Design your own opal jewelry
There’s a lot of perfectly nice jewelry out there, but it looks like something you’ve seen on a hundred women. And you’re not looking for jewelry that could belong to anyone. You want jewelry that looks like it belongs on you.
One of my customers explained it rather well:
“I wanted color. I want something interesting to look at.”
And another told me, “I love knowing that no one has one just like mine.”
I think they’re onto something.
There is plenty of nice things in the world. But nice isn’t quite the same as “that’s so you.”
What if we started with you instead?
Most jewelry starts with the jeweler creating the design and choosing a standard stone. There’s nothing wrong with that approach. In fact, it’s how I make some of my most popular jewelry. It’s a good system; but some opals deserve an entirely different approach.
And that’s where you come in. Instead of choosing a finished ring and hoping it feels like you, you get to start with the desire you already have.
You don’t need a sketch, a Pinterest board with 47 competing ideas, or an advanced understanding of metalsmithing.
You can simply start with:
“I love this stone.”
“I wear rings.”
That’s a perfectly good start.
From there, we’ll figure out what suits both the opal and you.
One of my customers, Mandy, once selected opals with a note attempting to explain her “vision” — followed by “ha.”
She’s a woman who describes her style as very eclectic, and she knows what she likes. She doesn’t need to know every technical detail of how a ring is made. That’s my department.
Your part is knowing what you love. My part is figuring out how to make it wearable.
Do you work with your hands? Do you prefer a substantial band? Do you want something that doesn’t look like your grandma’s opals, or a boho style that can hold its own? One of my customers asks herself a very practical question before buying jewelry:
“Is this something I will actually wear?”
That’s an excellent question. Because you aren’t designing jewelry to admire in a jewelry box. You’re designing something that gets to come along for your actual life.
How does designing your own opal ring work?
The process starts with finding an opal you love. Each loose Australian opal on the website is an individual stone, and I'll share my recommendations for what it could become.
Uou choose your opal. Purchasing the loose opal secures that exact stone for you. You're purchasing the stone only at this stage, not the finished jewelry.
Next, we design your jewelry together. We'll talk about your style, look at inspiration, and work through sketches and design ideas.
Once we've settled on the design, I'll give you an estimated total for the finished jewelry, including the setting and the work involved.
The first payment toward the jewelry secures the materials needed to make your design. I'll build your jewelry by hand and send you progress photos along the way. You'll get to see that sketch become something you can actually wear. When the piece is finished, you'll pay the remaining balance before it’s shipped to you.
The best part is wearing something you helped create.
It’s Thursday afternoon, and you’re meeting your girlfriends for lunch. You’ve got on your favorite jeans, a great top, and the ring you designed around an Australian opal that caught your attention weeks ago. You reach for your glass, and the light catches that flash of blue and green across your hand.
Your friend notices.
“That ring is so you. Where did you find it?”
And you get to tell her that you picked out the opal yourself. That you worked with the jeweler to choose the setting. That the whole thing was made around a stone you couldn’t stop looking at. Naturally, you’ll have to show her how the colors change when you turn your hand. Possibly three times. It would be a shame to waste good lighting. And every time you catch that opal flashing across your hand, you’re reminded that you didn’t have to settle for a ring that was almost right.
Made for you. Not for everyone.
Start by exploring the loose Australian opals. Find one that catches your attention, then tell me what you have in mind. Even if all you’ve got is:
“I love this stone. I wear rings.” We can work with that.