I carved this for an awesome friend of mine who is a marine biologist. She and her husband have spent a lot of time in and around the ocean (we actually met them while traveling on sailboats in Mexico) and the giant kelp forest was pretty much perfect to adapt to a ring motif. [14K white gold]
Many more photos after the break… Continue reading
This is a modified version of my Tahitian pearl ring made to accommodate a 6.5mm blast of glittery deliciousness! I don’t often get to work with larger stones—1/2 carat to 3/4 carat sizes are by far the most popular in my experience—so this was especially exciting to make. (18K yellow gold)
Many more images to follow…
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Finally: a new piece to show off! Carved tapered solitaire with scattered ginkgo leaves in 18K white gold. The stone is a 6mm family diamond sent to me by the client.
The ring is a slight departure from my usual fare in that it has a very clean, symmetrical outline, but with a very organic pattern of ginkgo leaves arranged across the top. I’m very happy with how it turned out.
I took a ton of photos of the ring; click through to see them all!
Oh hello there! I’m still here. I got slammed with Christmas orders (why I thought this would not be no big whoop, I have no idea) and then once I finished and shipped everything, I spent a month stumbling around with my eyes glazed over.
I have some new custom pieces I made, which I’m very excited to show everyone. I just have to wait for the recipients to get them so I can post pics.
In the meantime, here’s one that is not necessarily a new design, but used a very unique natural color peachy-pink rose-cut diamond. Quite loverly!
Man. Nothing beats the color of 18K yellow gold. I always thought I was more of a white gold person but lately I find myself loading up on the 18K yellow.
And actually, here is another version of this same ring I did using rose gold and a gorgeous 1 carat stone:
I wonder how this ring would look using a huge champagne-colored diamond…
Virgin with potatoes
I know this is a departure from the usual fare, but I wanted to post a quick plug for my mom’s new blog. She’s been volunteering in a tiny medical clinic across the border in Nogales, Mexico for the past several months. She was sending us the most interesting stories of her days there and now you can read them too: arroya.org.
I live 5 miles from the Mexican border in Arizona on a ranch in a remote part of the Sonoran desert. Migrants passing through our desert seeking economic relief and work—any work— die within a few short miles of my home. I have been an RN for 45 years, and am retired—I was so through with health care. And then I read of the numbers of deaths so close to home. So I’m back—doing the most profound nursing care I’ve ever done.
Hello everyone! Just a quick reminder that I’ll be working up until a couple of weeks before Christmas and I’ll be shipping orders until about mid-December. Please get your orders in by the first week of November if you would like them be be shipped and received by Christmas day.
Now, let’s return to fall and pumpkins and leaves turning colors. Sheesh.
14K white gold, 1/3 carat diamond set into a blooming rose. Pretty pretty!!
18K gold wedding bands carved with oak leaves and acorn clusters.
Katherine’s husband is a botanist and the two of them have a particular fondness for white oak trees. I designed this set of wedding bands with three leaf/acorn clusters wrapped around the band. Each time I carve a new ring, it is my new favorite, and these rings are no exception. I think they turned out beautifully.
And some wax images..
Lunar landscape rings. I carved a scale version of the moon’s South Central Highlands (craters Ptolomaeus to Clavius, roughly) onto a pair of wedding bands. His is palladium 950 and hers is rose gold with a tiny pink champagne-colored diamond set into a cute little crater called “Hell.”
To behold the mildly embarrassing geekery that preceded these rings (and see a zillion more photos), please read the rest of the story… Continue reading
Hand-carved Forest of Trees band with eight (I believe) recycled diamonds (picked out of old jewelry the client sent me). I am damned happy with how this ring turned out. It was a long time in the making, with no fewer than fifty thousand emails back and forth with the client beginning in October of last year I think it was, extensive research into how not to be charged customs for stones and metal that she was sending me to use in the ring, extraction of stones and recycling of old gold, and then I began carving! Whew!
The design started out as “trees” and finalized to be Ancient Oak Forest on a Bright Night with Rising Full Moon and Early Evening Stars peeking through the branches.
Here’s a shot of the early wax. I sort of ran with the initial ancient oak theme and got a little overzealous with the trippy branches. “Healthy happy oaks!!” called the client. I fledged out the trees with leaves and this toned down the creepy Halloween vibe that was threatening.
Moving around the ring. Main stone was about 4mm in diameter and the rest of the little guys were around 2mm. It is really hard to get good photos of bright shiny things that have a lot of texture and detail. I have to say though, no matter how nice something might look in the photos, it ALWAYS looks at least ten times better in person.
When I at last finished the ring and had it packaged and ready to ship, we were chagrined to find the Canadian post on strike; no mail was being delivered in the country unless by private courier. After a couple of weeks, things had been “settled” and the ring was shipped and delivered without incident (or customs charges! Hooray!).
The choice of 18K white gold was I think perfect. It is not as white as platinum, palladium, or even 14K white; I do not rhodium plate my white gold. It has a very slight yellowish cast, which makes it look like metallic ivory to me. Warms it up a little and gives it a more antique-y feel. It worked nicely to represent a silvery moonlit night.
