Custom Cut White Cushion Cut Lab Sapphires

A couple months ago I asked my supplier for lab created sapphires to cut me a few square cushion cut white ones in 2 of the most popular sizes of 5mm and 6mm. Somehow square cushion cuts seem a bit more popular for my rings than the standard rectangle cushions I usually get. Took a couple month to finally get these sparkly stones in my hand. I had a mounting laying around that fit the smaller 5mm one for a sample ring to be photographed.

They are now available in on my web site or in my Etsy shop.

 

Finished it first with my standard polished band and then took one of my texturing hammers and applied a subtle texture to the band for a more rustic look.

Ring can also be made with a semi-bezel similar to these rings. This half bezel setting has a cut out on 2 sides.

Or in a smaller 5mm stone version:

 

Lab created sapphires offer a great alternative to the more expensive nature made stones. I would love to offer these too with genuine white sapphires, but unfortunately it's quite hard to find good suppliers for cushion cut white sapphires. Does not seem to be a common cut for them. 

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!

Pink Sapphire Wedding Band

I am  starting to work on new designs for the upcoming wedding season. The first one is a wax prototype  for a rounded wedding band with multiple small flush set pink sapphires. It also has a texture of tiny circles randomly around the sapphires. This ring has six 2mm sapphires in total. The stones are only on one side and don't go all around the entire ring.

Lets see how this will turn out in metal. If it's nice I will offer this with other gem stone options too like diamonds, moissanites and blue sapphires.

I am adding to the post to show how this came out in metal.

 

 

Sterling Silver ring with pink sapphires.

Ring is also available with white diamonds.

 More diamond and sapphire colors are available in my Wedding shop on Etsy.

Pretty Splurges

Last weekend a gem show was in town. I was contemplating for days if I even would go or not. I know I spend some serious money there. On Sunday I finally could not resist anymore and dove into the fun of hunting for little precious things. Here my newest gem stone splurges:

Found some new cushion cut square quartz again with beautiful tourmaline needle inclusions. Both stones are already listed in my shop for custom "Fold" rings.

 

The best treasure I got are a total of 10 Tanzanite gem stones in various shapes and sizes ranging from 0.6 to 1 carat.  The best thing is they are natural, unheated stones which is pretty rare for Tanzanites. I love those blue sparkling stones with a slight purple hint. They will be used for some unique engagement ring designs.

 

I also got these natural unheated princess cut sapphires in shades of white, yellow, pink and light blue.  So pretty! They range from 3.2 to 4.5 mm. Watch out for some new engagement rings.

I noticed a lot more rose cut gem stones from different suppliers in the trade only section. It's nice to be able to get more varity now for these still pretty rare and unusual cuts. It's so much better to be able to handselect each stone and compare them to each other than having to rely on photos from online sellers. I always like the freeform cuts the best for my rings.  

Beautiful rose cut rutilated quartz with very fine golden needle inclusions.  

This freeform rutilated quartz has gorgeous fine coppery red inclusions and will look great in a "Pebble" ring design.

 Two free form rose cut blue topaz and in the back a rose cut Aquamarine. 

 Rose cut sapphires. The small blue gem is 8 x 10mm, the pink stone 10 x 13mm.

 Free form rose cut Labradorite about 16 x 11 mm.

All those rose cut gems will be set in my "Pebble" ring designs. 

Now a have a lot of new treasure to work with and can't wait to have these set in new rings.

Engagement Season

After weeks of designing a new collection of wedding rings I now switched over to engagement rings. The engagement season is coming soon. It seems the that the time between Thanksgiving and the Holidays, or even Valentines Day, engagements are on a rise. It's the time of the year that focuses on family and home. An ideal time to pop the question and then celebrate with the entire family around.

 

wax models for new engagement rings

I haven't designed rings with main focus as a engagement ring before. Lot's of my other gem stone rings were used as unconventional engagement rings. I sometimes find out from the groom or even later from the bride that my Tahitian peal ring, the Flow rings with diamonds or of course the rough diamond rings or even the unconventional larger gem stone rings were used to propose. I still also love when the bride to be selects her own engagement ring. Surprises are very romantic but one should have the ring they love to wear forever.
The last few weeks I was sourcing suitable stones and thinking about designs.  Here a couple designs I carved this week in wax for some of the stones I already have.

 

Show here are wax models from "Fold" collection with 1.2 carat cushion cut 8 x 6 mm Morganite on left, 0.9ct cushion white sapphire in the middle and 1.1ct 6mm round Songea green sapphire. The white sapphire and morganite ring were sent out to be cast in palladium. I  did a morganite ring before in palladium and that light pink beryl gem looks so great combined with that metal.

I do like the round stone version of this "Fold" ring design. I still have lots of other round stones that I can use for this and especially a 6mm round blue sapphire and 2 orange Songea sapphires. I am casting this round one today in silver first and will be perfecting the shape and setting a bit more before I send it out to be cast in palladium.

 

Wax model with freeform shaped roughly 0.45ct/ 6 x 4.5 mm rose cut blue sapphire. I do have a couple of similar rose cut sapphires in different shapes and similar sizes available. This will allow me to offer this design for custom sizes and different metal options. This ring is being cast in silver today, palladium options will follow soon.

A design for a marquise cut ruby. The stone is about 0.45 carat, 6.6 x 3.5 mm. It's a tough design to get the symmetry perfect with just hand carving. I might actually model this on a computer in CAD again to archive perfect symmetry and  crisp lines. For now this hand carved wax is being cast in silver to see how it looks. I do have also blue sapphires in that size and lots of other marquise stones.

I also did a very minimalist design with a simple 4.5 mm band and a square bezel setting for this 3mm blue sapphire. It could be worn stacked with this shown matching narrow wedding band with optional 2mm sapphire set flush in the band. These are my prototypes that I am casting in silver. I will model this in CAD for a crisper look.

I accumulated over the years a lot of smaller gem stones especially sapphires, tourmalines and some rubies that are perfect for engagement rings to be worn every day. I also kept the bands simple to be able to wear a wedding band stacked next to it.

I don't plan to purchase any large faceted diamonds but rather go for moissanites instead. Especially after reading the book "The Heartless Stone" I don't feel compelled into using  these large overpriced and politically so controversial diamonds.  Moissanites are man made gem stones with more fire and brilliance than a diamond. It's hardness above 9 on the moh's scale and makes it harder than sapphires or rubies. No mining has to be done for these stones and they are guaranteed conflict free. Combined with recycled precious metal they are the perfect choice for the eco conscious person. I am waiting for some of these moissanites to arrive to then come up with some designs.

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Square 1 Ring Collection

This week I officially released the new Square 1 collection. This is the refined version of the up-cycled ring I blogged about a couple weeks ago. I created an entire stacking ring set with this simple design.

Square sterling silver ring set with rounded sides and a textured and oxidized groove at the top. A 14kt square gold setting sits asymmetrical on the top groove of each ring and holds a rough diamond cube, a orange sapphire and a green sapphire. The grooves have a light texture and have been oxidized to give a higher contrast between the gold setting and the blackened silver. The entire set is 15mm wide.

The rings are also available as single rings. I always love how rough diamonds look in yellow gold. Its just a better color contrast then sterling silver.

The gold setting in this ring is 4mm square and the diamond ranges between 3.3 to 3.5 mm (0.4 to 0.5 points). The color of the diamond range from a warm yellow to a dark gray or whitish gray.

The new addition is a green sapphire ring. The band is 5 mm wide. The gold setting is 3.5 mm square and the natural sapphire is 2.6 mm square. The green sapphires range in color from a forest green, over olive to lime yellow.

The narrowest ring has a gorgeous orange Sapphire that looks like it is on fire. The band is 4 mm wide. The gold setting is 3 mm square and the natural sapphire is 2mm square. Vibrant Reddish Orange color, just awesome.

I am adding rings with blue sapphires and rubies in the next few weeks. If you are interested you can contact me about a price quote. All rings are available on Etsy and my web site. I will hopefully also get them onto the Artful Home site.

Upcycled Recycled Repurposed Ring

Precious metal prices are rising and it is time to bring my metal scrap to the refiner. last week I was digging through years of scraps, old and screwed up designs. I found a couple of pieces I created in my first year of jewelry making. One of those plain simple rings was kind of interesting but never really got the love it deserved from me. Instead of melting and recycling the metal I gave it new up-cycled look.

I renewed the texture in the grove at the top of square shaped ring band and added a square glowing orange sapphire in a 14 karat gold bezel setting. It now still has it's simplicity but with a new twist and added sparkle. The texture at the top is oxidized to provide a nice dark contrast to the yellow gold setting.

This ring is growing on me and became you favorite ring I wore all week long. It became part of my own jewelry box. I will probably add a new line with this design but need to revise the shank design a bit to make it cleaner and more comfortable. So watch out for new designs coming to Nodeform. This one will be called Square 1 ring. (I know it's very creative :))

Fancy Cuts

I finally got around to play with some fancy cut gem stones that I had in my treasure box. I designed two one-of-a-kind rings in wax and I can't wait to see them all finished in metal.

The first ring has a triangular fancy shaped tourmaline cabochon that has a incredible blood red color. I found this stone last week at my stone supplier in Downtown LA when I was searching for Morganite stones for a commissioned ring. Anyways this stone really caught my eye and I had to buy it. The tourmaline is 14 mm by 10 mm. I so love tourmalines especially when they have some natural inclusions. The variety of tourmaline colors and it's brilliance are just adorable.

Those asymmetrical lines were just perfect for a very dynamic design that is somewhat based on my Tetra ring collection.  I am not sure yet what metal I will cast this in. This would look so great in a warm yellow gold. But 14kt will be so had to set the stone in and 18kt is probably out of my reach.


The second ring is pretty similar. Here I used a faceted fancy shaped pink sapphire.

This stone I acquired years ago just waiting to find the right design for it. It is 11 mm by 5.5 mm and a bit smaller than the stones I typically use for my ring designs. To give it volume I shaped the sides of the setting in an angle to the stone. Let's see how that works once it is cast in metal.

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