Happy Mother's Day! Every Mother's Day my Mom, Robin, and I do a creative activity together. This year I had the idea to make custom rings at the Gem Studio in Salt Lake City! The Gem Studio is super cool. You book a 3 hour workshop and make a ring from scratch, with sterling silver and the gem (or gems) of your choice! There are different options for bezels, bands, details, gems, and styles.
First, we picked out a few gems we liked. Once we got a few in our bowls, we narrowed it down to two for my ring, and one for my mom's ring. I chose a large pear shaped moonstone with a small round fluorite accent gem. Robin chose a square cut jasper stone.
We started the process by making the bezel! I chose a scalloped bezel and Robin chose a serrated bezel. I think they suit our gem shapes well! We shaped them to our stones, and used a torch and some solder material to make them hold shape. Then, we cut out the sheet for our gems to sit on an soldered that to the bezels! They made some pretty crazy colors on the silver with the flux on it.
Next, we made the bands for our rings. I had a double band because my ring was going to be split for the two gem stones. We hammered them around the sizer and tried them on in between to make sure they fit. I spaced my band split to allow for the room in between the stones that I wanted. After making the bands, we soldered the bands to the sheets. This was super fun! Then, we did one last try on before our instructor took the rings to the grinder and soaked them in some solution to clean them up. They were so black before, and back to perfect silver after!
Last was polishing our rings, and then setting the stones. We used a polisher to polish the silver, and Robin added some sulphur to hers to create a black accent on the bezel. They were so shiny! I used a pick to set the stones and bend the bezel to the shape of the stone for each ring. They fit well!
It was so much fun making rings! If you're looking for a fun activity to do with your mom, spouse, bestie, by yourself, etc. I definitely recommend checking out the Gem Studio! There is one in SLC and one in Provo. Here is their Instagram.
Thanks for reading! Check out the video I made at the Gem Studio and more on my Instagram here.
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