Jewelry Redesign Story #50: A Tale of Two Sets of Earrings
THE REDESIGN CHALLENGE:
Grace loved the ring we made for her to represent four of her relationships in one ring and wanted to make something from the diamonds she still had that weren’t used in that redesign. She wanted to combine these diamonds with some amethyst beads that she had from a pair of earrings she was no longer wearing. We wanted to make her one pair of earrings that would combine both the diamonds and the amethyst. However, the amethyst were beads — rather than smaller stones like the diamonds — and it was difficult to find a design that would work that would include all of Grace’s gems in one single piece. The solution: We would make not one, but two pairs of earrings for Grace!
All of our initial sketches were attempting to create one pair of earrings from the diamonds and the amethyst beads that Grace contributed to the redesign. We created a couple of different options with a variety of complex back-of-earring design details that would allow the amethyst beads and the diamonds to work together. However, after some thought, we all agreed that it would be best to create two pairs of earrings with one pair featuring the diamonds and the other pair featuring the amethyst.
For the diamonds we created a chunky gold stud earring design. For the amethyst beads we used a chain element from a pendant design but re-envisioned the concept as a chain-link hanging stud. We were excited to make Grace a pair of modern-casual earrings and a pair of more luxury dress-up earrings all in one redesign project.
THE REDESIGN PROCESS:
initial sketches
Once we had decided to make two earrings, we offered Grace a number of different options that included the diamonds set in gold. We offered her options of square or circular studs as well as some diamond-embedded gold ear climbers. Eventually, Grace decided that she thought a circular diamond-embedded C-stud earring would be the most elegant and luxurious way to showcase the diamonds that she had in a design that suited her personal dress-up style.
For the amethyst stones we originally thought that we would create a gold chain link pendant necklace. Although Grace liked the design alot, she realized she was more interested in receiving a second pair of earrings with the amethyst that would allow her to use the amethyst stones from her previous earrings as well as getting another pair of earrings in her own style but one that would be more suited for casual occasions than the earrings that we were designing for her with the diamonds.
Because Grace liked the chain style that we had created for the pendant, we decided to keep this design element and repurpose it into a hanging, chain pendant earring.
Rhino modeling
The Rhino model was especially important for the gold and diamond earrings, as we were working with the leftover diamonds from Grace’s old ring and they were a variety of different sizes. This meant that creating perfect settings — a flush setting for the round diamonds and a bezel setting for the princess diamonds as well as different measurements for each individual diamond — was essential to making sure each of the different sized diamonds were secure in the gold. We also needed to make sure that the different sized stones looked good in an irregular pattern.
Casting
We were excited to see the finished casting for the gold and diamond stud earrings, which had a solid weight to them that would be able to hold each of the individual diamonds that would be set into the final studs. We were also pleased that the weight of the gold gave the earrings additional depth and shine.
We were also pleased with the ease of setting the amethyst beads into ball-wire settings at the end of the short piece of pendant that we had made into a hanging stud earring.
THE REDESIGN REVEAL:
The finished jewelry
Grace was so happy with her two perfect earrings and she was so glad that she was able to get her jewelry redesigned into pieces that would incorporate all of her various gems and stones into earrings for multiple occasions. Grace can’t wait to wear her new pieces to formal and casual events all throughout 2022 and beyond!
Materials: 1) 14k yellow gold earrings with round diamonds in flush setting and princess diamonds in bezel setting with ear post; 2) 14k yellow gold earrings with gold chain and amethyst beads with ear post.
Manufacturing Level: Medium
Design Level: Medium
Do you have leftover stones that you’d like incorporated into a new redesign? Get started here.
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