Men's band design with DKJ

[ellebelle]

WOW!!! congrats and gotta love the community here, in particular, @sledge

Awesome results!!!

Thank you for the congrats! And yes, the community here has a been really great. @rockysalamander and @Lykame really helped me through the design process.
All the support and encouragement from people like @farrahlyn @princessandthepear and @lovedogs kept me pumped up to see this through.
And of course many many thanks to everyone who took the time comment and show love for the end results! I can't wait to present the ring and share the story with all of you.

 

[Lykame]

Thank you for the congrats! And yes, the community here has a been really great. @rockysalamander and @Lykame really helped me through the design process.
All the support and encouragement from people like @farrahlyn @princessandthepear and @lovedogs kept me pumped up to see this through.
And of course many many thanks to everyone who took the time comment and show love for the end results! I can't wait to present the ring and share the story with all of you.

I'm glad I was even any help at all for your hard work and efforts with the design! It was all your glorious work; you had a vision and you kept to it, and not only that but you were kind enough to bring us along for the journey!

It is us who should be thanking you for the privilege...

Thank you.

 

[voce]

I was requested by @Lykame to start a seperate thread to go over the design for my boyfriend's engagement band. It will give me something else to focus on while I wait for my ring to be ready!
So a little backstory: my boyfriend let me design my own engagement which should start casting soon! But after so much talk about my ring, I think he was feeling left out at thought of waiting until the wedding to get his bling! He also wanted to show his commit to the engagement by wearing a ring as well. Unlike me, he's not very concerned about the details and only asked that his ring be a complimentary design to mine. So this is what I came up with...

First, I knew I wanted to incorporate some aspect of his Indonesian heritage. The flower detail on my ring represents the national flower of Indonesia so I wanted to tie that in. Also he wears a lot of shirts with traditional (and modernized versions of) indonesian batik. That idea lead me to a jewelry collection by an Indonesian designer and I really connected with this design:

According to that designer, this ring was based off a batik pattern that is traditional for brides and grooms and the meaning behind the design is "everlasting love and loyalty between man and wife". I love that idea! My favorite part is that the pattern looks different depending on where you focus. It can look like an X shaped flower with a small circle in between or it can look larger circles surrounding the small circle. I think this is a really beautiful metaphor for two people coming to together and sharing a life together in marriage. It also reminded me of a recent conversation with my BF where he said something along the lines of, we are two separate people with our own paths choosing to come together and go forward side by side. So I think this design represents that duality of two patterns existing together in one.

Anyway, I wasn't going to buy and ship that ring all the way from Indonesia! So I had Amy recreate it as an infinity design without the stone:


We decided to use the same metals as my ring, but in reverse for a yin yang effect. My ring is mostly rose gold with white gold details and this band is white gold on the interior and rails with rose gold details in the center.
The only changed I asked for was to make the small circle slightly smaller so it barely touches the surrounding petals. I think this will help bring out dual pattern effect. Currently, I only see the large circle pattern and not the X shaped flower pattern.

After that change, I think this one will be ready to cast as well! My BF doesn't know his ring is also coming from DKJ. I'm hoping this ring will be ready close to the same time as mine because I want to surprise him with a reverse proposal after he proposes to me! I don't want to take away his moment, but I'd like to do it at home on the same night. I'm pretty sure he is planning a big semi-public proposal so if I present this ring at home it won't steal his glory.

Ok, that was way longer than I intended, thanks for sticking it out!

Wow, what a great story and a beautiful, thoughtful design!