Thursday, June 24, 2010

Welcome to my first blog post

My name is Leif Benner; I’m a designer / goldsmith with a retail jewellery studio in Toronto. I love what I do and enjoy talking about it, so I thought I would start writing about it too.

Through this blog, I hope to talk all things jewellery, including current trends, events going on, stuff I like, etc., as well as learn more about what you like and think. I’d also like to share the process I use to make my hand-crafted jewellery - from inspiration and design, to prototyping, casting, and finally stone setting and finishing. I make hundreds of custom jewellery pieces a year, and 40-50 speculative ones that I sell out of my showcases. I find the process of making jewellery to be fun and very satisfying and I hope you find it as interesting as I do (well, at least a little educational).

I have recently bought a couple of amazing new gems that I will be working with and thought they would be good projects to share with you. The first is this 14.88 ct rectangular Aquamarine Cabochon (see picture below). I actually was lucky enough to buy two of these Aquamarines. This one is a bit shorter and wider and is just asking to be a beautiful cocktail ring (you would be stopped at parties wearing this one!), the second is a bit longer and more narrow and has dreams of being a beautiful pendant. I plan to design them with a similar look and feel so they can be worn as a set (or not). I will soon post pictures of concept sketches so stay tuned!

1 comment:

E. Hunter said...

We are very happy with our rings, and we often get positive comments on it like, I've never seen red and white gold fused together...Ours are thick and solid, hopefully representative of our marriage! Leif was recommended to us by our Ultimate frisbee couple friends who also got their wedding rings from his shop in the Distillery District. Very chic place.