I recently designed and hand-fabricated the earrings above in Argentium Sterling Silver with bezel-set Moissanites for a client to present to his girlfriend on her birthday. Since my client wasn’t sure initially what direction he thought I should go, I asked him to photograph some of his girlfriend’s jewelry for me on the sly. He complied, and from his pictures I deduced that she was a big fan of hoops. I quick-sketched several ideas for him:
Once we’d settled on the flower pattern in crescent-shaped hoops, I produced a CAD of the earrings so that I could mirror the pattern more easily:
This allowed me to create a printout of the pattern and transfer it to the Argentium sheet, and from there, pierce out each pattern. Next, I soldered on a backing, filed and shaped the metal, then hand-fabricated bezels for the Moissanites and soldered those in place. Attaching the ear wire and catch was a bit tricky; when I had those components in place, I knew I was home free. I bezel-set the six Moissanites, polished the earrings and gave them their final patina.
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