METAMORPHOSIS: JUNE REVEAL

Bangles set with Amazonite and Black Onyx.

I was a little late handing this Metamorphosis project off, but better late than never!

Tara had mentioned liking this style of bangle in the past. At first I was hesitant to make them because she already has a lot of bangles. But since I knew she would most likely love them, I went ahead anyways. Can’t ever have too many bangles!

To make them, I made the plain bangles first. Then I made all the settings.

Once the settings were all cleaned up and ready to go, I notched the bangles, making little seats for the settings. After soldering the settings to the bangles, I set the stones and then polished the whole bangle.

METAMORPHOSIS: MAY REVEAL

Stackable rings

Tess said she would like some stackable rings and I wanted to make some. Perfect!

I knew I wanted to use parts of her old rings as the bands for the new rings and some of the stones she already had as well. But, I also had it in my head that I wanted to use birthstones and Tessa’s are diamond, ruby, and sapphire: a combination I wasn’t sure Tessa would be a fan of.

The issue with birthstones is that people don’t like them and/or the combination their family stones make. What most people don’t realize is that there are alternate birthstones for every month. For example, April’s traditional birthstone is diamond, but one alternative is opal, which Tessa conveniently had.

For July, instead of using a ruby, I used black onyx. For September, instead of sapphire, I used moonstone (which Tessa also already had).

As for the bangles (featured below), they were a last minute addition. I figured it would be better to give her a stack of bangles she might wear instead of giving her back a little bag with random items she wasn’t wearing at all (i.e. dolphin earrings, a soccer ball pendant….).