A Tradition In The Making

While here, I am mostly known as a general contractor mom, believe it or not, at times my interests take me outside of Home Depot and Babies R Us. I thought I'd take a break from bringing you all the latest on the wiring in our house to introduce you to a different kind of construction project we've been working on.

When Rosemary was born, Jeff presented me with a ring that was somehow meant to bridge the gap between sacrificing my body to some extreme greater power that could only have been attempting to kill me and giving him the gift of fatherhood. We didn't know if Rosemary was a boy or a girl, so when it turned out she was a girl, he told me the ring was for me to give her on her wedding day...or whatever day we decided seemed like the right time. I humbly accepted his gesture despite its inability to erase the stretch marks from my abdomen and had the ring engraved with her name and birth date. My plan is to not really ever tell her the story of the ring until we give it to her. I think it would be a really special surprise...especially on whatever important day we share it with her.

When Gloria was born, Jeff gave me a teeny, tiny zip-loc bag with a few microscopic diamonds in it. Being that it was our second daughter, he told me to continue the tradition and use the diamonds to make a ring for her. We've had the diamonds just sitting at our house for the past 10 months as I've lacked any and all inspiration to take up jewelry making amidst my general contracting. However, a few months ago, I came up with an idea for her ring and have been mulling it over in my mind. Finally a few weeks ago, I told Jeff I had an idea and that I was ready to pay the jeweler a visit with my inspiration image. Brace yourself, here it is:

At this point I am fully aware that you think I've jumped off the deep end...but stick with me here. What about a bow ring? I have spent the past few months Googling my heart out trying to find the perfect bow...and then I came across this image. The scale is all wrong, the design is all wrong...but I absolutely love the style of this bow. I love how elongated it is, how it isn't tapered at the center or 'cinched' tightly. I love how it feels a little floppy and a little casual. Not a uber tailored, 'cutsie' bow like this ring:

I was a little disappointed to find out Tiffany's actually makes a bow ring (I stumbled across it at a display window and scoffed aloud). It's a beautiful ring, but doesn't scream 'antique' like I'm going for. Here's their version:

I had about 30 different bow images saved on our desktop before I finally just accepted that my inspiration image above, while it may look more like a headpiece than a ring, is what I'm really going for.

So we talked to the jeweler for all of about 10 minutes trying to give him enough to go off of. I have no idea what I'm envisioning the finished product to look like...I just know I like the feel of that headpiece...I mean, ring. The design process includes computer images followed by a wax mold of the actual ring prior to it actually being made out of the selected materials. Last week, we were able to see the computer images and in all honesty, my heart sunk a bit when I saw them. While I can't exactly pinpoint what it is I'm going for, what I saw wasn't the AHA! moment I was looking for. So we made some adjustments and hopefully this next round of revisions will bring us closer to the feel I was looking for. Stay tuned for images of the wax mold of the ring set to be ready next week.