Green amethyst ring

Here's the latest off my bench, in all different stages - pleased to enjoy!

~Jeni

New ring to see

Back on January 11th I posted a picture of a sapphire ring propped up with another ring to take the photo. Here is the process for that ring: a winding vine with hand hammered leaves and a labradorite cabochon. It's been worked off and on for the last couple of weeks in between other projects, and I started to polish it today.

Here are the leaves - hammered and in place next to the vine with solder bits ready for the torch. Next everything is wrapped around the mandrel to form a ring shape.

I like the way the vine undulates and seems to beg for something to

be added for ornamentation where the two ends meet. So, after a few minutes of thought and searching through gemstones, I added a bezel to hold a round labradorite cab, and then set the stone. The blue flash in the stone is a little hard to capture on camera, but I tried! Enjoy the pics. :)

Wedding rings - awesome photo

The photo of the wedding rings just came last week and I finally had time to pull if off the disk. What a beautiful pair of rings!

Enough snow, ok!?

The winter wonderland was really magical... can we have summer now, please? Here's a view from my studio:

The newest thing on my bench is this beautiful sapphire ring with a vine pattern similar to the wedding rings. One picture shows an unusual way to solder the prongs on (I was experimenting). The other shows it fully put together with prongs cut and leveled. The ring is resting on another ring design I'm playing with to see if I can get a more open design.

Then there's the photo of the ring completed and waiting for a final polish. The stone is a unique cut of sapphire, cleaved along the chatoyance, I suspect. In other words, I think it's been cut alongside what would normally be a ray from a star sapphire. The end result is a deep, dark blue with a wonderful flash along the face of the stone that makes you look twice! I really like this one...

Happy New Year!

Just a quick note to wish you all a Happy New year and all the best in 2010! One of my resolutions is to post more frequently to keep everyone up to date on studio work and shows (yes, it's a carryover from last year *smile!*). It's a new year - let's go!

~Jeni