A few months ago I made this super sleek and modern pearl engagement ring for a customer.

She loved the ring and he loved working with me so much (or at least that is what I tell myself) that he contacted me a couple weeks ago to see if I could make wedding bands for both of them. No problem, except we only had 2 weeks to finalize design and get the rings to his mother’s house so she could take them to Hawaii for their wedding!

We set to work right away. They wanted rings with the same curve as her engagement ring but she wanted hers a little thicker than her engagement ring band and for him they wanted a suitable thickness for a man. I used the design from her engagement ring and took the curve directly from there so we knew they would match.

He wanted some ideas for her ring with a few simple stones as well as a simple band so I came up with these. (My program did not want to render the pearl in her engagement ring that day so please imagine a pearl.)

They liked the single stone version or the plain version best but also wanted to see the single stone as a sapphire.

For his, they wanted to see either a 5mm width or a 6mm width.

They decided to go plain for her ring and he ended up going to a local jewelry store to try on a 5mm band and a 6mm band before deciding on the 6mm.

The designs were simple, but the pieces turned out gorgeous in palladium!

I got both rings shipped out in plenty of time for his mother to get them and I hope to see pictures from their Hawaiian wedding!!

So remember the totally awesome blue diamond engagement ring I made for a couple of friends? Well after she said yes to the proposal, it was time to make a ring for him!

I knew going in that this was going to be a tall order. This guy was so particular about the ring he was giving to his future bride, I couldn’t imagine how particular he was going to be able his own ring.

It ended up being pretty easy though because he had something very particular in mind. He wanted a ring with a sine wave going around the outside of the ring. I gave him these few choices to look at with his idea.

He decided the on the design where the wave indented into the band on both the inside and outside of the ring. We decided to use palladium because he wanted white metal to match his future bride’s ring but didn’t want to spend a ton to get white gold or platinum.

Once we got his ring size established and I went ahead and manufactured the ring. It turned out really well and he loved it!

You know how I said I get requests for lot of really different things for wedding jewelry? Well here’s another one!

This particular piece is not different because the design is really crazy or anything, it is different because it is not what “traditional” brides want for a wedding band.

When this client came to me, she didn’t have a large budget, and she wanted a modern clean look for her wedding band. She also knew she wanted an aquamarine stone incorporated somehow.

As I usually do for clients that don’t have a lot of money but that I still want to help find the right jewelry for them, I broke out my catalogs of findings that I could buy and put together into the right piece for that person.

I found some wide silver bands that I thought were really neat and wanted to use those as a base and just add a stone on top. Whenever someone says they want something “streamline” I always think “bezel” because there are no prongs to catch on anything with a bezel setting. I found that I could get either a regular faceted Aquamarine or I could get a cabochon which means that the stone has a domed top. Cabochons are still made of natural stones, they just have a totally different look than the diamond cut stones most people are used to seeing.

I sent her a render with both faceted and cabochon stones so she could see the difference and also rendered the piece with the stone facing two different directions.

She decided on the cabochon stone (I was so excited since I don’t get to use cabs very often!) with the stone facing east-west. Here is the stone before being set in the piece:

All of the metal is sterling silver and the band has a brushed finish to give it a different look. I think the piece turned out amazing and I hope she loves it!

Remember that really awesome wide gold band I posts awhile with lots of detail? The friend/client I did that ring for was so happy with it she contacted me to get a wedding band for her husband.

She wasn’t positive what she wanted. He had expressed desire for a very simple, masculine band but she wanted something really special. She had an idea but wasn’t sure how to make it happen. She wanted to make a ring that looked like the fret board of a guitar.

Once we had the number of frets and string established I had the perfect idea of how to put her idea into design reality.

With a lot of trial and error with measurments, I made frets around the band starting close together and getting further and further apart as they went around the band just like how on a guitar the frets are further apart on the end of the neck and get closer together as they go up towards the body of the guitar.

For string, I made bands of increasing size that went all the way around the ring.

If you don’t know what you are looking at, the ring just seems to have a neat design. But if you know, it is completely accurate and very special for this particular couple.

We decided to do the ring in palladium rather than gold to save her money. They ended up moving up their wedding to hopefully ensure that all of their grandparents would be there for the special day. We didn’t have much time, so I started right away,

The casting looked so good when I got it I wasn’t sure if I even needed to take it to the jeweler! I did anyway just to clean it up a little extra and I turned out so cool!

I really hope my friend’s husband loves his ring and appreciates his amazing new wife for getting him such an awesome ring! Congrats to Jess and Daryl!

I recently ran an add on OffbeatBride.com and have, as a result, been getting a lot of really fun, different, unconventional, and beautiful design requests. This next piece is one of my favorites that I have ever done.

When I got the request for this piece I was amazed because the customer knew just what she wanted and just how to describe it. All I had to do was make it a reality.

She wanted a ring that looked like a braid with one of the strands covered in diamonds. I was surprisingly difficult to get the computer to make a braid considering that I’ve been braiding my own hair since I could reach the back of my head. Eventually I got it. I sent my client a couple of versions with varying widths, tightness, and curvy-ness.

She loved the tighter, curvier piece but wanted it a little thinner which I was happy to do. She decided to use Platinum for the metal and real diamonds for the stones.

The casting was a little rough with all the prongs…

but the finished piece turned out beautifully!

And she even asked me to engrave a super cute message inside the shank.