I have done white oak bands in the past, and this time, I had a specific request to design a pair of wedding bands using a bur oak motif. I had actually never heard of bur oaks, but google told me all about them. They have interestingly shaped leaves (they are also very large; dark glossy green on top, and whitish/silvery green underneath) with almost a “waist” in the middle, the end with less defined lobes compared with a classic white oak leaf. The bark is super gnarly and deeply furrowed and the twigs have a lot of interesting texture.

Some day I’m going to run across one of these trees and I’m going to know exactly what it is. It’ll be a very exciting day.

These are done in 18K white gold, and 18K green gold. I had not yet had a chance to work in green gold, and the 18K is extremely subtle. Not GREEN-green necessarily, but a very slightly greenish gold color. I really like it!

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My clients sent me photos of the scenes they had in mind for this ring: a flipping ginormous gnarly old tree in Scotland, a foresty waterfall, and a rock carving form Ireland. Then I carved them around the ring! 14K white gold.

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This is the giantest stone I’ve ever set. It’s an amazing 9+ mm diameter intense pink sapphire bezel set into 22K gold. The man’s band is also 22K. I was sweating a little setting this thing, but I prevailed and the final result was SO worth it.

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14K dragon-lily ring. This ring has a tiny carved dragon head on one side of the stone, a natural Burmese ruby, then the body winds orobouros-style around the finger. On the other side of the stone is a lily, the wearer’s favorite flower.

It was really hard to photograph this ring for some reason; I felt like I just couldn’t quite capture the depth and detail from the dragon head. And I really liked how my dragon turned out; he had a good look about him.

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Okay, it’s actually 7.85mm, but close enough; that works out to about 1.75ct. This is the low-profile solitaire adjusted to accommodate a fabulous sparkling giant of a stone (an Amora moissanite in this case). I even got to make it in my size!

The solitaire is palladium, which is a super bright white metal. I love how it looks with higher karat gold; here the narrow leaf band is 18K and the wider ridged band is 22K.

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This is the man’s band I made to match with the arabesque eternity ring. I love how the super subtle intaglio-style carving along the edge here turned out. This one is 14K palladium white gold.

Check out the reflection in the band of my photo booth: looks like I’m inside an ice cave with a nice sandy floor. And with a large black boulder near the entrance (that would be my lens). Pretty cool!

I was terribly excited to get to make wedding rings for an old friend of mine from high school + her man. She is a diver and chose a flowy kelp motif with a peachy-hued rose-cut diamond. Fun to carve! Congratulations, Kim & Jeff!

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18K yellow gold half-carat heart-shaped diamond ring with two 3mm sapphires on either side, a blue Montana sapphire and a fancy orange-red sapphire. This is the first time I’ve designed a ring with a heart-shaped stone. Previously, I’ll admit I never gave a thought to heart-shaped stones; my brain I guess lumped them together with all things cute and folksy and it didn’t really occur to me to ever use one. But, I have to admit, I really like the cut and this shape for a faceted stone. It was challenging and really fun to design for it.

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This is a re-vamp of an existing wedding solitaire with the addition of a few sapphires + smaller diamonds. I removed the diamond and reset it into a new hand-carved 18K yellow gold white oak leaf motif ring. The accompanying man’s band was a classic polished style with a discrete intaglio-style carving of two oak leaves on the inside of the band.

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