Double Wave Ring

If you remember from a post about a month ago, this ring was fabricated to replace a long lost wedding band. We worked from descriptions and from his wife's ring (which has been worn for a few years.)

The wax that I showed images of in the last post died in the casting process (which is, unfortunately, somewhat common when casting in palladium.) So I made another wax, this time with deeper engraved lines, etc. The reason for engraving in the wax and not the metal is because engraving into palladium is like engraving into a rock... it is approximately 16% harder than platinum.

But all of the hard work paid off, and the ring came out beautifully.

OOO... sparkly diamonds!

What do you do when you lose a diamond earring? Make a pendant!

I was asked to come up with a pendant using a diamond from a lonely onezie diamond earring for a 30th anniversary gift. When I asked what he wanted, he basically gave me a budget, use white gold and diamonds and told me to make something pretty. Yay, my favorite kinda of client! But I did get a little insight from his daughter (and dear friend) Monica. She mentioned flowers... but really, just just likes things that nobody else would have.

So... I came up with a flower. A loopy flower. Which, somewhat, also looks like a starfish... but whatever... it's cool.

Weddings: Not just for the Brides

You know, pretty much every wedding magazine/website/blog/etc is focused on the bride. Granted, the bride does make 99.999% of the decisions (including what the groom-to-be wears) but I still feel we need to throw them a bone once in a while!

Most men do not want to wear jewelry. A good amount of men don't even want to wear a wedding band let alone cufflinks or some other type of appropriate man jewelry. So what is man approved?

Well, I have learned (from being with a man that shuns all forms of man jewelry and wouldn't wear cufflinks till nearly 3 years into our relationship) that many do not want anything flashy or showy. What does that leave, you may ask. Custom Collar Stays!

These are a fun something-something that is just for him.




Sterling Silver with either a name or a sentiment stamped on it. So simple, yet so cool.

Cluster Maps 2009

It's that time of year again. The time of year when my Cluster Maps, the software that tracks how many of you look at my blog and what country you are located, resets back to a blank map. It's a somewhat sad time of year for me, because I am always exhilarated (and somewhat confused) to see how many people read my blog. I still don't know why I seem at all interesting to you all... and I'm guessing it's simply for the photos... but who am I to complain? Apparently you like me... you really really like me ;) But it's also exciting to start from scratch again.

Well, there was a special section this year listings that outlined exactly how many people from each country looked at my blog. Who knows, maybe there are some dedicated visitors... or just people to peek at the pictures... but I find it very very interesting. I love the fact that there are countries on this listing that I couldn't find on a map if I tried!

United States (US) 15,406

United Kingdom (GB) 2,269

Canada (CA) 1,666

Australia (AU) 921

New Zealand (NZ) 668

India (IN) 429

France (FR) 244

Netherlands (NL) 223

Germany (DE) 203

Italy (IT) 128

Thailand (TH) 125

South Africa (ZA) 123

Malaysia (MY) 122

Turkey (TR) 121

Philippines (PH) 111

Singapore (SG) 109

Mexico (MX) 100

Spain (ES) 99

Brazil (BR) 99

Sweden (SE) 94

Pakistan (PK) 89

Belgium (BE) 84

Ireland (IE) 83

Indonesia (ID) 76

Poland (PL) 74

Greece (GR) 71

Israel (IL) 70

Romania (RO) 67

Switzerland (CH) 63

United Arab Emirates (AE) 63

Finland (FI) 61

Bulgaria (BG) 55

Denmark (DK) 51

Norway (NO) 48

Hong Kong (HK) 47

Russian Federation (RU) 47

Hungary (HU) 47

Korea, Republic of (KR) 41

Saudi Arabia (SA) 40

Japan (JP) 40

Portugal (PT) 39

China (CN) 38

Vietnam (VN) 37

Egypt (EG) 35

Argentina (AR) 35

Czech Republic (CZ) 32

Austria (AT) 31

Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR) 29

Serbia (RS) 27

Lithuania (LT) 27

Chile (CL) 25

Slovakia (SK) 24

Estonia (EE) 22

Slovenia (SI) 22

Croatia (HR) 21

Colombia (CO) 21

Latvia (LV) 20

Peru (PE) 19

Sri Lanka (LK) 18

Venezuela (VE) 18

Taiwan (TW) 18

Georgia (GE) 17

Puerto Rico (PR) 16

Ukraine (UA) 14

Lebanon (LB) 14

Qatar (QA) 13

Macedonia (MK) 12

Trinidad and Tobago (TT) 12

Kuwait (KW) 9

Costa Rica (CR) 9

Guatemala (GT) 9

El Salvador (SV) 8

Jamaica (JM) 7

Armenia (AM) 7

Bahrain (BH) 7

Panama (PA) 6

Ghana (GH) 6

Mauritius (MU) 6

Bangladesh (BD) 6

Oman (OM) 6

Asia/Pacific Region (AP) 5

Uruguay (UY) 5

Jordan (JO) 5

Guam (GU) 5

Cambodia (KH) 5

Brunei Darussalam (BN) 5

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) 4

Morocco (MA) 4

Albania (AL) 4

Cyprus (CY) 4

Ecuador (EC) 4

Moldova, Republic of (MD) 3

Luxembourg (LU) 3

Honduras (HN) 3

Fiji (FJ) 3

Palestinian Territory (PS) 3

Iceland (IS) 3

Barbados (BB) 3

Maldives (MV) 3

Kenya (KE) 3

Algeria (DZ) 3

Tunisia (TN) 2

Sudan (SD) 2

Belize (BZ) 2

Iraq (IQ) 2

Nepal (NP) 2

Malta (MT) 2

Dominican Republic (DO) 2

Bermuda (BM) 2

Azerbaijan (AZ) 2

Bahamas (BS) 2

Bolivia (BO) 1

Grenada (GD) 1

Tanzania, United Republic of (TZ) 1

Suriname (SR) 1

Syrian Arab Republic (SY) 1

Uganda (UG) 1

French Guiana (GF) 1

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (LY) 1

Paraguay (PY) 1

Mongolia (MN) 1

Antigua and Barbuda (AG) 1

Saint Kitts and Nevis (KN) 1

Anguilla (AI) 1

Kazakstan (KZ) 1

Yemen (YE) 1

Northern Mariana Islands (MP) 1

Netherlands Antilles (AN) 1

New Caledonia (NC) 1

Macau (MO) 1

Turks and Caicos Islands (TC) 1

Malawi (MW) 1

So... thank you for peeking. And come back and visit often!!!

Tiger, Ninja, Cowboy

I haven't done a me post in a while... so this one is all about me! Oh, and Sal ;)

We went to an AMAZING wedding this past weekend in NJ and as a fabulous treat, A PHOTO BOOTH! So while people were using props, Sal and I decided to go with a rousing game of Tiger, Ninja, Cowboy.

For those of you (who I am quite sure there are many) who do not know the game Tiger, Ninja, Cowboy, it is a more animated version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. In this version the following wins:

Tiger beats Ninja (because the tiger eats the ninja)
Cowboy beats Tiger (because the cowboy shoots the tiger)
Ninja beats Cowboy (because the ninja dodges the bullets Matrix style and can attack the cowboy)

We played best out of 3, one round for each frame. I won all 3! Seriously! Not staging it for the photos!!! So the final photo is my victory photo ;)




All I can say is... HOW DAMN CUTE ARE WE?!?!

Custom Costume

Costume jewelry isn't something I would normally tackle. Actually, I'm not a big fan of gluing and wiring and such (I have a tendency to glue my fingers together.) But for a friend, why the hell not.

So, my friend approached me with ideas of what she could put in her hair for her wedding along with a broach for her bustle. She showed me a few pieces she found online, but none gave you the sizes, they were coming from China and other distant lands, and all took a month to deliver and were 'exchange' only if you didn't like them. I couldn't let her do that... so I took on the challenge of making costume jewelry.

Her dress is simple with what I now refer to as 'the doodad' on the front (a beaded aplique.) So I decided that would start with the doodad and go from there...



The whole wedding has an antique or vintage theme about it. So as I played with the design, I gave it a bit of a deco feel.

The first is a broach to put on her bustle. It is about 3.5 inches in length, cut out of sterling silver and has Swarovski crystals glued (yes, glued) onto the surface. And a large piece of mine cut glass in the center which I soldered on some basic prongs to hold it in place. But, because I cannot just leave it at that, I depletion guilded the sterling to bring out the fine silver (to keep it from tarnishing) and added a hammer finish in case any of the stones fall off there will still be a facet from the forge marks.


And the second is a thingie for her hair. This is made out of the thinnest silver I had in the shop, around 30 guage sheet (like thick aluminum foil) to keep it from weighing on her head. Then I, again, glued the crystals to it. I finished with adding fine silver loops to bobbypin it to her head.


We're heading to this wedding this weekend. Let's see if the bride actually wears this stuff or finds something better ;) Keep you posted!

Final Comic Book Cufflinks...

Here are the final cufflinks. Very simple, very whimsical... love 'em!

These are sterling silver with bezel set 5x7mm blue-grey spinels. The backs are hand engraved with the word 'KAPOW' inside of a spike bubble. How fun!

Finished 3 Stone Engagement Ring

I have a new finished 3 stone engagement ring (click here to see the design)... and it's now one of my favorites. I like to think of this more like a European style setting, because the stones are set high. Most of the time, people worry about catching their ring on different things at work or home... but a stone sparkles more when you don't sink it deeply into a setting (which is more common in American style settings.) I love a stone sticking out for the world to see! And this ring does that!

The center stone is a 68 point VS2/SI1 G/H colored transitional cut family diamond. The sides are 4.5x6.5 mm blue-grey pear spinels. And finally, there is one tiny 1mm square VS melee diamond on each side of the head. All set in 14K white gold, with most of the metal provided by the clients.

What I like about this ring is the fact that we carried a soft pointed edge throughout the ring. The shank is a style called knife edge, which carried into the end V-prongs for the pears. We also finished the center stone prongs the same way... and finally added a the small square diamond, but turned on it's axis to fit into the crisscross of the head.

Engraved Vine Bands

Another 100 year old engagement ring, another attempt at making wedding bands to compliment it. Unfortunately, I do no have photos of the wedding bands with the engagement ring, but trust me, they look beautiful paired together.

While her ring is platinum with itty-bitty melee diamonds to match her engagement ring, his is 14K yellow because he wanted to match his class ring... who said only women need to match other jewelry? Also, the pattern on her ring was slightly more 'vine' like, while his was a little more 'scroll' like, because he didn't want his too ornamental or cluttered looking.

Overall, I think we found a nice balance between the two.

Complimentary Birthstone Engagement Rings

Sometimes I am hesitant to make rings with birthstones because it can end up looking like a typical 'Mother's' ring... but these were different. They wanted contemporary/bezel set/heavy weight rings.

One birthstone is a sapphire and the other is a peridot, which creates a wonderful ocean-like color combination. The large cushion cut sapphire and the melee diamonds were provided by the client. We deliberated on obtaining another large sapphire for the second ring, but decided to make the rings complimentary and used a peridot the main stone.

Each client chose a few details they wanted to work into the designs, to make them a little more to their taste. The final products are beautifully complimentary.

Pink Dogwood Earrings

Pink dogwood flowers are my favorite. Also, I've been sitting on some natural green diamond melee, which really pop when set in red gold... so both of these facts combined just screamed Red Gold Dogwood Earrings!

Here are just a couple quick photos of the one completed earrings... the other will be completed by the end of the day. It was fabricated from 18K white gold (hoop), 18K red gold (flower and stamen) and 1.5mm natural green melee diamonds (flush set in the stamen.) So, I thought I would share what I have so far...

Comic Book Cufflinks, part 2

I finally got to sneak away from wedding band land and squeeze in some time to carve the wax for my comic book cufflinks. I played around with the design a bit, and finally came up with a version I really like. And yes, they have personality!

The photos aren't great (had to shoot them REALLY quickly so I wouldn't miss FedEx) but they give you an idea of where I'm going with these!


There is a bezel in the center that will hold an oval blue spinel.


And it's hard to read, but the back side says 'KA POW.' Gotta love it

Different ways to look at natural elements...

One of my recent blog postings was about the CAD I was creating for a ring. This ring had all different types of symbols/images that come from nature (goat hoof prints, hawk heads, etc.) The design, while natural elements, was to be balanced and clean.

His fiance also chose natural images, leaves from the sassafras tree which has 3 different styles of leaves on one branch. But hers ring was designed to be slightly more organic. The different leaves were layered on top of each other, to help create the illusion of depth.

While both pieces include images from nature... but create a very different result.

Putting the puzzle together...

Some people love doing repairs because they see it as a puzzle... not my favorite. My favorite kind of puzzle is replacing something that a client has lost. It's like CSI for jewelers... going through photos of the client wearing them (my favorite are the 4th grade class pictures), listing to descriptions (sometimes from multiple people)... you know, general investigative work. Maybe it's a favorite pair of earrings from their childhood, or a pendant that grandma gave them, or in this case, the wedding band.

I was approached to replicate a wedding band that a client lost about 8 months ago. I hadn't made the original, and it was a few years old. He wanted a reasonable facsimile of the original, but didn't have a closeup photo of it. We worked from descriptions, random images similar to the style, etc., and I think I have a good idea of what we are aiming for.

The ring has a wave traveling around the ring with 2 high points and 2 low points over a very low domed surface. For fabrication, I carved in the wavy line into a wax, slowly opening up with different sized gravers. Once I opened up the channel, I added in a round wax wire.






It's been sent off to be cast in palladium (the original was in platinum, but wanted an alternative.) More pix to come when it's finished!

It's all about the CAD

Sometimes I get requests that are so complicated, geometric and full of insane amounts of details that there is no way I can make it... or even if I can, the pricing would be through the roof. So that is when CAD (computer aided design) comes into play.

I got a request for a ring with many literal visuals that were symbolic to the client. There was so much to squeeze onto a wedding band, that I worked along with another jeweler to create the CAD. We had to do a little back and forth, and this is the final design we came up with...


From the design, the file is sent to a casting company who either mills or grows the wax. The piece just came back from the caster and it looks good... now to clean it! Final images soon!

3 Stone Setting...

This is a new 3 stone ring design for a client. The center diamond was a stone from the family of the groom-to-be and half of the 14K white gold is from the family of the bride-to-be. The 2 sides are pear shaped blue/grey spinels, provided by me.

We are currently 90% done with the fabrication. I still need to add bezels to each side of the head to hold 1mm square diamonds (see in the sketch above.) Then on to the stone setting. Final pictures will be posted soon!

Everything, but the kitchen sink

If you wanted an engagement ring that was truly handmade... and made with the skills and the quality of how jewelry used to be made... this is it!

This is a fully hand fabricated platinum ring (no CAD here) with a .91ct VS2 F/G center diamond, and beadset .84ct VS melee diamonds totaling approximately 1.75cts. There is a hand engraved scroll pattern on the sides of the head (under the center stone) AND a hand engraved inscription on the inside of the ring. And finally, the finishing touch, a small pink diamond set inside of the band.

This ring, if I say so myself, is a wonderful example of classic jewelry fabrication techniques. And it's damn pretty to boot!