Etsymetal Blog Carnival - Custom Orders

What is a Blog Carnival?
It is EtsyMetal members who write an article on the same topic. Our December Topic:
Do you take custom orders? What kind of custom work do you do or not do? What has been your favorite custom piece?

Custom orders can be a lot of fun. I like working with my customers to make their wishes become real. Custom jewelry orders are gratifying in some way. I see it as a compliment that someone likes my skill and designs enough to commission and trust me with a special request.
The easiest custom orders are pieces that are based on designs I have already done before but need a little tweaking to suit that special person. It may be a different gem stone, or the setting gets changed a bit (higher or lower), the band of a ring gets wider or narrower etc. Those are easy to predict what it would take to make that jewelry piece. Material cost can easily be estimated and the time for design and making is predictable.

One one those was based on my Wrapped Pearl design. The customer had a gorgeous Tahitian pearl that she wanted to use with that design. However, since the pearl was so beautiful we decided to lower the setting to show off more of nature's perfection. Out came such a lovely design that now became one of my bestselling rings. It probably does not have the special meaning that her ring had with the pearl she got as an engagement gift but it is still beautiful with the Tahitian pearls I now use for that design.

On the other hand, I sometimes struggle with custom orders that go beyond the tweaking of an existing design. The responsibility of creating this special piece of jewelry can be a bit of a burden. There seems to be so much more pressure involved in finishing a commissioned piece. What I love about jewelry making is that I can just design with my own flow of creativity. With custom orders this flow dries out very fast. I start to self-doubt myself, my skill and taste. What if the customer does not like the finished piece? What if something goes wrong with the special, unreplacable gem stone they gave me to create this piece? Every time I agreed to make a ring with a gem stone they gave me, I totally started to freak once it came time to set the stone. One little second of not paying attention and that stone could be broken or chipped. Most jeweler or stone setter will not give any guaranties for stones they get from their customers, but its still a huge burden to deal with. So my rule now is not to accept their stone. I turn down such request because it does not seem to be worth the stress it creates for me. Maybe in a couple years I am a bit more relaxed about it.

One commission that turned out great was this Tetra ring with the customers Tanzanite.

Custom orders can take a lot more time than when I just design my own pieces and because of this time they usually cost more that other already made jewelry design. It all starts with a discussion about the piece, its size, stones and metals to be used and the price of the piece. A 50% pre-payment is required before I start making the model in wax. If the custom piece includes a stone they own, I have to get the stone before starting to make a model. This ensures the stone will fit perfectly in the cast metal piece.  If the piece is very different from my other design, I usually sent pictures to the customer for approval. After all agree the piece gets cast, set and finished.

Due to this time involvement I often can't commit to custom orders as a I still have a day job and only leaves me nights and weekends to work on my jewelry.
I sometimes make exceptions for really good friends like this special engagement ring.

This was my first CAD CAM ring. It is a collaboration between 3 architects to design the perfect engagement ring for another architect. The groom had the idea of the honeycomb texture with a marquise sapphire embedded. He originally had a way bigger stone in mind but it would not have worked for the honeycomb band. Since my own 3d skills were not good enough to actually model this in Rhino, I asked my ex-husband and also a good friend of the groom to model it. Not easy to work with a person on a design when you are in divorce with them. But it worked out and the ring came out beautifully.

A couple month later I was asked to design the wedding band that matched the previous engagement ring. Both rings are cast in palladium and set with natural Ceylon sapphires. The wedding band was modeled by hand. 

So yes, I do custom orders when they fit my schedule and skills, and are in line with my own design ambitions.

Please do not ask me to copy or reproduce another jeweler's design.

Please read the stories of other EtsyMetal members:
Inbar Bareket http://www.inbarbareket.net/2010/12/blog-carnival-december-2010.html

Elizabeth Scott http://esdesignsjewelry.com/blog
Kerry Alice and Heather http://www.twigsandheather.blogspot.com
Victoria Takahashi http://vtakahashi.blogspot.com/
2Roses http://jewelrytutorial.blogspot.com/2010/12/do-you-do-custom-orders.html

bye, bye green beauty!

Sometimes it is not easy to be a jeweler. I get so attached to some of the jewels I create. It is hard to let go and send them off to their new destination. Last weekend I fell in love with this green ring. It has a large one-of-a-kind chrome green quartz set in the Rock in Paw design.

When creating a ring I stare at it for hours, trying to imagine the final look. And once it is all finished, I am so proud of this new little character that will hopefully make it's new owner happy.

Custom Tanzanite Ring

Sometimes I get approached to work on commissions, which is a very rewarding and enjoyable experience for me and I hope, for the person who commissions the piece. It results in jewelry that is meaningful to the owner because it was designed especially for them, with with their input. Commissions usually require a bit more time involvement for both sides. For the customer because he has to approach me with an general idea and give feedback. For me there is more communication involved and sometimes even multiple design options to develop. If this is a totally new design, I present the customer design choices and then proceed with their favorite picks.


In January I was approached by Elizabeth who wanted to have a ring designed for a stunning trillion cut Tanzanite stone she owned. She had seen my Ice Tetra ring (below) and wanted something similar for her ring. 

Her stone was 7mm and a bit smaller than the 10mm Topaz used in the Ice Tetra Ring. I was very exited to work with a Tanzanite again. 

Tanzanite is a rare gem. It is found mostly in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. The mineral is named after Tanzania, the country where it was discovered in 1967. Its blue, surrounded by a fine hint of purple, is a wonderful colour. The stone is particularly highly prized because it is found in only one place in the whole world.  Nearly all tanzanite has been heat treated to produce the striking violet-blue color. In its natural rough state the gem is actually of brownish-yellow color.
Due to its minor hardness (6.5-7 on Mohs scale) tanzanite is not especially durable. Therefore it should be worn with care, never put it in a ultrasonic cleaner.


Once I saw the actual stone it was even more into this project, what a beauty! To show off the wonderful color we decided to change the design a bit up and lowered two sides of the setting. This allowed more light to enter the stone from multiple angles, bringing out the amazing hues of the stone. I modeled the ring in wax. My wax modeling technique is a mix of carving and building up wax to archive the desired shape. Photos were posted to my flickr account for the customer to review and comment.

1. DSC_5353_2, 2. DSC_5361_2

After that the ring went off to my caster to be made into a sterling silver model. Once it came back a week later I cleaned up the ring, and prepared the setting. Here I started to get a bit scared. Knowing how expensive these stones are, I was worried I would break it during the setting process. Fortunately it does not happen often that I break a stone - more often I just loose a tiny stone when it falls on the floor and is never seen again-  but there is always a possibility for damaging a stone. Even diamonds can be damaged while setting them.

To set stones I usually use a hammer hand set. This is a specialty piece of equipment that converts the rotary motion of a flexible shaft machine to a back and forth stroke. It looks a bit like a dentist drill. While I hold the ring in one hand and press the stone down into the setting with the tip of my finger, I gently move the hammer piece slowly around metal  along the stone setting. With that the metal gets pushed towards the stone, over its girdle and eventually holds the stone in place. This can take anywhere from a couple minutes up to an hour depending on the thickness of the metal that needs to be moved and the complexity of the setting. If anytime during this process I do not pay full attention and slip with the hammer, the stone can get chipped. To make it short, I did not break the stone and finished the hammering with success. The hammer motion will leave some marks on the metal around the setting. This needs to get removed by filing and smoothing the surface. Usually I use silicone wheels on my flex shaft for that. The silicone will not leave any marks on the stone and just removes marks on the metal. After that the ring gets its final polish and gets cleaned.

Voila, The ring is ready to  find it's new home.

I loved how the ring came out. Elizabeth send me this note after she got it in her hands: "I just got my ring and I am enthralled. It is absolutely beautiful and very unique.  I love your work, it is like sculpture.  Thank you so much for making me such a beautiful ring."




Nothing makes me happier than a happy customer.





ETA: I do not any longer accept customer supplied gem stones for custom projects due to liability reasons. Thanks for understanding.

"Three of us" ring, Happy Mother's Day!

This ring was created to celebrate the addition of a baby girl to the family. 3 little coffee diamonds ranging in color from caramel, over reddish brown to dark roast symbolize all 3 family members. The diamonds are 1.5 mm to 2.5 mm are grouped as accents floating on a wave, the feeling is one of connectivity. The sterling silver band has a fluid texture.

1. See larger image, 2. See larger image, 3. See larger image

Happy Mother's Day!

My dog ate my home work! Really!

I was working tonight on a wedding ring design. This will be the wedding ring to fit my first CAD CAM ring created last year.

The wedding ring will fit snug in the waves of the engagement ring. It will have five 3mm Sapphires mounted flush on the eternity band. This way it does not overpower the marquise shaped blue sapphire in the engagement ring. Here a quick sketch. I know I am not good at hand sketching. I worked for too long in CAD as an Architect.  When I create jewelry, I just start modeling without ever sketching the idea before. It's just more fun this way.  
Anyways, to communicate with the customer I had at least to give it a try. 

The challenge was now to replicate the waves of the engagement ring without using CAD. I needed to figure out how to model this ring by hand and still provide a perfect fit. I used a copy of the engagement ring as a mold, wrapped tape around and poured hot wax over it. Then I separated it and had basically half of the wedding ring. I cleaned it up a bit and mixed some silicone mold compound to make a second half. I left the mold with half of the wax ring on the kitchen counter to dry. Half an hour later I checked and it was gone. I found a piece of wax in my dogs Lena's mouth. Still haven't found the silicone mold. I might see it tomorrow on our morning walk:) 

Gosh, why are dogs so destructive. This gets dangerous once she starts to develop a sweet tooth for wax models.
I guess tomorrow night I am trying the same procedure again. This time I will put the model high up where she can't reach it. Will write an update when the ring is finished. Stay tuned.

BTW: Lena is really cute and I can never be mad at her for long. And since I have two dogs there is always a change that the other one was the destroyer. I can never be sure.