Vintage, Elegant and absolutely Gorgeous

Clients always have this very common question... what should I do with jewellery I no longer wear? A few common answer might come up...sell it...give it away...but the most logical thing to do is to create a new piece that you will make you enjoy your old pieces all over again.

A met with this very nice older client to discuss just this question, so naturally I would suggest for her to work with me and create a new piece. She had very old pieces from different times in her life, some broken pieces and some that she just no longer enjoy wearing. She did have a lot of gold to melt down but I suggested for her to keep the nicest pieces, I restored them for her to enjoy again. We still had a lot of gold to work with and two very nice gems to set into this new piece, a genuine ruby and an old mine cut diamond(I am not disclosing sizes, since we didn't appraise it ourselves, we did sent it to our gemologist just to identify the type of gems they are).

My client saw this pendant worn by another lady, by her descriptions, it's a nugget piece. I highly discouraged her to simply melt down 10+grams of gold just to make a nugget pendant. A nugget pendant is not that bad if its something just to use up some odds and ends of gold. A nugget piece would be a very bad idea if we have such substantial amount of gold and really amazing gems to work with. I suggested a concept to her just to see how she would like my idea. I did a very quick sketch just to show her my concept and she loved my initial design and we went to have it created. A circle pendant with a nugget piece incorporated into one side, set with her old mine cut diamond. We then set her oval ruby on the center of the piece in a cut out pattern. We finished the piece with a really elegant bale that has a slight hint of vintage elegance. This is truly a nice piece to show what your deserted pieces of gold can look like after some slight creativity.

Needle & High Polish finish Saddle band

This ring was created for one of the couples that visited our booth in the Wonderful Wedding Show back in January. The client's ring doesn't exactly have a matching wedding band for it. We did some initial consult during the show but I did encouraged them to visit me at the store to finalize all the details. It wasn't that long after when they came and visited me to proceed with the design process.

I personally loved the "needle finish"(a very fine matte finish that resembles a fine texturing that mimics needle points) that one of my goldsmiths applied to my wife's wedding ring. I thought of using the same finishing on her wedding ring to make the diamond more prominent. The client's engagement ring was set with a trillion cut diamond, we decided to contrast it with 3 round brilliant cut diamonds. The sizes of the round diamonds was graduated(.04ct, .03ct and .02ct) to compliment the tapering of the ring's sides. This style of ring is commonly known as a "saddle band", it's basically a ring that starts at one side of an existing ring and then meets up to the other side. It is very cool to work with rings with very different shapes to it and add a saddle band to it. This way the pattern can be complimented by the new ring.

A Family Wedding Ring

Here's a somewhat unique way of combining 2 pieces of very symbolic jewellery, a wedding ring and a family ring. Ordering a family rings can often be very stale, choosing from close to 100 styles in our showcase here at McGrath Diamonds. Wedding bands can also be exactly the same experience, since a lot of styles are already available and why not just get something right out of the showcase? Right? Well for some of my clients they put more into buying these pieces of jewellery because of the fact that they do want something that not everyone would have.

One of my very good clients recently came to me to have an engagement/wedding ring made, incorporating her family's birthstones. She wanted something very simple yet unique. This ring may not seem like one of my most complex designs but this ring will be really special. It symbolizes her marriage and her family at the same time.

This ring is set with a Canadian diamond center stone with 4 2.5mm colored gems on the shoulders, 2 aquamarines, 1 blue sapphire and 1 citrine. This ring is very simple yet all the subtle cues that it is a Dodgie Dator design, well made and absolutely gorgeous.

McGrath Diamonds at booth 1012, Wonderful Wedding Show 2011

Come visit me at the Mcgrath Diamonds booth at the Wonderful Wedding Show starting tomorrow January 22, just until January 23.

Some of my favorite wedding photographs from my portfolio

Just like to share a few of my favorite wedding photographs from my portfolio, please visit www.blog.dodgiedator.com for more or www.dodgiedator.com to view my wedding portfolio.

www.dodgiedator.com

A Tribute to a Pet - created 2009

I've created a lot of really different pieces and there's always something to top it off eventually.

Dave is a very good client and friend of mine and he has been my client even before I started designing. He always makes sure that his wife has something very special each and every occassion. I keep on teasing him that my custom piece would always be way more special than anything we have on our showcases. One of the very reason why we haven't done anything custom is that he is a very busy man, travelling all over the world and only has in most cases days to decide on a gift for Wendy.

Early in 2009 he came in to just say hello and we chatted about a lot of different things, his travels and my upcoming vacation to the Philippines in late 2009. He later on expressed interest on having something custom made, and asked how long do I need to create something. He needed it for their wedding anniversary in September, so we did have a lot of time to prepare. He mentioned that it would be something to do with their dog, a terrier. Dave came in after 4 months for his initial consultation and he had a outline of a terrier for me to base my design on. He also had a few different things he liked incorporated into the design, a black opal and different shapes and sizes of diamonds. It became a layout project on how to make sure that all these different gems get incorporated into the design seamlessly. We decided to make a combination pendant and brooch piece to give Wendy the variety with her different outfits. The size of the piece has to be just right for a brooch and not too big as a pendant.

The finish product features all the gems in various sections of the piece. I used the black opal as an accent for the ear, using the various sizes of pear shape as accents for the nose and the bow on the collar. Round brilliant cuts as the eyes and the rest as the collar. We added a few more round diamonds to make the collar filled with diamonds. This piece is certainly one of the most unique pieces I've created in my years in this artform. I am so happy I get to make it for such a special client.