Part I of this series here.
Part II of this series here.
For more photos of this process, visit our flickr photostream!
Quick review- here’s what we started with:
And here’s what we’re going for:
How we get from point A to point B has been detailed fo ...
Late 1997
Michael and I suddenly find ourselves with two months to throw a respectable wedding together. Not a shotgun wedding, just a rush due to business needs & living situation circumstances. I’m working at the store one day and the mother of my sister’s boyfriend whirls in. I’ll have to introduce you here to Judy Nichols, choir and chorale director at our local high school, piano player at our church, general musical angel at large. She always has a kind word for everyone around her, a quick laugh, and a beaming smile on her face. I mention to her that I would be honored to have her play at my wedding, and s ...
“Just make me something pretty.”
The elderly lady was one of my spunkiest customers to date. Her eyes sparkled with dry wit, and her touch on my hand was kindly.
“What kind of pretty?” I asked, laughing, “Swirly pretty? Floral pretty?”
She shrugged and grinned at me,
“You’ll do fine. I know I’ll love it.”
Rarely do clients put their complete faith in my design capability. Most people have an idea, a thought or a stone for a basis, or at least a size reference. I appreciated her confidence in me, but felt completely at sea at to where to start.
A f ...
It was winter and the snow fell thick and silent around the store. We were up to our ears in custom work, but never too busy to turn away one more.
A woman came to us with a pile of scrap gold and a sapphire. She wanted a ring made for her daughter, a nurse here in Cadillac. Because of the physical demands of nursing, a high setting or multiple prongs can be very obstructive and even dangerous to patients. Our challenge was to build it securely, while making sure that there was nothing to catch, snag, scratch, or tear. The ring also had to be built heavy to withstand daily wear and tear.
We melted down her gold, added fresh, and set the ...
What does one do, exactly, when one has multiple stones to put into a design? When you have sapphires, diamonds, and an errant garnet? What about when you have several stones larger than the rest?
Well, if you’re obsessive compulsive about math, your brain sorts the stones out into a pattern. If the number of stones happens to be easily divisible by four, you have a square just begging to be carved!
The garnet that belonged to the customer wound up being too abraded to use, so we found a lovely cropped-corner square to fit in the center, and this entire necklace just came together with ease and grace.
Pardon us if we̵ ...
The little boy couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. Small for his age, he peered just over the glass countertop of our antique cases.
“How much does a custom necklace cost?” He asked, his voice level and his eyes serious.
“Well,” my dad hedged, ever the profiteer, “how much do you have?”
“I have thirty-two dollars.” The boy pulled a stack of sweaty bills out of his pocket. They were wrinkly, but neatly ordered. “I want a peanut necklace for my mom.”
“A peanut?” My dad asked.
“Yes, sir.” Any child who referred to my dad as ‘sir’ immediately rose up a few notches in his estima ...
The woman standing in front of me is regal and beautiful, even at middle age. After 28 years of marriage, her husband is leaving her. She mentions it quietly, ashamed of her newly single status. Her rings sit in front of me, resting top-down on the black velvet pad that I’ve just pulled out. The symbolism is staggering to me- funereal and final. I am about to melt the rings down, reforming the gold into a shape that is not a wedding band. There are a few small diamonds in the engagement ring, diamonds that carried her down a white-decked aisle so very many years ago. She has never asked for more than the simple sparkling stones on her hand, and never received any more. To these diamonds, I will add the birthstones of ...
