thoughtful and romantic. What a sweet couple. I am sure she said yes.


The ring that's in the box has a stunning raspberry color Tourmaline set in 14k yellow gold.

I have to say I really love the warm color combination of pink tourmaline and yellow gold. It was a real treat to my eyes to work with it. Such uplifting colors.

Here the ring in process:

The design was carved in wax and then cast in 14k yellow gold.

Carved wax models are mounted on a sprue base as a preparation for casing. His ring is on the far right, the single wax model on the base.

All rings cast in various precious metals. His ring is the yellow one in the center.

Then starts the tedious process of grinding, sanding and polishing before it's time to prepare the setting for the stone.

Sanded and pre-finished ring.

And the finished ring:

Digital Designs

Last week I introduced some new engagement ring designs in my wedding store on Etsy. This time I went a bit different route than I usually take. Instead of carving all these designs in wax, then casting them, finish and set expensive stones, I went digital. I did model them in CAD and rendered photo realistic images of them in different metal options. I finally started using my new learned 3D CAD skills that I spend endless hours last year learning and practicing it during the RAW challenge. Hopefully all that hard work will ultimately pay off. All are modeled in Rhino4 with T-splines plugin and rendered in Brazil for Rhino.

Here a few of those new ring designs. All use Moissanites as they are perfect durable gem stones for engagement rings and rings are available in different metal options. Other gem stones could be used with these designs too.

Moissanite Full Bezel Engagement ring with optional wedding band. Available in Silver/Palladium, 14K yellow gold, white gold and Palladium upon request.

Round 5mm Moissanite in half-bezel setting

Close up of the Moissanite in it's setting

Same design but in 14 karat yellow gold

All those designs are variations for similar setting types I have done before, like my Fold ring collection. I pretty well understand how I will have to make them once an order comes in, how they will look and know that proportions will work. The thing that really got me moving in this direction was calculating my expenses for my 2011 taxes. Seeing the amount of money I spend on developing new designs in the last year, spending thousands on buying stones and precious metals, made me rethink my strategy for this year. All that money spend is money I don't have to pay my mortgage or feed myself. To keep doing what I love to do, I need to start running my business smarter.

Half carat cushion cut Moissanite in a half-bezel setting in yellow gold

Rings I produced in metal to be able to photograph them and list them in my shop, often stay a long time with me. It can take weeks, month or years to actually be able to sell the one I have in stock. I learned that with engagement rings people almost always request some slight modifications. Those can be a different metal, wider or narrower bands, different finish, different size, type or color of a gem stone, etc. Plus everyone needs a different ring size. Once a stone is set in a ring, it is pretty tricky to resize it. It works with some stones and usually within a small size range. But more often than not it is better to redo the ring to the correct size and dimensions. I did already move towards taking photos with the rings 90% finished but the stones just laid in the settings without tightening the rim over the stone. This allowed me to remove it and size it better without risking to damage a stone during the soldering. Still, sometimes the settings look slightly different with the stone not fully set. Once the metal is moved over the rim of a stone, the setting usually looks a bit smoother, all is tight and nicely finished. Even with that approach I could not resize more than 2 sizes up or down without affecting the overall shape and integrity of the ring.

Cushion Moissanite in Palladium or also available in Silver/Palladium.

 

Last month I finally had a break through with 3d modelling and actually really enjoy working with it. It's a great tool to try out a few variations of a design and make decisions quickly without investing too much money. It still takes considerable amount of time to model my designs in 3D. Photo realistic rendering also is a time sucker. It's easy to spend hours and hours on the computer trying to get the lights and reflections on the metal just right. It really requires me to remember what I learned in high school and college about physics, optics & mathematics. It's all very geeky, which I actually love. It can be frustrating at times but great when things finally work. I guess with time it will get faster as I will figure out some standard settings to use. Plus the images will only get better with more knowledge of the software.  I love that I can show the same design in white metals and yellow gold options relatively quickly and without the expense of buying gold at all time high prices.

I am already working on some custom orders for these new designs, all are modified from the original by using larger stones and applying different finishes on the metal. When an order comes in I mostly still carve the rings by hand in wax. I actually photographed some stages of carving a model in wax and will post them to the blog in the next days. This will show how to bring those digital designs to life and on the hands of a lucky bride. The current design I am hand modelling is this setting with a 5.5 mm cushion Moissanite, made in Silver/Palladium alloy with matching wedding band. Both rings will get a hammered texture.

Cushion Cut Moissanite in Full bezel setting.

There will be a few more designs in the future that will need to be 3D printed or milled by a CNC machine as they are a bit more complicated and would be harder to carve by hand. It's not impossible to hard carve them but sometimes it's just more efficient to choose a different tool.  Since I don't own a mill or 3D printer, I need to send those out to a service bureau. It takes a bit longer to get those models back and fewer modifications will be possible. I am still continuing to produce new designs directly in wax and metal without going digital. Especially for one-of-a-kind gem stones and unique one off designs it is still the most effective way. Using CAD is currently better for designs that can be replicated again especially with stones that are commercially available in constant sizes and colors. Moissanites are perfect for that and I love working with them.

So far the response has be great and I got already a few communications going with potential customers for their engagement rings. I am really looking forward to seeing them all come to life.

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