A Story of Two Rings - Congratulations to Kristi and Ike

So begins a tale of two rings, I was asked by Kristi, a previous Arizona student to custom design and make her wedding bands. After a little research she decided she wanted their rings to look like twigs. Kristi emailed me some examples she found on the web, they were twigs carved out of wax with a leaf holding in the stone. As I don't like to copy other people's designs exactly, I said I could do something similar, but I would cast mine from Natural Twigs rather than carved from wax. I believe this makes them unique and more special. She wanted them made out of a white metal and hers with a stone setting. After much back and forth about types of stones, the decision was for Palladium with a round Alexandrite. Since I can't cast Palladium I decided I would have to cast the originals in bronze, make a mold of the ones they liked, and inject them with wax to be sent off to the Palladium caster. I used a few different types of twigs for the samples, including some from a cherry tree of which they liked the best.

These were the options I offered. I sent the two grooms rings for Ike to try and decide on what felt the best, and the one brides ring that Kristi liked for them to try for size and comfort.

Final Choices on style.
One Decision down!

After some difficulty in finding the right size of Alexandrite in an affordable price, I threw out a couple other options. I supplied photo's with different size and shapes of stones. As an example I used some random stones I had so she could get a better idea of how it might look.

Stone choice was an oval Iolite. (Photo shows an Amethyst)







During the trial period Kristi and Ike decided the Palladium was out of their price range for the moment, as Kristi was just accepted into a college program and so the purse strings tightened a bit. They decided to stick with Sterling Silver after all and that I could cast myself. After making some changes based on Kristi and Ike's preferences, here are the final wedding bands.

And, my little treat to them, I made a cute little custom box with a surprise note and ring pillow inside!

I used a cool box pattern from this website, and modified it a bit.

Wedding Photo's yet to come, stay tuned!