my web designer (aka husband) asked me to proof the faqs link of my website as he has provided answers to some basic questions as to how one commissions a custom piece of jewelry.
pretty funny, check it out before we update.
love the one word answers…and yes, there is a bit more to designing and creating a bespoke jewelery piece.
okay so let’s say we are designing a gift for your sister.
ideally, we actually connect on the phone and chat, engaging in a dialogue about your sister’s style, personality, lifestyle.
a few questions to get my creative juices flowing….
is this a piece of jewellery she is going to wear everyday, or rather a “special occasion” piece?
…how much wear and tear will this piece of jewelry withstand?
i seem to make a lot of rings (always had a thing for rings) and so…
does she do a lot with her hands? a gardener, a surfer, a blacksmith?
will this be worn with other jewellery that she wears everyday already?
are we adding to this ring later on? (in the case of an engagement/wedding ring combo)?

oh wait, this is for your sister, right…sorry

does this gift commemorate an event, i.e the birth of a baby, a wedding anniversary? if so, can we incorporate anything symbolic in the design?

ideally, i like to listen to the answers to these questions over the phone…subtle nuances that help me to free form/brainstorm. from here i can begin to design.
ideas at first, conceptualizing the feel of the piece…

here is a good example.

dean called, wanting to custom design a piece of jewelry to celebrate the birth of their first child, due in a few days. as i listened to him just talk about his wife, i immediately saw a necklace. as a new mom she wasn’t going to be fussing with jewellery, so something she can put on and not have to take off seemed appropriate.
as the mom of two little ones, i immediately saw nursing infant, ripping at shiny golden gems. note to self, sturdy chain with a pendant soothing to the touch.

dean mentioned that they had been married for some time and were excited to become a family of three. this made me think, it would be cool to represent all three of them in the piece…how about three forged yellow gold rolling rings, interlinking circles, attached to a sturdy gold snake chain.
dean wanted to incorporate his son’s birthstones. i want to incorporate stones to represent him and his wife as well. i see these interlocking rings in my mind, “sort of like the olympic rings” and he says, “perfect!” dean is involved with the u.s. olympic sailing team and he and emily spent a blissful time together in china during the summer olympics.

i flush set one side of the center link with imperial topaz, november’s birthstone, and the other side with three white diamonds, graduated size to represent him, her and bambino.
here is what she said:

“Thank you so much, Heather, for your beautiful work! I love the three rings — both their style and their meaning. The topaz and diamonds are the perfect combination, too. And the chain makes the whole thing come together beautifully.”
Happy New Year,
Emily

often, someone who finds me on the web, emails…just wants a “quick quote” on a piece that has excited them. sorry, not really possible.
all of the portfolio pieces on my site were designed especially for someone. a unique piece of jewellery is going to have as many custom variables as the person for whom it is being designed.
pretty fun process
be so well
heather

WEDDING RING RE-MOUNTS IN STERLING SILVER

to be able to make something that is inherently beautiful, even more so…
ahh, indeed one the the great feelings that creating art brings to the spirit.

this is the joy of remounting a really beautiful stone. taking a special, or not so, piece of jewellery, disassembling it, and designing anew.
and in this economy, i think so many of us are looking for ways to refresh and rejoice without breaking the bank (isn’t it because the banks broke that we are looking for ways to conserve!)

so i am totally loving the wave of engagement ring re-mounts that i have been rocking here in the studio.
first a beautiful round solitare diamond that belonged to her grandmother, he wanted to remount the solitare onto one of my simple forged concave bar rings, but the cost of gold and platinum weren’t working themselves into his budget. always loving diamonds and silver together, i made the suggestion. such an economical way to get something so pretty.

after all, silver is very reflective. even more so than gold of any color. thus, a hefty silver bezel mount will greatly enhance the light, color and cut of a diamond.
**main drawback is that the silver will tarnish (so will gold for that matter), as always, just keep a good silver polish handy and give your ring a 3 second dip every once and awhile (connoisseurs is good brand).

so they had me forge a substantial sterling concave bar ring and gave me liberty as to how to set the stone. i ended up forging a second band to match for him and it was such fun getting to rough up the silver. and while not for everyone’s taste, i find this really gives the ring depth.
you gotto love this request from a client.
“…just make it unique, make the diamond shine and give it a sexy hand wrought feel”

after making a full bezel, i cut out away at the silver to allow more light to shine through the diamond
ultimately, what i love about the final piece is the uniqueness of the ring. there is no other quite like it, simple as it is, and the symmetry of the band is offset by the cut outs of the bezel.
okay, sorry no photo of this ring yet. however, he is a professional photographer and has promised to take a good picture of the ring this weekend and i will post it then.

i do have a photo of another sterling diamond ring that i was forging at the same time.
a sterling silver remount with the prettiest, whitest, princess cut diamond.
the ring used to be this pretty little princess cut diamond in a very elegant, very delicate white gold band.
lauren, petite and beautiful, happens to be an ice hockey player.
a bit hard on her rings, continually misshaping the white gold band and she was worried about the integrity of the setting, not wanting to lose the stone.
i ever so gingerly forged a really substantial sterling bezel around the diamond, mounted it onto a really dense, hand forged band, and damn, if this stone doesn’t look fabulous.
sparkling beyond…and one day they can set a pretty princess cut stone into her original engagement band (i save the original ring to reuse whenever possible…special if they have a little girl someday) and later on, lauren can upgrade to platinum.

so if you have been longing to re-do a special ring, engagement or other, consider sterling.
at under $500, you can seriously rock a whole new look for your stones!

its a beautiful sunny fall day and we’re headed to the park, but i wanted to get this new piece of custom jewelry inspired by my LifeChain project published here because Sue just received on Friday after Thanksgiving and loves it!

its a great illustration of new ways to think about old jewelry.

i’d already written these notes about it, too, so now with a picture, here it is:

languishing in a jewelry box no longer!

from a marriage long dissolved,

the wedding ring made anew through hammer and fire.

Sue sent me her 14k white gold, standard comfort fit wedding band and told me to “hammer all the bad energy out of this wedding ring” and create a circular pendant.

i used a heavy torch on the gold, and hammered it hard into a new kind of circle.

reclaimed wedding ring pendant

we decided upon 9 diamonds in varying shades of blue, green and purple…nothing too saturated in color, pastel hues, ocean hues…

from a parcel of over 100 diamonds, i selected these nine diamonds….this took the longest time and i am really pleased with the palette.

when i was all done, the piece was rhodium plated.

a strip of black rawhide looped through the circle (a 14k white gold lobster clasp will be affixed to the rawhide once she wears the pendant for a few weeks and determines the exact length at which she would like the pendant to hang).

i think this is a really sexy, really powerful symbol of rebirth, growth and ultimately an expression of self.

what do you think?

a few weeks ago, after getting the studio set up, the house in order and the kids down for a nap, i sat down to work and…. wasn’t sure where to start.

i ended up posting to Twitter that i was looking for a sign, for inspiration, and calling it a night.

last week, looking over all of my work online with John, i found the inspiration I was looking for right where i always find it, where i should have been in the first place: with all of you, my clients, fans and followers. it was sort of an The Alchemist moment, where after some anguish, and sort of useless expenditure of energies, I found what I needed most right here at home.

on my orginal jewelry blog on Blogger we found this incredible testimonial posted last month from a long time repeat client back in San Diego posted as a comment that neither of us had seen– John quoted it right away on one of my main jewlery gallery pages and I’m quoting here so you can read it.

Heather made our wedding ring, then my wife’s 30th birthday ring and she adores each of them.

Our 5 year anniversary was no different, and I was so excited for my wife but didn’t want to ruin our dinner and spoil the anticipation. We were early enough to the restaurant with few patrons around, but it starting filling up quick. Not wanting the extra attention of a full restaurant, I couldn’t help myself.

BIG MISTAKE!!!! She was so enchanted with her new ring I didn’t even recognize my wife…. she was a little girl dreaming of beautiful rings someday and here it was! Sounds cheezy but it was true… we are not ostentatious in any sense of the word but she couldn’t stop herself all through the night from checking out her new ring in more poses than I could imagine a hand capable of!

And yes, it was embarrassing for us second hand / retro fiends, but if you’re gonna go big, go heather.

Thanks Heather for the tripleLindy on my wife’s hands! I will send some photos soon and I hope your move went smoothly.

Love Jason and Kimball and now Wilson!

i always turn to my custom clients for inspiration when i’m working directly with them on their jewelry, and here was wonderful Jason telling me what i need to hear all the way across the country right when i needed to hear it- thank, Jason and all my wonderful clients.

it seems now the beginning of a trend, with another inspiring set of ideas tumbling out of discussions with a different client over the few days after that– these next up here this week.

we have to go looking for the pictures of this ring Jason commissioned for his beautiful wife Kimball– little Wilson, I can’t wait to meet you!

one of the questions that people shopping for custom platinum engagement rings often ask is “given the price of platinum, what is a good alternative for platinum engagement rings or platinum wedding bands?”

my answer in a particular alloy of gold that i love to forge: 18k palladium white gold.

palladium is a member of the platinum family, but unlike platinum, palladium is extremely affordable. when alloyed with 18k white gold, we have a metal that is intrinsically as close to the color and weight of platinum as anything one could custom create.

so unlike regular 14 and 18 karat white golds, palladium white does not need to be rhodium plated to create its fabulous deep color and so will wear beautifully over time.

to give an idea of its versatility, color and luster, here are some photos of different custom jewelry i have designed and created in 18k palladium white gold.

18k white gold anniversary ring

18k palladium white gold engagement ring

I love this ring– its always so nice to see engagement & wedding ring clients a few years later, and the rings, too.

I made this ring in 2004 before I went to study jewelry in Italy, and just saw it again for a little clean-up while I made them an anniversary ring to go with it!

Here’s the original white gold ring with a central sapphire flanked by little diamonds:

14k white gold enagement ring with sapphires and diamonds

Here’s the 5 year anniversary ring in yellow gold with three white diamonds:

hammered yellow gold ring with 3 diamonds

I received this beautiful message from my most recent custom wedding ring client– this is the seven-diamond wedding ring I posted pictures of here last week– so beautiful I have to share with you here.

Dear Heather,

Thank you so much for putting so much love, time and hard work into our wedding rings. They are absolutely beautiful.

I love everything about the brown diamonds, they look amazing set in the yellow gold, and I love how the light reflects through them. I know all of that is down to your craft.

You really are a talent, and everyone has been commenting on how gorgeous it is.

Lots of love,

Miranda

hand forged white gold wedding ring with seven diamonds

This is the most recent hammered white gold wedding ring I’ve created this year utilizing the clustered bezel theme my regular readers will recognize:

hand forged white gold wedding ring with seven diamonds

after a lot of experimentation and research into what works best for publishing pictures and information about my custom jewelry work, and what has worked best for my followers and readers, John and I have decided on WordPress as the best foundation for a complete and easy to use online portfolio of past work, from engagement and wedding ring commissions to my ready to wear peace sign, wishbone, and om pendants, soon to be available online here in clean, easy to use online shopping interface.