The Wire That Found a Home Twice: Green Amethyst Hoops and Their Necklace

Some of my favorite pieces start as someone else's leftovers.

Years ago I did a kind of work most people never see. I ghost-designed jewelry for another brand, creating pieces they would put their own name on, which the industry calls white labeling. For one production run I bought a quantity of thin, square-gauge gold-filled wire. Then the designer decided to bring her production in house, and just like that the project ended, leaving me holding a spool of wire with nowhere to go.

I do not throw beautiful material away. So I set out to find it a home in my own work, and it ended up finding two.

First, the hoops

The wire was light, which made it perfect for a statement hoop that would not drag on the lobes. I wanted something geometric and thoroughly modern, so I fabricated a caged hoop: individual shapes, long ovals and circles, each soldered separately and then soldered together. The hard part was keeping the circles from drifting under the torch, because the two earrings had to come out identical. Then I bent the wire into two large matching hoops, threaded them through the cage, and soldered them in so the whole thing read as one integrated form. I added a small mirrored gemstone cluster to each, with a long green amethyst set down the center.

I always wear a new design out before it goes to its person, to be sure it actually feels good to wear. Every time I have worn these, someone stops me. That is the quiet proof that a piece is doing its job: turning heads and starting conversations.

Then, the necklace

Making the hoops left me with more of that square wire, and I could not let it sit again. So I made a necklace in the same language.

I fabricated and soldered three long ovals to echo the long ovals that anchor the hoops. The longest became a drop pendant; the other two split at the top to flank the main gemstone cluster and to give me anchor points for the chains that wrap around the neck. A long green amethyst drops from the cluster to be framed inside that longest oval, tying the pendant and the cluster into one gesture. The cluster itself anchors all three ovals and vines up the side of the right one, just enough asymmetry to feel alive while the whole piece stays balanced.

Gemstone science: amethyst's green sister

The green amethyst running through both pieces is properly called prasiolite. It is quartz in a soft, leafy green, and most of it begins as amethyst or pale quartz that turns green through heat, deep in the earth or through careful treatment. So it is amethyst's cooler, calmer sister, the same mineral in a different mood. At a 7 on the Mohs scale, it is durable enough to live an everyday life.

To fill the open space inside each flanking oval and to balance the cluster, I added two of my Mixed Beryl crown-cut beads, one to a side, threaded in individually.

The trick was the chain

For the body of the necklace I used a labradorite enamel chain flanked by a slightly heavier chain that shares its delicate look but lends a little more presence. Together they read almost as a single chain with fine detailing.

The genuinely tricky part was spacing. The two chains had to stay evenly spaced all the way around, including at the back of the neck where chains love to twist together. Holding that spacing is what preserves the illusion of one unified piece. It is the kind of work no one is meant to notice, which is exactly why it matters.

The result is more minimal than the bolder pieces in this collection, which I love. It moves easily from a casual day to a cocktail hour without trying.

Why this one is one of a kind

A spool of wire bought for a brand that is not mine, orphaned by a decision I did not make, and given two lives by hand: a pair of hoops, and the necklace built from what they left behind. The green amethyst ties them together; the asymmetry and the chain-work make the necklace its own. None of it can be repeated, because the wire is nearly gone and the choices were made one response at a time.

It is proof of the thing I believe most. Nothing beautiful has to go to waste, and the second life is often the better one.

Questions

What is green amethyst, or prasiolite?

Green amethyst is properly called prasiolite, a green quartz. Most of it begins as amethyst or pale quartz that turns green through heat, deep in the earth or through careful treatment. At a 7 on the Mohs scale it is durable enough for everyday wear.

Are the hoops and the necklace sold together?

They were made from the same orphaned wire and share one design language, but each is its own one-of-a-kind piece.

Can I commission something similar?

Yes. Every piece is built once. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

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Fairy Dynamite's Sister: A Rainbow Pearl Lariat

Every necklace in this collection picks up where the last one left off, and this one began with what Fairy Dynamite did not use.

When I finished Fairy Dynamite, I still had a length of hand-bailed pearl chain left over, bought at the Tucson gem show for this collection. It is a soft, light grey, with a subtle rainbow iridescence riding across it, exactly the palette to mirror the pastel stones I had been working with. I did not want to repeat Fairy Dynamite. I wanted a sister to it, something from the same world spoken in an entirely different voice.

A different shape for the same family

This time I reached for a lariat, the kind of necklace that threads through itself and falls in a long, easy drop. And I wanted to build it around another 24k gold vermeil oval, the same component family that runs through this whole collection.

The pearl chain would pass through the oval and loop back on itself, so the oval became the heart of the design. I built a gemstone cluster right into it, gathered around larger center stones: blue topaz, green amethyst, and kunzite. Then I edged the oval with tiny sparkling mystic labradorites to give it a finished frame.

Gemstone science: the delicate one

Kunzite is the quiet risk in this piece. It is a pink-to-lilac variety of the mineral spodumene, and it is pleochroic, which means it shows you different colors from different angles, soft pink one way and a hint of violet another. It also has what gemologists call perfect cleavage, a built-in plane where the crystal will split cleanly if it is struck wrong. That makes kunzite one of the more delicate stones I set, and one of the most rewarding when it is handled gently.

The piece inside the piece

There is a thread of continuity here that I love. The tassel at the end of the looped pearl chain is an old ear-cuff component whose twin lives inside Fairy Dynamite. Two halves of the same forgotten pair, finally finished, in two sister necklaces.

I thought I was done. Then I hung the whole thing up, and the clustered oval sat crooked, tilting in a way no amount of adjusting would fix. It simply needed weight to pull it straight.

So I built a second drop to give it that weight: two large blue topaz pieces and a single simple-cut aquamarine nugget, each one capped with a pearl cut from the same chain, and spaced with short lengths of that pearl chain between them. The new drop fell into perfect alignment beside the lariat's own drop, and the oval finally hung straight and true. It was meant to be invisible engineering. Instead it became the part people notice first. The necklace needed that second drop, and I had not even known it.

Why this one is one of a kind

A lariat made from a leftover length of chain that exists in no other piece. A tassel that only carries meaning because its other half is in another necklace. A second drop that was never planned, born because a finished piece refused to hang quietly. This is what one of a kind really means. Not just that I made one, but that the piece could only have become itself through the exact small accidents that built it.

It is Fairy Dynamite's sister, and like all sisters, entirely her own.

The Matching Earrings

I make a coordinating pair of earrings for every necklace in a collection, meant to be worn together or apart. The lariat is a long, quiet statement, so its earrings had to stay out of its way. Rather than compete, I kept them simple: a small gemstone drop of aquamarine crown-cut beads that accents the minimal, opera-length spirit of the necklace without ever shouting over it.

Questions

What is kunzite?

Kunzite is a pink to lilac variety of the mineral spodumene. It is pleochroic, meaning it shows different colors from different angles, and it has perfect cleavage, a built-in plane where the crystal can split if it is struck wrong. That makes it one of the more delicate stones to set.

What is a lariat necklace?

A lariat is a long, open-ended necklace that threads through itself and falls in a long drop rather than fastening with a clasp.

Is this piece one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. Each piece is made once. If you would like something in the same family, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

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The Ovals That Found a New Home: A Vermeil Collar Necklace

This necklace started with a box of gold ovals that were never meant to be mine.

A fellow jeweler had been sitting on a large inventory of 24k gold vermeil ovals. She had bought them for her best-selling design at the time, a boho earring called Feather Leathers, where custom-cut leather hung whimsically from the ovals with gemstones draping below. Then she pivoted her whole business to custom engagement rings and retired the earrings for good. The ovals had nowhere to go. I took a number of them off her hands, because I cannot watch a beautiful material go unused, and I knew they would find a home in my one-of-a-kind work.

I just had to figure out what that home was.

Finding the shape

I played with the ovals for a while, arranging and rearranging, until a pattern emerged that wanted to be a collar. A collar sits differently than my usual asymmetric pieces. It asks for symmetry, for a center that anchors everything, so I knew from the start it needed a cluster at its heart.

I was excited, because I had just bought something perfect to build that cluster around: strands of Mixed Beryl crown-cut beads, tiny faceted geometric stones in aquamarine, morganite, and heliodor.

Gemstone science: one mineral, three colors

Here is something I love about those beads. Aquamarine, morganite, and heliodor are all the same mineral, beryl. The color is the only thing that separates them: aquamarine is beryl tinted blue by iron, morganite is beryl blushed peach by manganese, and heliodor is beryl warmed to yellow. So a single strand of them is one stone wearing three moods, which makes them a quietly perfect foundation for a cluster where color is meant to lead.

The part the stones decided

I had a grand plan for the center, and the stones talked me out of it.

The first idea was dramatic: a large amethyst stalactite slice suspended from a cascade of ovals dropping from the center point, turning the collar into an opera-length statement. I built toward it, but the proportions never came right. The drop fought the collar instead of flowing from it. So I let the grand version go and kept it simpler, a single graceful drop instead of a cascade.

Then the beryls fought me too. The first two crown-cut beads I tried to wire in snapped under the tension. They are lovely but delicate at that tiny size, so I changed my whole order of operations. I built the cluster's structure first with sturdier stones to set the shape, then threaded the fragile beryls in one at a time, after the framework could protect them. A stone always teaches you how it wants to be handled. You just have to listen before you have broken two.

Building outward

With the drop simplified, I framed a large aquamarine nugget inside the central oval, edged that oval with tiny sparkling purple Herkimer diamonds, and secured the cluster to both the drop and the two ovals flanking it.

I had meant to leave those flanking ovals open, but once the cluster and drop came together, the empty space inside them looked unfinished. So I reached for baroque pearls shaped almost like little angel wings and let them extend the cluster outward on either side, filling the openness with movement. That accident of proportion became one of my favorite parts of the piece.

From there I set a rhythm down the length of the collar: ovals edged in 3mm mystic labradorite beads with gemstones threaded through the center, alternating with open ovals each holding a single larger stone. One held a blue topaz, the next a copper aquamarine, chosen because they echoed each other in size, shape, and watery color. I carried the pattern to the point where the necklace slips behind the neck, then finished the rest of the length with bare gold ovals, letting the design quiet down before it disappears.

Why this one is one of a kind

This necklace could not happen twice. The ovals came from a design that no longer exists, bought in a quantity that will eventually run out. The beryls that survived the bench are set in an order I worked out by breaking the ones that did not. The angel-wing pearls are there because an empty space asked to be filled. Every choice was a response to the one before it, which is the only way I know how to work, and the reason no two of my pieces are ever the same.

It is a collar built entirely from beginnings that belonged to someone else, made wholly into something that is only mine.

Vermeil Oval earrings (mate to the Vermeil Oval Collar necklace)

These carry one quiet detail straight from the necklace's body. I edged each 24k gold vermeil oval with tiny sparkling purple Herkimer diamonds and suspended a single baroque pearl to hang in the center, the same gesture that runs along the collar, distilled into a single oval per ear.

Questions

What are the Mixed Beryl crown-cut beads in this necklace?

They are tiny faceted beads of aquamarine, morganite, and heliodor, which are all the same mineral, beryl. Only the color separates them. Iron tints aquamarine blue, manganese blushes morganite peach, and heliodor warms to a soft yellow.

What is 24k gold vermeil?

Vermeil is sterling silver coated in a thick layer of gold. The ovals at the heart of this collar are 24k gold vermeil, rehomed from a fellow jeweler's retired earring design.

Is this necklace one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. Every Andrea Li piece is built once, and when it sells it is gone. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

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The Choker That Floats: A Rainbow Moonstone Story

It started with a handful of spikes.

I had found a strand of AAAA rainbow moonstone marquise briolettes, pointed little beads that catch the light and throw it back as color, and I could not stop looking at them. They had a glow that seemed to rise from somewhere deep inside the stone. I knew they had to be the center of something. I just had to figure out what.

The light inside a moonstone

That glow has a name: adularescence. It is the soft, floating sheen that seems to drift just below a moonstone's surface as you tilt it.

Gemstone science: why rainbow moonstone flashes color

Moonstone is a feldspar, and its sheen comes from its structure. Inside the crystal are microscopic, alternating layers of two feldspar minerals, albite and orthoclase. When light enters, it scatters between those layers and floats back to your eye as that dreamy glow. Rainbow moonstone takes it a step further. It is actually a variety of labradorite, and its internal layers act like a prism, splitting light into a whole spectrum of blues, yellows, oranges, and purples. No two stones ever catch the light the same way.

A spike that found its match

The marquise briolettes were shaped like spikes, and that shape jogged a memory. I had a small cache of bullet-shaped moonstones left over from my Femme Fatale collection, and their pointed silhouette was a perfect echo of the new briolettes. Two stones from two different collections, made years apart, that looked like they had always belonged together.

I also had a new material I was eager to feature: Mixed Beryl crown-cut beads, faceted geometric little stones in aquamarine, morganite, and heliodor. I wanted a design that would truly showcase all of it, the spikes, the bullets, and the crown cuts, without crowding any of them.

Andrea Li

☾ ✦ ✧

Gemstone Profile:

Moonstone

The glow · Adularescence

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Identification & Type

Moonstone (orthoclase feldspar). A captivating variety of feldspar known for its ethereal, floating luster.

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Physical Properties

✓

Mohs hardness: 6 to 6.5

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Colors: translucent to opaque. Classic white with a blue sheen, plus rainbow, peach, and grey.

✦

Luster: pearly to vitreous.

□

Chemical formula: (K,Na)AlSi₃O₈

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Key Phenomenon: Adularescence

Scattered light. The sheen comes from light diffracting through thin, alternating mineral layers inside the crystal, which scatters it back as that soft floating glow. Rainbow moonstone, a variety of labradorite, spreads it into a full spectrum.

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Major Origins

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) India Madagascar United States

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Symbolism & Metaphysical

☉

Intuition & Clarity

☾

New Beginnings

✦

Calm & Balance

☽

Feminine Energy & Fertility

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Care & Handling

✓

Gentle cleaning. Use warm, soapy water and a soft brush. Never an ultrasonic or steam cleaner.

✓

Avoid chemicals. Protect it from harsh agents, perfume, and cosmetics.

✓

Store separately. Keep it in a soft pouch so harder stones cannot scratch it.

The beauty of moonstone. Elegance in nature's glow.

Andrea Li

andreali.com

Designing for the float

The answer was restraint. I landed on a minimal choker, the kind of design that gives a gemstone cluster room to breathe.

The whole idea was to make the cluster look like it was floating around the neck, with as little structure showing as possible. A clean stage, with nothing competing with the stones. The less hardware the eye notices, the more the stones get to be the entire story.

Building the vine

I fabricated the choker base by hand from 14k gold-filled heavy gauge wire, shaping it to sit close around the neck. At the very tip, where the choker comes around to the front of the throat, I soldered a tiny pearl peg and set a single luminous baroque pearl, the soft punctuation mark the whole piece resolves toward.

Then I drilled a row of tiny holes up the length of the wire. Those holes are how I anchor a cluster securely to a base this minimal, with no bulky setting to hide behind. Working up from there, I built the gemstone cluster like a vine twirling up the side of the choker, the marquise moonstones and bullet moonstones and crown-cut beryls climbing toward the front. I filled the heart of the cluster with tiny sapphires, sparkling Herkimer diamonds, and keshi pearls, the small details that give a cluster depth when you look closely, and let the whole thing resolve right at the baroque pearl cap.

The empty side

Here is the decision that makes the piece work. I left the other side of the choker completely bare.

No flourish, no stones, just the clean gold line of the wire. That emptiness is what sells the illusion. With one side blooming and the other side quiet, the cluster reads as something that grew there on its own, floating at the throat rather than sitting on a necklace. It also gives the choker a modern, architectural feeling, asymmetry used on purpose, the way a single branch reads against an open sky.

Why this one is one of a kind

A rainbow moonstone never flashes the same way twice, and neither do the stones that sit beside it. The bullet moonstones came from a collection I will never make again. The cluster was wound by hand, stone by stone, up one side of a base I fabricated for this piece alone. It cannot be repeated, and that is exactly the point. It is one moment of light caught at the throat, and it belongs to one person.

Choker earrings (mate to the Moonstone Choker)

These were the most fun to engineer. My first instinct was a stacked cluster with a single bullet moonstone at the bottom, but it felt like parroting another design, so I started over. Instead I fabricated a gilded arch that mirrors the choker's own line, and built the gemstone cluster right into it so the design follows the curve of the earring. I soldered the post toward the center of the arch rather than the top, so each earring curves out to follow the curve of the lobe, an engineering choice as much as an aesthetic one, for balance and comfort on the ear. I drilled holes along the arch to hang a single moonstone bullet at the bottom and to anchor the cluster into the metal, then filled the center with small flat pear briolettes and tiny sparkling sapphires for depth and shine. The result echoes the modern, architectural feeling of the choker exactly.

Questions

What makes rainbow moonstone flash color?

Moonstone is a feldspar, and its glow, called adularescence, comes from light scattering between microscopic layers of two feldspar minerals, albite and orthoclase. Rainbow moonstone is actually a variety of labradorite whose internal layers act like a prism, splitting light into blues, yellows, oranges, and purples. No two stones ever catch the light the same way.

How is rainbow moonstone different from classic moonstone?

Both show adularescence, the floating sheen that drifts just below the surface. Classic moonstone glows a soft white to blue, while rainbow moonstone, technically a labradorite, throws a fuller spectrum of color.

Is this choker one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. It was wound by hand, stone by stone, on a base fabricated for this piece alone, and some of its stones came from a collection that will not be made again. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

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The Stone That Sat in My Drawer for Years: An Amethyst Stalactite Necklace

Some years ago I walked out of one of my favorite gem shows with my budget already gone.

The show is held at a place those of us who go every year just call the Holidome. I was leaving a little reluctantly, the way you do when you are not ready for a show to be over. On my way out I passed a strand of stones unlike anything I had ever seen, and I stopped. I had to have them. I bought them on the spot with money I did not really have left to spend.

Then they sat in my drawer. Year after year, while a few of their siblings found their way into other pieces, this strand mostly waited for a design worthy of how strange and beautiful they were. This necklace is that design, finally.

What an amethyst stalactite slice actually is

The stone at the heart of this necklace is an amethyst stalactite slice, and it is one of the most unusual stones in all of fine jewelry. Instead of a single clear gem, you get a tiny sealed landscape: a concentric eye of banded agate at the center, ringed by a halo of pale purple amethyst crystal, often finished with a rim of sparkling raw druzy. People look at them and see different things. An eye. A flower. A small planet.

Andrea Li

Gemstone Profile: Amethyst Stalactite

A one-of-a-kind slice · the flower in the stone

The Formation

Formed over millennia in volcanic pockets and mineral-rich caves. A unique stalactitic crystal growth, drop by drop.

Anatomy

A distinct core, often agate, followed by concentric bands, then radiating layers of amethyst crystals.

Color & Luster

Ranges from ethereal lavender to deep violet, with natural color zoning. A bright, vitreous luster.

Rarity & Unicity

A rare and coveted formation. Cross-sections resemble a natural flower or starburst. A one-of-a-kind natural design.

Symbolism

Commonly associated with clarity, calm energy, and deep grounding. Considered a stone of time and growth.

Learn more at andreali.com

Andrea Li

Gemstone science: a geode, sliced

Amethyst stalactite slices come almost entirely from the ancient volcanic geodes of Uruguay and southern Brazil. Silica-rich water seeps into a pocket in cooling basalt and, drop by drop, builds a hanging stalactite the same way a cave stalactite grows. The center fills first with microcrystalline agate, the banded eye you see. Around it, larger amethyst crystals grow outward into the open space, building the purple halo. Slice the finished stalactite crosswise and that whole hidden history is revealed in rings. Amethyst is simply purple quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation, and it sits at a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. Because the pattern forms entirely by chance, no two slices are ever the same.

Building a piece around the stone

I chose one slice from the strand and turned it on its side to run horizontally, like a small landscape, for a bar-style necklace.

I do not bezel a stone like this. I wired a small 24k gold vermeil structure by hand to cradle the slice and to give me something to build on. Then I grew a gemstone cluster up and out of that armature, the way crystals themselves grow, so the cluster seems to spill from the raw amethyst edge rather than sit politely beside it. I left that raw druzy rim exposed on purpose. It is the most delicate part of the stone, those tiny crystal tips, but hiding it would have hidden the entire reason to use the slice.

They belong in a pastel collection because the stone is already pastel: a washed lilac crystal wrapped around a smoky agate eye. I do not have to add drama to it. I build a cluster of coordinating soft stones around it, anchor it with a single flat green rutilated quartz teardrop, and let the slice lead.

One thing I have learned the hard way: widen the hole through the slice before you start. I thread my own wire through that channel several times to lock the vermeil structure in place, and it fills up faster than you expect. The first time, I left myself almost no room to pass the 12-gauge head pin that connects the chain, and I had to ease it through with patient, firm pressure and a little water to lubricate the channel. Now I make the room up front.

The chain had to earn its place

A pendant with this much presence needed a chain that could hold its own. Anything delicate would have looked apologetic next to a stone like this. I had a large-link 14k gold-filled chain in my stock that balanced the weight of the slice perfectly, and I finished it with a large toggle clasp in the same confident scale. The chain is part of the statement, not an afterthought to it.

Why this one is truly one of a kind

The slice was unrepeatable before it ever reached my bench. The eye at its center, the rings around it, the depth of its purple, all of it was drawn once by the earth over millions of years and will never be drawn the same way again. When I build a cluster to match one, I am matching a composition that cannot recur.

That is the whole idea behind this collection, which continues the pastel work I began with Tamar. I buy the stones I fall for, and I keep designing until each one has found the single piece it was always meant for. This geode waited years for that piece. It was worth the wait.

Previous work with Amethyst Stalactite:

Questions

What is an amethyst stalactite slice?

It is a cross-section cut from an amethyst stalactite, a formation grown drop by drop inside ancient volcanic geodes, mostly from Uruguay and southern Brazil. Each slice shows a banded agate eye at the center, ringed by a halo of pale purple amethyst crystal, often finished with a rim of raw druzy. Because the pattern forms entirely by chance, no two slices are ever the same.

Is amethyst durable enough for everyday wear?

Amethyst is purple quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation, and it sits at a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale, durable for regular wear. The exposed raw druzy rim is the most delicate part of this stone, so it is best treated gently.

Is this necklace one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. The slice was unrepeatable before it ever reached the bench, and the cluster is matched to it alone. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

Stay Close

Love what you see? Keep finding us.

Google now lets you choose your favorite sources so they show up labeled in AI search answers. If you enjoy discovering handcrafted gemstone jewelry here, add Andrea Li Designs and we'll be easier to find next time you search.

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How a Name Comes to a One-of-a-Kind Piece: The Fairy Dynamite Story

I have named hundreds of pieces over the years. This one refused to let me.

So I did something I had never done before. I showed it to the people on my email list before it was fully finished, and I asked them to name it for me. That is a vulnerable thing to do. The name is usually mine to give, the last quiet decision I make at the bench. Handing it over meant trusting that the people who follow my work would see in the piece what I saw in it. They did, and then some.

This is the story of how that necklace came to be, and how it earned the name it carries now: Fairy Dynamite.

A piece that picked up where the last release left off

The investment I make in my art is more precious than paint and canvases. Gemstones are sold in strands. Creating a lush palette for a new collections requires multiple strands. I work hard to honor the full use of each tiny treasure that ends up on my studio desk. I call this using the ‘whole buffalo’, much like the Native Americans who honored the life sustaining yields as a result of their hunting practices. When I buy gemstones for a collection, I am not finished with that collection until I have found a home for nearly all of them. This necklace is proof of that habit. It picks up exactly where my last pastel release left off, and it began with two components I had already made and set aside.

The two clusters at its heart were originally built for an ear cuff. Each one stacked a large, simple-cut blue topaz with geometric Australian opal briolettes, piled one on the next like stones in a river cairn. They were beautiful, and they were wrong for that ear cuff. Their chunky weight clashed with the delicate frame I had designed, so I used tiny opal rondelles and cascading gold chains for that piece instead. The two heavy clusters went onto my desk, where they sat and waited until I could find a design that honored how substantial they were.

Building the necklace around them

The answer was to return to the thing I do most naturally: my signature asymmetrical gemstone clustering.

The chains came first, and they were the real spark. I had an organic-shaped pearl chain whose knobby, irregular rhythm matched the cairn-like stack of the Australian opals almost exactly. The moment I held them next to each other, the necklace existed in my head. I added two 24k gold vermeil components as the connection points that carry the main cluster out to a pair of those chains.

Then came the part that is never optional. Once a cluster is built, I go back in and strategically add stones so the whole thing flows without any visual stutter. I built up the joins between the original cluster and the new main cluster, and I threaded tiny Australian opals through the design as single points of cohesion, small echoes that tie one area to the next.

My plan had been to simply attach the two pearl chains and stop there. I have a very hard time doing anything standard. So I added gemstones along the chains to break their monotony, and then the chains read as too heavy. To put the air back in, I added a single gold circle link. That link is what I call a Marilyn: one unexpected element that breaks the pattern and makes you look twice. Every piece needs one.

Around that blue topaz and opal core, the finished cluster gathers aquamarine, amethyst, kunzite, mystic labradorite, and keshi pearls, the soft pastel family I keep coming back to.

A note on the stones

Moonstone is one of the soft, glowing stones running through this necklace, and it earns its place. Its dreamy sheen has a name, adularescence, and it comes from the way moonstone is built in microscopic layers of two feldspar minerals. Light enters, scatters between those layers, and floats back to your eye as that glow that seems to hover just below the surface. No two moonstones scatter light in quite the same way, which is exactly why they belong in a piece that exists only once.

Andrea Li

andreali.com

Guide to Moonstone Varieties

Grey, Peach, and Rainbow

Grey Moonstone

The lookA misty, smoky adularescence, the blue sheen drifting through a cool grey body.

Color range

Associated withCalm and clarity, new beginnings.

StructureMonoclinic feldspar.

Peach Moonstone

The lookA warm peach glow, soft apricot tones lit from within.

Color range

Associated withEmpathy and growth, feminine energy.

StructureMonoclinic feldspar.

Rainbow Moonstone

The lookMulti-color iridescence, the whole spectrum flashing across a clear body.

Color palette

Associated withIntuition and creativity, protection.

StructureTriclinic. Technically a labradorite.

Embrace the magic of natural stones

andreali.com

Handing it to the community

When the necklace was nearly there, I sent it to my list and asked a simple question: what would you name her? I made it easy to answer. No external poll, no form, just hit reply.

I was not prepared for what came back. Names arrived full of imagination and personal meaning. Jenny Blanchard, who would end up naming the winner, wrote that the piece gave her "the sensation of being from another world where fairies are busy at work." Other subscribers reached for mythology, for wine, for gratitude, for the night sky. Every single name came with a little story about why.

So I sent a second email. I listed every name that had been submitted, each with a short description so no one felt left out, and I let the community vote.

Fairy Dynamite

They chose Fairy Dynamite, a name Jenny submitted.

It fit better than anything I would have landed on alone. From across a room the necklace looks delicate and a little innocent, all soft blues and lilacs and pearl. Up close it is anything but quiet. It explodes into color and texture and weight. Delicate and explosive at the same time. Fairy Dynamite.

The part that mattered most

After the vote, I did not simply move on to the next thing. I wrote fifteen personal thank-you notes, each one from my own inbox rather than an automated send, and each one spoke to that person's specific submission. Then I made something for every contributor: a custom Andrea Li Designs certificate naming them, the piece, its stones, and the exact name they had submitted or voted for. Sixteen people, sixteen certificates.

I did this because these were never entries in a contest to me. They were people who handed me their imagination, and I wanted them to hold something that said so. The replies that came back told me it landed.

A name, and a piece, that are truly one of a kind

Fairy Dynamite is one piece in the collection I am releasing this fall, the next chapter of the pastel work I began with Tamar. Like everything I make, it exists exactly once. The stones in it will never gather in the same way again, and the design will never be repeated.

There is something right about a one-of-a-kind piece being named by the people who will remember it. The reason the world treasures a singular jewel is the same reason I make what I make. It will only ever be itself. And now it carries a name to match, given to it by the community that watched it come together.

Fairy Dynamite earrings

(mate to the Fairy Dynamite necklace)

These echo Fairy Dynamite in miniature, built with the same stacked gemstone clustering and pearls drawn from the hand-bailed chain, so the intricate language of the necklace carries down to the ears. Each one is anchored by a teardrop aquamarine that gives the pair a polished, finished close.

Questions

How did the Fairy Dynamite necklace get its name?

Andrea invited her email community to name this one-of-a-kind piece, then chose from the replies they sent. The winning name, Fairy Dynamite, captures the way the necklace pairs delicate, fairy-like sparkle with a concentrated burst of energy.

What gemstones are in the Fairy Dynamite necklace?

Its asymmetrical cluster gathers Australian and Ethiopian opal, blue topaz, aquamarine, amethyst, kunzite, moonstone, sapphire, spinel, and mystic labradorite, finished with keshi pearls and set in 14k gold-filled and 24k gold vermeil.

Is it one of a kind, and can I commission something similar?

Yes. The piece exists exactly once, and its stones will never gather in the same way again. If you would like something made in the same spirit, you can begin a commission through the custom shop.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

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Multi-Color Sapphire Briolettes: My Quiet Constant

There are two stones I reach for in almost everything I make. One is the pearl, and most people expect that. The other surprises them: a tiny multi-color sapphire, often no bigger than three millimeters, tucked so far inside a cluster that you might never know it is there. But I know. Aside from pearls, a sapphire briolette is the one material that runs through nearly every piece that leaves my Denver studio.

I did not set out to make sapphires my signature. I went looking for something small. I wanted a faceted stone tiny enough to nest between the larger center gems in my clusters, in enough colors that I could always find one to echo the heart of a design. For a long time, that stone did not exist in the form I needed. Then I found it, and I have not stopped buying them since.

The Materials

The stones come from Gem House USA, a vendor based in New York with mines in India, which means the precise origin of any given briolette is honestly a little ambiguous, somewhere in the long history of Indian corundum. What matters to me is what arrives: faceted sapphire briolettes around three millimeters across, in what feels like every color a sapphire can be. Blue, of course, but also pink, yellow, green, violet, peach, and the soft in-between shades that do not have tidy names. They are one of the more precious stones I work with, and having them in nearly every piece quietly raises the whole register of the work.

A Little Sapphire Science

Sapphire is gem-quality corundum, a crystal of aluminum and oxygen, and it comes in every color except red. Red corundum has its own name: ruby. The color is written by trace elements caught in the crystal as it grows, with iron and titanium turning it blue and chromium pushing it toward pink. That range is exactly why sapphire suits the way I design. Whatever color sits at the center of a piece, there is a sapphire to coordinate or complement it.

The other reason is durability. Sapphire is a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale, second only to diamond, and just as important, it is tough rather than brittle. It resists chipping and cleaving in a way softer stones do not. At three millimeters, in a cluster that gets worn and bumped, that toughness is not academic. It is the difference between a stone that survives and one that does not.

The Colors, and Where They Come From

Sapphire takes its color from whatever trace elements were caught in the crystal as it grew, which is why the range runs so wide. Here is how I think about the ones I reach for most.

Color	What gives it the color	How I use it
Blue	Iron and titanium	The classic. Cools and anchors a warmer center stone.
Pink	A trace of chromium, where more would make a ruby	Softens or warms a palette without going loud.
Yellow	Iron and color centers	Adds light, sits beautifully beside golden and honey stones.
Green	Iron, often color-zoned	Earthy, pairs with mossy, olive, and aquatic centers.
Violet	Vanadium, sometimes with iron and titanium	Bridges cool and warm in a single hue.
Padparadscha	A trace of chromium with iron	The rare pink-orange glow, used sparingly as a highlight.
Colorless	Pure corundum, with no coloring elements	A neutral sparkle to bridge two stronger colors.
Parti	Zones of different trace elements in one crystal	A single stone that does two color jobs at once.

At the Bench

Here is the small, specific thing that made me fall for these stones: the holes. Each briolette is top-drilled, with the hole running through the narrowest part of the stone, right up at the point. On these, that hole is sized almost exactly to my 26-gauge wire. That sounds like a trivial detail. It is not, and it is exactly why the hardness matters so much. Drilling through the slender top of a briolette would crack a brittle stone, but sapphire takes it without complaint. When the wire passes cleanly through, without forcing and without play, the connection sits true, the stone hangs the way I intend, and the cold connection holds. A briolette whose hole fights my wire is a briolette I fight all day. These do not fight me.

So they have become the connective tissue of my clusters. I build a piece around a larger center stone, then I nest these tiny sapphires in around it, choosing colors that pull from the center or set up a quiet contrast. Because color leads my design more than any single stone does, the sapphires give me an enormous palette to reach into. I can warm a cool center, cool a warm one, or build a whole gradient out of stones I could lose in my palm.

They are always on my shopping list when I go to the gem show. Not as the star of anything, but as the supply I cannot work without, the way another maker might restock solder or wire. I buy them by color, by the handful, because I know every one of them will eventually find a home between two larger stones.

Why They Earned the Staple Spot

Pearls earned their place in my work for their lustre and their softness against metal. Sapphires earned theirs for the opposite reasons: they are hard, exact, and endlessly variable in color. Together, those two stones are the only true constants across collections that otherwise share very little.

What I did not expect when I started using them is how much they would do invisibly. A piece reads as more considered, more luxurious, when there is a real sapphire nested in it, even a small one, even one the wearer has to go looking for. The value is not loud. It is just there, the way good materials are. If you are curious about the other stones I build around, the gemstone guides walk through each one, and the most famous sapphire of all, the Star of India, is a star sapphire with a story worth knowing.

In Almost Everything

Because every cluster I build is one of a kind, no two arrangements of these sapphires are ever the same. The stones are a constant; what I do with them never is. So if you have worn one of my pieces, you have very likely worn a multi-color sapphire without knowing it, a tiny, hard, brilliantly colored thing doing quiet work between the stones you noticed first. Aside from a pearl, it is the closest thing I have to a signature.

Questions

What colors of sapphire does Andrea Li use?

Every color. Andrea works with tiny multi-color sapphire briolettes, around three millimeters, and chooses the color to coordinate with the center stone of each piece.

Why does Andrea use sapphire briolettes in her clusters?

Three reasons. Sapphire is hard and not brittle, so it survives being top-drilled through its narrow point. The drilled holes fit her 26-gauge wire almost exactly, so the cold connection sits true. And it comes in every color, so there is always one to coordinate with a center stone.

Are sapphires durable enough for everyday wear?

Yes. Sapphire is a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale, second only to diamond, and it is tough rather than brittle, so it resists chipping and cleaving even at a tiny size.

Is a sapphire the same as a ruby?

They are the same mineral, corundum. Ruby is red corundum. Every other color of corundum is called sapphire, which is why sapphire spans blue, pink, yellow, green, violet, and more.

What is a sapphire briolette?

A briolette is a faceted, drop-shaped stone. These are top-drilled, so they can hang or nest from a wire, which is how Andrea sets them between the larger stones in her clusters.

Discover

Jewelry that feels like you.

Two minutes. The quiz tells me how you want jewelry to feel in your life, and the messages that follow walk you through pieces I think you'll love.

Take the Style Quiz

Two minutes. I take it from there.

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When Monet Meets the Bench: Reading Sara Mrad's Fleur de Lumière Through Tamar

Sara Mrad's Spring 2025 Couture collection, Fleur de Lumière, reaches for the same Impressionist light I was chasing when I made the Tamar collection. Same Monet. Different mediums. Different fabrication languages, couture beadwork, and cold-connection gemstone clusters. This is what I see when I look at her work as a maker.

Photo Credits from Reddit

How I came to the work

A good friend, who is also a client, sent me Sara Mrad's Fleur de Lumière the way most of us encounter couture now: via someone else's tab, late at night, half-distracted. The thing that stopped me wasn't the dress. It was a single close-up where the beading behaved like brushwork—watercolor in glass. Light not so much captured as held still.

That stopped me because it's the same thing I was trying to do with Tamar. Different problem, same solution: make a flower that doesn't pretend to be a flower. Make the quality of looking at a flower, that softness at the edges where color bleeds, the way light dissolves a petal at the right angle. That's Monet's language. Mrad reads it through textile. I was reading it through gemstones.

This was the perfect setup to carry over to a recent shoot, collaborating with talented artists who each brought that same language into their craft to create a cohesive vision to communicate the ethereal nature of Sara’s collection and mine.

Published in Artells Magazine

Fashion & Glamour May Issue, Vol 4062  ·  Print & Digital

The shoot you see throughout this post became "My Star and Moon," a published editorial in Artells Magazine. What started as a creative conversation between Sara Mrad's Impressionist couture and my Tamar collection found its way into print, styled by Marie Margot Couture, photographed by E J Carr, and directed by Jani Duncan Smith, with Reilly Blake bringing it all to life against a hand-painted celestial backdrop.

Every artist on this team read the same brief and brought their own craft language to it. The pleated gown, the fur, the feathered headpieces, the celestial set, they all speak the same Impressionist softness the Tamar pieces were built to carry. That coherence is not an accident. It is what happens when every maker in the room understands the assignment at the level of material and light, not just mood board.

View "My Star and Moon" in Artells Magazine →

What Fleur de Lumière is

Sara Mrad is a Lebanese designer whose Spring 2025 Couture collection takes Monet's gardens as its source material, the water lilies, the wisteria, the late-Giverny saturation when the painter was nearly blind, and color was doing the work memory couldn't.

What's striking about her interpretation is the discipline. Couture-trained beadwork is by nature additive, bead by bead, one stitch at a time, until the surface becomes the painting. Mrad's restraint, when called for or maximalism to convey aesthetic impact, is what makes it Impressionist rather than just floral. Intention is the point. The eye has to do some of the work.

What Tamar shares with it

When I designed the Tamar collection, I was not thinking about Sara Mrad; I'd never seen her work. But we were drinking from the same well.

Tamar started with a question: how do you capture the essence of the floral without it reading as jewelry pretending to be a flower? I wanted petals that suggested rather than depicted. Stones that weren't trying to be the bloom but to be the way the bloom looked at dawn — pearled, watercolored, soft at the edge. That meant choosing aquamarine over diamond, moonstone paired with softly colored sapphires, accented by freshwater and Akoya pearls. All three have the quality of being lit from within rather than reflecting light.

When I see Mrad's beading, I recognize that same choice. She isn't trying to make a beaded flower. She's trying to make the look of a flower at a particular hour, in a particular slant of garden light. The beadwork isn't decoration. It's the medium as the brushstroke.

That's the parallel I'd not have spotted from a distance. Up close, it's the same eye.

Where the work diverges: cold connection

Here's where the fabrication languages actually diverge and where my training shows.

Couture textile, the kind Mrad does, is inherently additive. You build a surface bead by bead, stitch by stitch, embellishment over embellishment. Heat is rarely the issue; needle and thread are. The craft accumulates.

My Tamar work uses what I call cold connection — not the entire fabrication process, just the gemstone-assembly portion. I build pieces using wire wrapping, hand-baling, and beading using crimps and crimp covers. No heat at any stage when I’m building these intricate gemstone clusters. Heat would damage the stones, and the rest of the construction follows the same logic: every connection is hand-built, mechanical, visible. This is where I employ soldering and bench fabrication. This builds a unique foundation for integrating my gemstone clusters and ensures the entire design is completely novel. When I integrate a commercial chain into a piece, I embed it so deeply through wire wrap and bail work that it becomes unrecognizable as a stock element.

The process: each stone arrives pre-drilled by the lapidary who cut and polished it. Sometimes I have to widen that hole with a diamond-bit drill so the wire I'm wrapping with can pass through cleanly. Then I wrap. One stone, one decision, one knot at a time, building outward into a cluster that has to flow as a piece of design even though it's been assembled bead by bead. Hand-bailing chain, wrapping individual rondelle beads onto a chain to form a gemstone-beaded chain, is the same technique applied to chain construction.

It demands planning many moves ahead. You're committing each stone's placement before you've placed the next twelve. There's no covering up your decisions afterward. Every wrap is visible. Every cluster shows the maker's hand.

Here's what didn't occur to me until I saw Mrad's work: she's doing the same thing. Single bead at a time. Pre-strung, pre-counted, planned ahead, no covering up the decisions. The unit is different (bead vs. gemstone), the medium is different (textile vs. metal+stone), but the fabrication philosophy is identical. Additive. Sequential. Hand-built. No casting, no molding, no shortcuts. The visible maker's hand is the point.

That's the parallel. Not just "Monet inspires both." The structural commitment to assembling a painterly surface one unit at a time, beadwork on couture, gemstone wire-wrap on Tamar, is the same craft language pointed at the same problem.

What this means for how to wear it

If you're someone who tracks couture, who knows the difference between a Mrad and an Iris van Herpen, between a Schiaparelli embroidery and a Valli gradient, then your jewelry is part of that vocabulary too. It's reading from the same library.

The Tamar collection isn't trying to compete with couture. It's trying to live alongside it. A Tamar piece worn with a watercolor silk dress, an Impressionist-era pearl strand, and soft palette eyeshadow, it reads as one continuous design language. Worn against a sharper, more architectural piece (a Saint Laurent suit, a Mugler corset), it provides a counter-note: softness against structure, Monet against Mondrian.

The point isn't matching. It's literacy. Fine jewelry done well is a paragraph in a longer sentence about how you see the world.

Featured Tamar pieces

Six current Tamar pieces that carry the most of what I'm describing here, and what is featured in my recent shoot.

When you want a piece in this language

If you've read this far and what you actually want is a Tamar-spirited piece made for you, that's the custom shop. Cold-connection cluster work takes time, and one-of-a-kind means I'm not pulling something off a shelf. We start with the stones, what speaks to you, what suits your hand, what sits inside your wardrobe's color story, and build outward, one wire-wrap at a time.

This isn't a bigger or smaller version of an existing piece. It's a piece that's only yours. Different from couture, where Mrad makes one dress and another version is essentially impossible, but rhymes with it. Bench-built, hand-set, made once.

A note on cross-references

I'm going to write more of these. The fashion world has spent a hundred years thinking about how decoration creates meaning, and most of fine jewelry hasn't caught up yet. I want to bring some of that vocabulary back into how we talk about pieces. If you have a designer or a collection you'd like me to read through this lens, send it to me. I'll add it to the queue.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is "cold connection" in Andrea Li's work?

Cold connection refers specifically to the gemstone-assembly portion of Andrea's process. Pre-drilled lapidary stones (sometimes widened with a diamond-bit drill) are wire-wrapped, hand-bailed, and secured with crimps and crimp covers into floral, pastel-textured clusters with no heat at the stone-assembly stage. Hand-bailing chain, wrapping individual rondelle beads onto a chain to form a gemstone-beaded chain, uses the same technique. The structural foundation of each piece is built separately using soldering and bench fabrication, creating a novel base for integrating the cold-connection gemstone clusters. When a commercial chain is incorporated, Andrea embeds it so deeply through wire wrap and bail work that it becomes unrecognizable as a stock element. Every connection in the cluster work is hand-built and visible; the maker's hand shows in every wrap.

How does Andrea Li's Tamar collection relate to Sara Mrad's Fleur de Lumière?

Both designers draw on Monet's Impressionist palette and the technique of suggesting rather than depicting flowers. Both build painterly surfaces through additive single-unit assembly: Mrad bead by bead in textile and beadwork, Andrea stone by stone in wire-wrapped gemstone clusters. The aesthetic vocabulary, soft-edge color, watercolor light, restraint over depiction, is shared. The fabrication languages couldn't be more different on the surface, but the structural craft commitment is the same.

Can I commission a piece in the Tamar spirit?

Yes, through the custom shop. Commissioned pieces are bench-built using cold-connection cluster work (no two are alike) and start with stone selection. Timeline depends on stone availability and design complexity; typical commissions take several weeks from first conversation to finished piece.

What gemstones work best for Impressionist, watercolor-inspired jewelry?

Stones lit from within rather than ones that reflect light outward. Aquamarine, moonstone, softly colored sapphires, and freshwater and Akoya pearls all carry that quality. These stones have a luminous, translucent character that reads as painterly rather than architectural. The Tamar lens favors translucence and softness over high-refraction brilliance.

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Credits

• Jewelry Andrea Li Designs
• Gown Marie-Margot Couture
• Photographer E J Carr
• Headpieces Miss Victoria Regina
• Fur A. Tsagas Designs
• Creative Director itgirlscoots
• Ring Afterglow Vintage
• Hair Artist Darrel DeWitt
• Makeup Artist Megan Urmann
• Model Reilly Blake
• Model Donna Baldwin Agency

Studio Stories: The Eternity Circle Ring - A Ring Forged in Fire

A custom engagement ring hand-carved from wax, cast in solid 14k gold, and set with 3.9 carats of champagne diamonds

This story hits close to home. The commission came from John, who at the time was dating my husband's mother. His first message was simple: he'd been thinking about rings. Could I make one by mid-February?

I told him to send over some ideas. Pinterest is a great place to start for inspiration. What followed was a months-long collaboration that became one of the most technically demanding and personally meaningful pieces I've ever made.

The stolen ring

Before I could carve anything, I needed Terri's ring size. There was just one problem: this was going to be a surprise.

I asked John if he could mail me one of her rings so I could size it, promising I'd send it back before she noticed it was gone. He was traveling in Albuquerque at the time ("Filming an episode of Breaking Bad, no doubt," I texted him. "Say hello to Bryan Cranston for me — we go way back.") and couldn't get to a ring right away.

When he finally measured, his first estimate was a size 8. That sounded big. I told him I needed to validate it with proper ring sizers at the academy. His response: "I'm off to the jewelry store with the stolen ring. Stay tuned!"

He came back with the answer: 7 to 7.5. I knew the design would be a wider band, and wider rings can get away with a slightly larger size, but for a thinner ring like this one, a straight 7 was the call.

The logistics of secretly sizing someone's ring while they're not looking is one of those behind-the-scenes moments that never make it into a product photo. But it's the kind of thing that makes a custom engagement ring feel like a conspiracy between the designer and the person who loves her.

Carved from wax, cast in fire

Most of my work involves wire-wrapping, fabrication, and gemstone setting at the bench. This ring required a different process entirely: lost wax casting.

I started by hand-carving the ring from a block of jeweler's wax, shaping the angular, geometric form one cut at a time. Wax carving is unforgiving work. There's no undo, no solder joint to reflow. Every facet of the ring's architecture had to be resolved in wax before it ever touched metal.

Once the wax model was finished, I cast it using the lost wax method, a technique that's been used for thousands of years. The wax original is encased in plaster, heated until the wax melts away, and then molten metal is poured into the void left behind. The wax is lost. The metal takes its place. What remains is a solid 14k gold ring, one continuous piece with no seams, no joins, no assembly.

I was studying metalsmithing at a local academy at the time, which gave me access to the casting equipment. The ring went from my hand-carved wax to a rough gold casting to a finished, polished piece, all under my hands.

The champagne diamonds

For the stones, I chose champagne diamonds: 3.9-carat C1-C2 grade briolettes that I'd sourced from one of my vendors at the Tucson Gem Show. Champagne diamonds have a warmth that white diamonds don't. They glow rather than flash. Against the angular geometry of the solid gold band, they softened the ring's sharp lines without diminishing its presence.

The diamonds are set in a crown formation at the top of the ring, clustered briolettes that catch light from every direction. The contrast between the sculptural gold architecture below and the organic diamond cluster above is what gives the piece its tension. It's structural and alive at the same time.

"Holy cow. Wow. I have no words."

That was John's text when I sent him photos of the finished ring. Then: "Gorgeous!!" Then: "You are a love." Then a string of emojis that told me everything I needed to know.

I apologized that it had taken longer than expected, the project started before Valentine's Day, but I'd only had the bandwidth to finish it after. The ring never left my mind, though. I'd tried to incorporate a little mid-century modern into the design, and those champagne diamonds had turned out even more striking than I'd imagined against the angular gold.

John debated whether to show her the photos or wait and surprise her. He chose to wait.

A few months later, I was in San Francisco for my Pinterest presentation at their headquarters. My husband and I stayed with John and Terri. The ring was on her finger. The ceremony, intimate and lovely, happened shortly after.

Seeing my work on the hands of someone in my own family, at their wedding, knowing the weight of what that ring represents to them, is a different feeling than shipping a piece to a client across the country. It's closer. It stays with you.

What this piece represents

I don't currently offer lost wax casting as a standard service; the equipment lives at the academy where I studied, and my practice has evolved in other directions since then. But this ring is proof of what's possible when the commission demands it: hand-carved wax, solid gold casting, diamond-grade gemstone sourcing, and the kind of structural design that most independent jewelers send out to a casting house.

Every piece I make is built by my hands. Sometimes that means wire and gemstones at the bench. Sometimes it means carving wax and pouring molten gold. The method follows the vision, not the other way around.

The piece: Eternity Circle, solid 14k gold ring, hand-carved wax casting, 3.9 carats C1-C2 champagne diamond briolettes. The process: Wax carving → lost wax casting → gold finishing → diamond setting. The occasion: A love story, symbolizing the strength of a bond that is everlasting

Every piece Andrea Li makes is one of a kind. If you have a vision that requires something beyond what you've seen before, get inspiration for your project or fill out the form to start a conversation.

Love What You See? Keep Finding Us.

Google now lets you choose your favorite sources so they show up labeled in AI search answers. If you enjoy discovering handcrafted gemstone jewelry here, add Andrea Li Designs and we'll be easier to find next time you search.

Add Andrea Li Designs as a Preferred Source

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