This heirloom pendant is built from two rings of family significance with allusions to three people of sentiment. A ring of her mother's, featuring the birthstone of her grandfather, an emerald; and her grandmother’s wedding band.
To combine them all into a pendant for her, I first turned the wedding band into a heart. This is a common project for jewelers. The heart symbolism is an obvious choice and the shape is easily achieved without damaging any of the original pattern on the ring. This allows the wedding band origins of the new pendant to always be identifiable.
In this instance, the wedding band was very detailed and I wanted to be sure to keep it’s aesthetic, as well as its significance intact. The pear shaped emerald ring lent itself nicely to the center of the heart. The emerald pear placed at the notch of the heart, pointed south towards the vertex seemed natural enough, but the design of the setting also settled into place like a missing piece.
I topped the heart with a simple bar & loop bail, made from the remainder of the emerald ring. This not only completed the pendant, but ensured that every bit of both rings were used in the construction of this heirloom. In fact, no new gold was needed. This heirloom Pendant features all the gold from her grandmother’s wedding band, and all the gold from her mother’s ring, while retaining the original aesthetic of both individual rings.
