Leah Ashley Jewelry Designs Creates Stunning Custom Jewelry

I know some people probably think “she’s a jewelry designer, she must have a lot of jewelry and wear it all the time.” I wish that was true, but sadly I don’t have that much jewelry and I’m really into changing my jewelry everyday to fit my outfit so I have a few pieces, and I wear them EVERYDAY.

Let’s start with rings. I love big chunky fashion rings, I really do, I just don’t own any of them. On my left hand I wear my engagement ring and wedding band everyday (I think my husband would kill me if I didn’t) along with a plain gold thumb ring. My engagement ring was bought from a regular jewelry store and was not custom made. My wedding band was custom done, by me, because I didn’t like the band that was “supposed” to go with my engagement ring. I started wearing a thumb ring in middle school and so when I lost the silver one I’d worn for over 10 years, I bought myself a plain white gold one. The thumb ring was also kind of a first anniversary present–even though I did buy it myself.

On my right hand I wear a silver ring that I made. When I say made, I don’t mean designed either. I actually not only designed this ring, but I carved the wax by hand, cast it myself, and finished the ring in my own living room. This is actually the second version of this ring. I made the first on in college and it was too heavy to wear comfortably. When I was at GIA, I had access to much better tools for wax carving so I was able to hollow out the ring which made it much lighter and easier to wear. I love the ring and it’s a reminder of where I started–making arty jewelry out of inexpensive materials and doing all of the work on my own.

I have one pendant that I wear everyday. I guess you could call it 2 because it is two parts and can be worn 2 different ways, but it has only one chain. I bought the diamond part of this pendant a few years ago. I found a diamond from the company I was working for at the time that was a good price and I’d always wanted a solitaire pendant so I bought it. The stone is 1.33 carats and is a certified Russian diamond–I love it. I knew a woman a few years ago who had a pendant almost exactly like this one and I LOVED her pendant so I set my own diamond like her diamonds was set. The chain is a wheat chain which I love. I think wheat chains are very classy and versatile while also being pretty sturdy and they don’t kink very easily. Months later I had scraped up enough money to make the second part. My husband had bought me an alexandrite several years ago because I wanted one and it’s both of our birthstones. He actually had the nerve to go to my boss without my there and have her help choose the best stone in their stock and I totally admire him for doing it–she was a tough cookie. I wanted to use the alexandrite in a piece that I would wear everyday which was a problem since I had my diamond pendant that I wore everyday. I decided to make a pendant that would work with the diamond but could be worn alone if I wanted to put it on a chain of its own–I have yet to do that but it is still an option. This is the piece I came up with and I wear the diamond part everyday and the alexandrite part most days–as long as the color of the stone matches my outfit. Disclaimer–The workmanship on the Alexandrite part of the pendant is not up to my standards and I hope to get it fixed soon.

My earrings are both very fun and very boring. I got a lot of ear piercings when I was in college and I still have them. Below are pictures of my ears with the earrings I wear in them everyday. The difference in the earrings I wear now and the earrings I wore in college, is the diamond content. I didn’t always wear diamond studs but when I started working in the jewelry industry, they were the first things I bought for myself. I wear 1.0 carat studs in my first holes (0.50 each), 5/8 carat studs in my second holes (about 1/3 carat each), and 1/10 carat studs in my third holes (1/20 carat each.) I wore the largest and smallest studs only for a long time but when my grandmother passed away almost 2 years ago, I inherited her studs and so I started wearing those in my second holes and moved my small ones up. All of my studs are set in white gold but some look more yellow because the rhodium plating has worn off. The hoops and barbells I wear in my less conventional piercings are all either surgical stainless steel or titanium. I will probably never upgrade them to move expensive metal since I like white metals and they work with my white gold just fine.

The last piece of jewelry, if you consider it jewelry, that I wear is my watch. I am not a watch fanatic, but I love this watch. My watch was the last piece I have added to my collection and it’s a Movado. It is part of their sapphiro collection which means the face is made of sapphire.
The band is rubber, nothing special, but I love that both the band and the face are white. And yes, I can tell time on it!

You don’t have to own or wear a lot of jewelry to be fashionable. I choose to wear a few nice pieces that mean something to me. Don’t get me wrong, I do have some fun pieces that I don’t wear everyday, but that collection is very slow to grow and pieces get added only after a lot of thought.