My Mother's Cocktail Ring/My Chiclet Necklace

I've been sharing my client's stories and thought my own bespoke jewelry project would be a good story to share.

My mother, Susan, loved warm colors. I'm positive that she would have adored this beautiful orange cat too. I made my mother's ring in the early days of my bespoke jewelry projects. Keeping with the theme of warm colors, her ring's setting was made with peach gold. I sourced a mandarin garnet for the center stone. The melee diamonds were from a ring I had taken apart that was given to my mother by her mother-in-law. 

my mother's bespoke cocktail ring
 

I always loved this ring that I made for my mom, but as the ring was made just for her, I knew that I wouldn't wear it for myself. As one of my very first bespoke projects, she wore it all the time. So, in transforming the ring that I made just for her into a bespoke necklace for myself, it had to be something special. 

my bespoke chiclet necklace
 

I had the idea of re-imagining my mom's ring into a necklace with several dainty chiclets. Each chiclet would contain something of meaningful resonance to the relationship that I had with my mother. The necklace would act as my tiny talisman packed full of symbolism, sentiment and movement. 

details of the chiclets

Along with reusing the gold from the original setting, the two melee diamonds and larger mandarin garnet were repurposed from my mother's ring. To personalize the piece, I added a melee peach sapphire, as this is my birthstone. I also thought it would tone down the bright orange a bit of the garnet.

On one of the chiclets, there is a sweet engraving of a little bird, the house finch. As some of you may know, "House Finch" is my first Jewelry Movement Project that combines my two worlds of jewelry and dance and is about my mother. My chiclet necklace is the jewelry component for the pilot project. I've created a few dance videos for "House Finch", but the footage is still raw and a work in progress. You can see a portion of "House Finch" here. 

my necklace in a recent photoshoot with the lovely model, Rachel
 

I mainly work with clients that are gifting themselves. I re-imagined my mother's bespoke ring for my own bespoke necklace after she passed away from Alzheimer's. I was her caregiver for several years. I knew it would be a very emotional bespoke project, but I'm so thankful that I was able to gift this to myself. 

the tapestry box/prop is from my great aunt betsy who lived in china in the 1930's 

I wanted to give the gift I gave myself to others. That's how I came up with the concept of The Gift of Bespoke. I worked with a custom letterpress designer to create a lovely card for the recipient. For the holidays, I'm planning to have a gift box as part of the unwrapping. Just imagine, giving a loved one (or yourself) this sweet notecard that lets them know that they will be working with me on a custom jewelry design in the new year. The gift package also includes a hand written note on my custom letter press stationary. It's a really thoughtful gift idea and I'll be sharing more details as we approach the gift giving season. 

custom letterpress by  Salt & Paper Press