I first met this client many years ago. She was a business owner of a woman’s clothing store with an extremely keen sense of style. Her shop remains the go-to place for fabulous outfits. She dropped in on a two-fold quest. First, she had a variety of jewelry items that she no longer wears and wanted my assistance finding new homes for these pieces. The second, and a bit more fun… she was on a mission to recreate a piece that she saw on a recent vacation. While traveling, she saw a beautiful diamond bracelet on someone else’s wrist and snapped a photo. (I tell you, what did we do before having cameras at our fingertips!?) This bracelet was the inspiration for a new piece she wanted to create. It’d be a gift for her daughter – a signature piece, to be worn all the time. The meaningful part of this creation was that we’d be making use of jewelry items that had been her mother’s as well as a diamond that’d been in their family. I must say, it’s especially flattering when someone so very fashion forward trusts my eye for design. I couldn’t wait to dive in. We began by taking the diamond out of the engagement ring. The diamond was measured, weighed and noted for color and clarity. I then tested the gold jewelry to verify karat and weight in order to know how much metal there was. The CAD was created, dictated by the measurements of the diamond, as well as the wrist the bracelet would be on. From the CAD, a wax was printed to make a mold that the supplied gold would be cast into. Next, the jewelry went into the flask to be melted and then to be cast into the mold. We did not refine the gold to plumb but took a safe gamble that it would cast and polish without any porosity. The diamond was set in a white gold bezel that had been assembled into the top of the bracelet. The plunger clasp was handmade, work hardened for tensile strength, because there is not a safety chain or figure eight. I wanted the bracelet to be as clean and sleek as possible. This was certainly a labor intensive project, with lots of time involved. But the end result was awe-worthy and even more beautiful than the original photo this client captured. Lesson to all, if you see a gorgeous piece of jewelry while out and about, it pays to snap a photo. You can trust that I’ll do my best to recreate the magic for you.
- Materials: White and yellow karat gold, Diamond
- Client location: Avon, CT
Testimonial: “Raimie, I am truly thrilled with the bracelet!”
