Part of me wants to support the whole movement of ‘Occupy Wallstreet’ and part of me wants to tell these people to get a job. I honestly don’t know where I stand on this topic and it’s such a sensitive one to voice your opinion on. I believe in the notion of ‘fighting for your rights’ and protesting for what you believe in. The protests have focused on social and economic inequalities, high unemployment, greed, as well as corruption, and the undue influence of corporations – particularly that of the financial sector of the government. Very commendable. However, this is a jewelry blog and the annoyance that I dealt with with the daily traffic because of the “Occupy’ movement was unforgivably horrendous.

In the end, it is what it is, and you all got kicked out of your occupied areas as it became a health hazard. Maybe fight your causes in different manners by using the given social media tools to your disposal. Petitioning seems to work but then again, what the hell do I know? I have a job that I bust my ass off for and with these difficult times, I’ve learned to adapt. There’s always room for improvement. I don’t want to come off as insensitive, but if plan A isn’t working out for you, always have a plan B. Am I making sense? Who knows. But what I do know is that this isn’t a political blog and I wish the ‘Occupy’ people luck with what they’re trying to accomplish.

Fast forward to today and this is how Occupy Los Angeles looks like. I tried my best to take some good shots and some are drive-by style shots while waiting for the light to turn green but you get the feel of it.

Anyway, as of late, I’ve been working with these beads  for a bunch of Shamballa bracelets I’m in the process of making. Here’s a little teaser of some of the material I’ve been working with.

You got yourself some Howlite and Coral beads which are perfect for making Shamballa style bracelets. I’ll get into more detail in another blog when I have my custom pieces finished for a new Shamballa line that I’ll be coming out with.

I just love this. The wild wild west but in modern times. This is how they roll in Downtown LA these days, assuring your safety in the jewelry district. Thought I’d share this image to get a little chuckle out you folks.

So I get a request to cut two matching Rudilated Quartz, pear shapes for some designer. Here’s the catch. The table isn’t your ordinary flat table. I had to have the table cut in a concave style cut. What is a concave cut? I’m glad you asked for those who do not know. A concave cut is curved rather than a flat facets, resulting in a more brilliant gem.

You got yourself here a matching pair concave cut rudilated quartz.

I tried to give you the best possible angle so you can see the curvature of the table.

Those lines you see in the quartz is called a rutile. It’s made up of titanium dioxide and it often appears as needles of included color. Who says you don’t learn anything from reading this blog?

Yes, those are sleeping beauty turquoise sitting in a tray. I specialize in manufacturing turquoise to calibrated sizes and fancy, special order style cuts, depending on what that designer in you wants to create. In that tray, you’ll notice I’ve made a bunch of matching pairs for earrings and pendants.

The cleanest G shock customized face I’ve seen in the market. Don’t mind the arm hairs (and don’t mind the date, I haven’t adjusted it). It comes from those Armenian roots I’ve inherited which isn’t a bad thing and it sometimes has it’s perks. We have an iron chef Geoffrey Zakarian to claim now which is amazing. Anyway…

I made some more Lena Wald rings for an order over the Christmas period. You got yourself some size 7 finger size, Turquoise and Ruby cigar band rings with a smooth surface which are about 18mm wide with silver linings.

Talk about a nightmare job…

This custom ring turned out to be a headache job. I don’t know if you can see in the image itself but the open corners with no sapphires in them are supposed to be cut into millimeter perfect tapered cuts, which I specialize in.

I laid out the princess cut square sapphires for you so you can see how many I needed to cut into tapered cuts.

Here’s another look at it.

If you were wondering what that smudge was on the top corner of the ring is, I applied wax to the tapered cut sapphires so the setter can know where each stone goes

The empty rows are meant for pave set diamonds and the center is for a big diamond that’s going to be sitting in the middle of this hexagon shaped ring. Gotta love custom work sometimes.

Here you got this eternity style band that has a twist shape to it. You’ve got some round black diamonds set on one section with milgrain work and bezel set round white diamonds set in a 14k ring.

And that should do it for this particular blog entry. I just want to wish you all a successful and better 2012 and hopefully the Mayan’s are wrong. Till next time… (next week hopefully)

First off, I’m a fan of Amethyst. One, it provides me with a wide range of that purple hue color that I’m a fan of. Two, It’s affordable and I have a that freedom of trial and error without killing my pockets. You can waste a lot of money if you’re not trained when mapping out where and how to cut your piece of rough so take your time and map out the steps when dealing with the cutting process.

So here’s my piece of rough I chose. This particular Amethyst is a ‘rose de france’ amethyst. The color is reminiscent of a lavender lilac shade which is a lighter color that usually comes from the Amethyst family.

This is the process of slicing. I need to slice this piece of rough in order to get my desired section I choose to preform the stone out of.

This diamond grade disk is spinning at a high RPM. Water is needed to cool off the friction this process causes.

Take your time when pushing the piece of rough through the disk. You don’t want to break the stone and don’t want to lose a finger in the process so be cautious if you ever decide to slice.

So I sliced through the rough and notice how clean it came out.

I displayed the two pieces of sliced Amethysts for an up-close, personal view so you can to check out the aftermath of the slicing process.

After the slicing process, I started to preform the Amethyst. I started the process by hand until I got the desired shape I’ve been looking for. I then transferred the stone to my dop stick (check out one of my older blogs by clicking on the link to get the terminology, I.E. ‘doping stick’ by clicking here.) for a more controlled and measured feel to the shape I was aiming for.

If you can see here, I’m cutting rounded inward grooves into the girdle (the side of the stone which separates the top from the bottom of the stone).

I got the rounded areas done. This is that time in this process where you really start to get excited by the way it’s starting to take shape.

The next step for this rose de france amethyst is to start cutting some facets into it.

I’m touching up the rounded sections on the girdle.

I added a regular table to the top of the amethyst but I wasn’t too pleased with the outcome so I decided to go with a double-sided checkerboard rosecut to the stone.

I love the ‘trial and error’ process. I’m honestly satisfied with the final product.

Why put the inward, rounded grooves into the stone you ask? I don’t know, maybe I can build something with bezels that snuggle perfectly into those grooves or have some sort of prong or build some weird bezel? Who knows, it all comes down to your artistic innovation – when that designer in you comes out to play.

Till next time…

I don’t know what to say. If someone asked me to make them a special order of some fried chicken necklace, of course I’d be happy to make it, but this is just too funny. This necklace is perfect for the trending topic of #hoodmemories on Twitter as I type this. Over the top? Yeah, it is. Fits her character? Of course it does. In the end, I’m not going to sit here and judge someone on what he or she decides to flash in public and I always go by the saying, ‘whatever makes you happy’.  Moving on…

I’m stuck and honored with the duties of trying to figure out what kind of center stone I can put into this white gold ring I made for a customer of mine. All they said is ‘something yellow’ in a cushion cut with a certain budget they want to stick by. I was thinking of something like a yellow ceylon sapphire or a yellow tourmaline. Any suggestions? This is the part where you help me decide with your suggestions.

It’s a beautiful and elegant looking ring that deserves something nice in the middle. One of the perks of being a gem cutter dealing with special orders is that I have the power to cut any shape and size to my needs and nothing holds me back when dealing with jewelry related problems like this one.

I have this obsession with showing off Tanzanites in my blogs for some strange reason. Well here’s another one for you viewing.

This 20 carat plus monster of a stone needs more life to it. No disrespect to all the hard workers over seas but most of the stuff I see cut from Asia and India is way below par. They are told to cut to preserve the weight while sacrificing the quality of the cutting job. I’m a big advocate of USA made products when it comes to the jewelry world. This topic is a perfect intro to the following images you’re about to see.

I don’t know if you can tell from the image but this is a parcel my customer received from their factory in Thailand and my first glance at these multicolored sapphires, I thought to myself, ‘were they drunk when cutting this?’

The cutting is awful, the person who maps out from where to cut the sapphires from the original rough, should be fired. These sapphires are filled with inclusions that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

It’s my responsibility to re-cut and salvage these sapphires so that they can be presentable and can easily move rather then collect dust in some parcel bag in some stone dealers safe.

Next week, i’ll be showing you a detailed look at this special new cut I’ve been cutting. Till next time…

So I get this order for this red coral job that I needed to supply into a tear drop shape with grooves cut into them. You may remember a blog I wrote on this Turquoise job I did called ‘Turquoise Grooves‘ which explained the whole process.

I mapped out how and where I’d like my grooves to be cut on this calcium induced piece of red coral using a small disk drill bit.

As you can see, this is the process of mapping out lines into the tear drop coral.

Here’s that video I promised showing you the process.

You may notice that I cut the lines deep so I have room to make the grooves.

Here’s the finished product. I filed the grooves in and used various custom made drill bits to give it that rounded look between each groove.

I finished it off with a 1mm hole so that some sort of post would sit into the drilled area.

So I get this David Yurman two toned ring in that needed a new Moonstone cut into it.

I supplied a nice cushion cut cabochon Moonstone to sit into the bezel.

The stone should sit perfectly inside and I recommended to my customer to glue it in and to do a light hammer on the walls of the bezel to give it that extra secure fit into the mounting.

And finally, I machine cut, to the millimeter, diamond shape cut blue sapphires that I supplied into this white gold ring.

As you can see, they go from large, medium, to small.

The blue sapphires sit perfectly into the desired area and some how, I kept this blog from reaching 400 words which is a new record for me. Hopefully, I’ll have another blog out and running by the end of this Friday. Till next time…

Now, on to the business end of my blog. So I get these two matching pair, 14mm round Tanzanites the other day from a customer of mine that wanted to have it cut into a special fancy cut. If you want a nice and easy breakdown on Tanzanites, please click on the link ‘here‘ from a previous blog post I wrote a while back. Other then that, take a look at these beauties of a Tanzanite.

For people who don’t realize how hard it is to match certain stones, let alone to find 14mm round matching Tanzanites, in this quality, just do me a favor and appreciate the rarity of these images and good luck finding two matching stones like these in this size.

These images don’t do any justice to stones like this so I took a bunch of pictures to show off that nice blue with a hint of purple color these beauties give out.

The last two photos is a shot of the pavillion. What the customer wanted me to do is cut these Tanzanites into a domed, almost ball-like shape, matching 11mm pairs. This is where the title of my latest post comes into play. Tanzanites are expensive and when I’m asked to cut them into some fancy domed cut, the stone is going to lose a lot of weight. It’s called a massacre in my book, hence the title but the outcome is beautiful. If you’re still lost, continue looking at the next photos and you’ll see the process unfold and you’ll get what I’m talking about.

I glued the Tanzanite upside down on the dope stick in order to get the domed look because the pavillion is where all the weight is held.

The first thing I did was to cut the size needed so it can fit into the custom earring being made for the Tanzanites. I trimmed it down to 11mm from the original 14mm. As you can see, I now have space to pre-form the stone into a domed shape before I start cutting in the facets.

So I rounded out the Tanzanites with a the biggest dome I can get out of the stones and added the facets. It’s sort of free form but it resembles a Portuguese cut.

This is the polished and finished product. They don’t look like they don’t match but I promise it’s from the picture.

You’ll see a series of photos from different angles so you can get the complete show of these beauties.

The thing with Tanzanite, for example is that 85% of the stones you get look like a 5carat stone from the top/table but when you put it on a scale it reads 9 carats. The high concentration of mass is sitting in the butt (pavillion) of the stone and as a result emits a killer blue-purple color.

Cutting the Tanaznite bottom heavy, retains the color in most cases. My customer was aiming for a ball shape and was hoping to retain most of the original color from before I cut into them. He lost about 10% of the color but nowhere else in the world do these Tanzanites get cut like this.

What was the top of the stone, the table has now been demoted to the bottom of the stone.

I used a little flash to bring out that killer color I’ve been raving about. Imagine these matching pairs in natural day light and how much attention it’ll attract for it’s owner.

Now I thought this was the finished product and my customer was happy with it but when he started to make his earrings, he wanted the girdle area more rounded and faceted. This is why this blog has been lagging.

So I rounded out the girdle and continued the facet patterns.

The original size was a size 14mm and in order to get that dome for the Tanzanites to sit in the setting, I cut it down to the biggest size possible, which was an 11mm and rounding out the girdle, the millimeter size dropped to a 10.8mm.

On a final note, projects like this excite me and always keeps me on my toes. It’s out of the ordinary jobs like this which makes what I do different form the same daily grind the most people go through. I’ve been working on this onyx piece that just keeps breaking on me where I have to carve into it and inlay this shield emblem. Yes I cursed when it broke but in the end, it’s a trial and error process which helps develop new tools and techniques that can be utilized for future projects. It’s  a learning experience and I am always willing to learn something new. Hopefully by Monday, I’ll have another short blog up with few things I’ve been working on. Till next time…

Ten years on and it’s still a daunting memory in the back of my head. I was lying in bed sick to my stomach when my mother comes into my room and tells me that a plane just hit the World Trade Center. I honestly didn’t comprehend it and went back to sleep. Ten minutes passed and I woke up again. I turned on my TV and all I see is a building up in smokes. I switch to the next channel and it’s the same thing. I then see another plane hit the other tower. I honestly thought I was watching a movie. My jaw dropped in a shock of awe. Was this really happening? I just graduated high school that past summer and I officially started working at my fathers company and it hit me:  If this is happening in New York, could this happenin Los Angeles as well??? I jump out of bed and ran straight to my mother and she was on the phone. I waited impatiently waiting to ask her “what’s going on with dad?” She was on the phone with my father and he was on his way home.

9/11 is a very sensitive subject and ten years since I’ve seen this Jewelry industry take a dive like no other. Manufacturing that was done in the USA was moved overseas to deal with economic downturn. People that came into this business 15 years ago have been flushed out. I was talking to one of my customers yesterday and he was frustrated that the old age  of knowledge was not there anymore. The new generation wasn’t getting involved to keep this craft going.

I was speaking to another customer of mine who called me and asked me if I was driving (speaker phone of course) and I was like “yes, I have to drive to deliver jobs. It’s a service I have to provide to keep some of my customers happy.” I’ve flown to San Francisco to drop off a job outside of the gate, then hopped onto another plane 15min later and flew back to Los Angeles. Work used to come to my doorsteps but now I chase after it. I mean, it’s all for the better right? I’m always trying to stay on top of my game and this is why I started exploiting my work while trying to educate people. My father, being old school, thinks that people would get offended by me using the word ‘educate’ when I write my blogs. I’m not trying to offend anyone but if it’s put out there for people to learn  something new, then why not?  The National Jeweler had an interesting piece about jewelers reflecting on 9/11.  If you’re interested in reading it, click on the link ‘here‘. My prayers are with those who lost their lives to protect this great country.

Onto the business end of my blog which contains a few things I’ve been working on.

For those that haven’t read my ‘Turquoise Grooves’ blog, I received another job similar to the grooved, oval shaped turquoise with a high cabochon.

(here’s the original matching pairs I just mentioned)

I needed to cut out of rough some salmon color red corals, matching pairs. I gave a detailed breakdown in my turquoise groove blog so click on the ‘link‘ and have yourself a look.

I love the color on these corals. They came out great and that high domed look just makes the stones for me personally.

I’ve also been working on this special order involving 2mm princess cut yellow sapphires. For those who haven’t sorted through a parcel of color stones, your eyes start playing tricks on you when you are trying to match a color.

For those who were wondering, I oil emeralds.  Oiling is one of the oldest treatment in the world. Oiling improves the clarity of the emerald. I received a job like this that needed a light polish on top with oil treatment after on a cut cornered, step cut emerald.

I had my setter remove it from the setting of this diamond filled ring.

I polished the stone and oiled it. I don’t know if you can tell, with the image but with the naked eye you can tell right away at the enhanced clarity of the stone.

I used a little flash to show off that beautiful green color this emerald gives out.

I had my setter set the emerald back into the mounting. This ring has such a mature and classy feel to it.

For my next job I received this ring that needed 3 rows of thin onyx, inlaid, replacing the cracked and broken original onyxes in the yellow gold ring.

I removed the old onyx and inlaid 3 new pieces of each row. With jobs like this, you need to be patient and have a light touch or you’re starting this job over.

Here’s a front view of the ring. What makes this job even more difficult is that it sits above the setting and it’s rounded surface gives it that more expensive look.

Hopefully by Friday, I’ll have another blog up on this crazy Tanzanite project I’ve been working on. The weight loss that these two beauties went through just for a fancy cut was ridiculous.

14mm matching round Tanzanites.

Till next time…

As a quick side note – gold? Forget about it. It hit 1900 for a sec and it closed out below that dreaded 1900 mark. Shocking.

Anyways, Last week I took some photos of some jobs that came in. I received this 18k white gold, antique ring that needed some matching color sapphires supplied and cut into them. The stones needed to be cut in an non-typical style which was no problem. I specialize in precision cutting – I cut stones to the millimeter, usually non-standard cuts.

Here’s a top view shot of this antique ring. The diamond bezel is surrounded with tapered baguette sapphires.

Notice the side of the shank were the sapphires are missing.

You won’t find anything out there that will fit into that area without special, custom cutting.

I supplied and cut 3pcs of tapered sapphires to complete the rounded curvature of the ring.

The sapphires sit perfectly in the open space. Just get yourself an experienced setter that does great milgrain work *ahem* and make sure they don’t break the sapphires or it’s coming back to me – which I wont mind.

For my next job, I got this $1000+ a carat opal in that needed a good polish in order to bring out the beauty it radiates.

My cellphone couldn’t pick up that crazy purple hue this opal was giving.

You can barely see the purple hue on the outer rim of the opal but I promise it’s there. I’ve rarely seen something like this so i figured I had to share it.

Finally, I just wanted to give a little insight into the current Jewelery market and what I’ve been doing to stay relevant.   The recent increase in overseas jewelery production has created a new competitive market which favors big factories and stamps out the smaller guy.  In order to survive in this cutthroat environment you need to have something which can stand against big business. So, I’ve been producing these “Shamballa” bracelets for quite a while now. I make them to order and so far whatever I’ve made, I’ve sold off. Here’s one I’ve made for myself featuring 2 skulls with diamonds set in the forehead region.

I used silver colored rope and onyx beads with a matte finish. I had some 3.5mm burma ruby rounds I wanted to set into the eye sockets of the skull but I think I’m going to go with some 3.5mm black diamond rounds. Still deciding, but you guys can always give me some input on what you think would look better.

I usually wear these when I go out and about. If someone takes a liking to it, I show it off and give them a sales pitch. They usually put in an order or sometimes they even buy it right off my wrist! Talk about covering a bar tab.

Hopefully by Friday I’ll release another blog with this new cut I’ve been working on. Till next time…

Back to my gold rant. I had a few estimates I gave out a few weeks ago at a different gold price for some special orders in the works.  I had to make the call to my customers that if the price of gold continues to rise, the estimate will have to change. I told them to notify their customers of the current situation. In the span of a month, gold has risen $300. Everything is going up and when my prices go up to keep up with current costs, please understand why. The moral of this story is this: Silver is a cheaper, up and coming solution for all your jewelry needs. The bar has risen for silver to fill the void left by the sky-high prices of gold, platinum, and diamonds.

For the past month I received calls for carving jobs. Weird right? The first call was to replace this Caesar head carving out of a 14x12mm oval shaped onyx.

Poor guy never had a chance.

This one has more details and better lighting.

Fast forward a month into the job. With some trial and error and some inspired German engineering, you end up with this bad boy.

It came out great! Thank god. This was a nightmare of a job but it finally paid off. The amount of time and labor that was put into it was immense.

I want to start incorporating some of my special order work and show off the high quality craftsmanship that goes into our work. From the jewelry side of things to the gem cutting and inlay lapidary world, I’ll stick true to my blogs name and always show off some sort of gem cutting or inlay work that goes into a piece of jewelry I’ve made.

A got an email from a customer wanting me to match a 14 karat yellow gold ring but add my own touches to it. They also wanted a solid piece of onyx wrapping around the shank. Physically impossible right? When you see the picture you’ll think it’s impossible. I like to keep some things secret in order to protect my technique. So with this ring I’ll tell you what I did but won’t show you the steps. Inside the bezel, they wanted an old school skull and bones look. They also wanted it to be magnified. They wanted a high cabbed stone with free form facets. They also wanted the ring to have a rough finish and the onyx inside the shank to have a rough finish as well. If you haven’t pictured it yet, they wanted it to look like it came out of a treasure chest.

And here it is! This is a top view of the free formed Quartz I cut on top of this bezel. I used around the skull some black enamel to bring out the skull and bones image.

Here’s a side view of the piece. Notice the rough finish look and notice how thick the onyx is. It almost takes up most of the shank.

Here’s another look at the bottom of the shank. Notice the bevel tips on the shank that gives it different levels.

I’m in love with this shank. I mean, to some people, it’s not a big deal ring but the way this onyx sits in the shank flush is very difficult to pull off. I personally like the whole design of this ring.

This was the view I wanted to show you. Notice how the shank is one big circle. How did I get the onyx to sit inside the shank? I cast 2 pieces separately and cut the onyx accordingly to the shank. I Slid it in and soldered the other piece of the shank. Then I filed it down to size. It’s a lot of hard work but well worth it when the product comes out like it did.

And here’s another top view look with a better shot of the skull and bones guy popping out of the free formed Quartz I cut. It came out great and everyone was happy at the end of this project.

My next blog will feature a nice breakdown of a special, ‘one of a kind’, cut I designed that sort of looks like a shield. It might involve diamond bezels around this ‘shield’ cut, but who knows. Till next time..

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Turquoise is an opaque stone, which means it is not see-through. It has a hardness of just under 6 on the Mohs scale. Turquoise is found in or near copper deposits/mines as it depends on the presence of copper ions for it to form. It is composed of a hydrous hydrate of copper, aluminum and phosphorus elements. Turquoise was one of the first gem stones to be mined. It comes from all over the world (Afghanistan, Africa, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Siberia, Tibetan, Turkey and the US of A). The particular turquoise I am working on comes from a unique mine located in Arizona. The western state is home to some of the largest mines in the world including the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ mine where my stone originates. Sleeping Beauty turquoise is a solid stone with no matrix that ranges in color from Royal Blue to a very light Sky Blue. Generally speaking, turquoise color ranges from green to greenish-blue to blue.

And what better way to finish off this little digression on turquoise with these interesting facts! Did you know that no English gentleman of the 17th century was not regarded as well dressed or well adorned unless he wore jewelry of turquoise? This stone was so highly valued that all 79 of the emeralds in the crown that Napoleon gave his consort Marie Louise were replaced with Persian turquoise cabochons. In my opinion, I prefer sleeping beauty turquoise for its color, quality, and the nice value it carries. I personally think it’s better than the Persian stuff. Again, that is my opinion.

I made a special order ring about a year ago with diamonds around the mounting and I supplied it with a high cab sleeping beauty turquoise with grooves that I carved into it. I would of blogged about it but I didn’t have a blog at the time. But now I do!

My customer has asked me to cut 2 matching oval shaped sleeping beauty turquoise with the same carved grooves for some earrings that she wants to make.

Here’s the top view of the Carved Sleeping Beauty Turquoise I supplied and cut.

Here’s a side view. Notice the classy look on the ring, yet the Turquoise is still the center of attention.

So I go pull out some Sleeping Beauty Turquoise rough.

Here’s another angle. I’ll be slicing through this to get the deserved size I want before I preform the turquoise.

I quickly preformed the 2 pieces of turquoise I need with a flat bottom by hand after I sliced it from its rough form.

Here’s another angle. Notice how high the dome is. It gives me room to carve into the turquoise and give it its groove without sacrificing too much of the height of the stone.

I glued the turquoise onto the dopping stick as a guide so I can start going into detail with the desired size. I’m using a millimeter gauge to measure the 16x12mm size I need. If you don’t know what a dopping stick is, click this link ‘here‘, which should take you to one of my first blogs explaining the steps into the gem cutting world.

you have to apply the softest touches to the disk or it’ll eat away at your turquoise.

I ended up with 2 matching color, cut, and shaped beauties (no pun intended) after I used the preforming machine.

Here’s a side view of the matching turquoise cabochons on the dopping sticks.

I removed it off the wax/glue and I started to pencil in the areas where I’d be carving in the grooves.

Here’s a better look. What’d did you expect? A pencil is an awesome tool sometimes.

I just started filing in the grooves. Sorry, my bench light is ruining the picture but you get the idea.

I’m using my filer to cut into the turquoise. By doing it by hand, you have more freedom in your movement.

I’m working the edges on the turquoise here.

I finished using the hand file. It sort of looks like a preformed state after I filed it.

I started using a specially designed drill bit with a round disk with an inward curvature to round out the grooves.

I took it to my lapidary machine and gave it a little nice polish on top to get these 2 beauties.

Matching cut pairs.

That was a fun and challenging project. Next week I’ll start putting some of my special orders I get that  involve some sort of gem cutting + whatever I make for the gemstone. Till next time…

After looking at this picture for like a minute with the biggest puzzled look on my face, I asked her to explain herself. She told me she wanted a pearl ‘candy wrapped’. Still didn’t make sense. I said, ‘paint the picture for me’. She went on to tell me that ‘you know how when you open an oyster up and a pearl sits in the middle? Well, what if you can unwrap a candy wrapper and it presents to you a pearl like an oyster does?’ Really, hippie woman? I asked her to draw it for me right there on the spot. Picasso would love this abstract piece of art.

After looking at this, I told her that I’ll work on something. I get the concept but to put it into 3 dimensions without making it look bad was the part that I was having a hard time with. I pulled out an oval shaped pearl, went downstairs to the liquor store and bought myself a butterscotch candy. I unwrapped it, removed the candy from the wrapper, and sent it straight into my mouth. I put the pearl into the candy wrapper and twisted it shut. The unveiling I was about to perform was about to put the picture into reality. I unwrapped the candy wrapper and that pearl looked right back at me. I’ve finally figured out how to CAD design this ring and complete it.

It looks cool right? This is a top view of the pearl ring.

I gave it a split shank look with a stem like support on the edge of the wrappers.

Here’s the silver/white gold look. Night and day difference from the my friends drawing.

Here you got the yellow, white and rose gold looks.

I sent the CAD file to my solid scape machine and started to grow the wax. Are you wondering how the pearl is going to sit? I’m glad you asked as always. I drilled two holes where pins on both sides of the mounting holds the pearl in. After wax is done growing, I send it for silver casting. I receive it back from casting and set the stone polish and finish the ring. I present to you the ‘Candy Wrapped Pearl”…

Here’s a top view. My cellphone camera takes better pictures then my 8 year old camera. Horrible, I know.

Here’s a more clear image from a top view. It looks great!

Here’s another angle.

Here’s another side view shot of the ‘Candy wrapper pearl’ ring.

Here’s the bottom of the ring. Keep in mind my friend was on a budget and wanted something simple and this came out to be on budget and for everyday use. It’s an awesome ring for any outing.

I delivered the ring to my friend and she absolutely loved the way it came out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take a picture of the excitement on her face.

But she did allow me to take a photo of her hand with the ring on it.

Keep in mind, me being a gem cutter, I can cut you any stone to fit into the candy wrapped design. Whether it be rose cut all around a black onyx or some nice dark Amethyst from Uruguay. Name it and I can sculpt away. Yes, I do special orders if you haven’t noticed. I’ll be featuring some more later on.

Next week, I’ll be featuring some crazy Turquoise carving I did for a customer of mine. Till next time…

Actually, I wanted to give a nice shout out to the US Women’s National team because what they pulled off in the 122min into extra time against Brazil was something out of Hollywood. I was in awe. Good luck to them as they try to capture a 3rd World Cup against Japan. Ok, now I’m done. Cheers!