Join us for a free consultation to discuss your project. We can meet with you in person in our gallery (we prefer appointments but can often accommodate walk-ins as well), over a video call, or even over email. For this beginning phase of the project, we will sit with you to go over your ideas, examples of what you do (and don't) like, discuss and questions you have, etc. Whether you have a firm idea of what you are looking for or absolutely no idea, we can work with you to figure out the right next steps. We pride ourselves on approaching custom work as a collaborative creation process and we love to talk about pros/cons on approaches and materials, to educate on techniques and options, and to get creative with how we approach each project to create a unique and inspiring solution for each of our clients.

After we discuss your project in our consultation meeting, we get to work on the design approaches, materials sourcing (if needed), and the cost estimates. Each project is a little different in this phase. One of the benefits of having a diversity of metalsmithing skills and approaches within our gallery staff and with our partner artisans is that we can leverage an assortment of materials and jewelry creation approaches to create something truly unique. We might create your designs with 3d modeling software, or we might create a hand sketch, or we might make a model in another material first. However we approach your project, our goal is to ensure you are as excited about the direction as we are. At this stage we often ask for a deposit (usually 50%, depending on the project).

When we are ready to go with the designs, we get to work making your piece or wearable art. Some of our projects start off as a 3D design created on a computer and then made into a wax that is then cast in the metal, followed by stone setting, finishing, etc. Other times we start out by melting metal into what is called an ingot and then we forge, mill, and shape the metal into wire, sheet, etc. in order to handcraft all the elements directly in the metal. One of the reasons we are all so passionate about metalsmithing and jewelry is because there are literally hundreds of techniques, tools, and approaches to working metal and stone and that diversity creates so many opportunities for creativity and we love leveraging all of these skills to create unique pieces for our customers.

Once your piece of jewelry is done we reach out to you to set up final payment and delivery. You love when our customers come into the gallery to pick up their jewelry but we work with people all over, so we can also mail the finished pieces to you. We provide appraisals, info on insuring your jewelry, and care and maintenance info with all of our pieces. We recommend you have your jewelry cleaned and inspected now and again and we will go over all of that with you as well. Our metalsmiths have decades of experience and we stand by our work.