Every year, around the same time, the same message arrives: "The AFS ladies would love to adorn ourselves with another piece of beauty from your talented, creative mind and heart." And every year, I say yes.

A standing date on my design calendar

Some clients commission a piece. Some clients commission a collection. Loretta commissions a tradition.

Every October, Loretta reaches out with the same request. She, Ally, and Chris, three women who have built a company together over two decades, are attending their annual company gala. They want something made. All three pieces need to be in the same family but each with its own personality. They trust me completely with the design. And they have a date.

This has been happening for six years.

It started the way many of my commissions do. Loretta found my work through a friend, fell in love with pieces that had already sold, and asked if I could create something similar. That first conversation led to three vintage-inspired rhinestone necklaces for a black-tie event. But unlike most commissions, it didn't end there. It became an annual ritual, one that now has a permanent spot on my design calendar every fall.

What six years of trust looks like

Here's what Loretta and I have created together across six years of annual commissions:

Year one: Vintage rhinestone necklaces. Loretta had seen my Vintage Rhinestone Hollywood Necklace, which featured a vintage Eisenberg brooch that was no longer available. I was honest about what could and couldn't be replicated. We landed on three sterling silver necklaces with vintage rhinestone components, similar in spirit but without the Eisenberg brooch, each with its own character.

For the first necklace, I sourced a round vintage brooch and redesigned it into the main pendant, suspending it from hand-fabricated sterling silver chain. To soften the transition between the brooch and the chain, I individually attached crystal flourishes so they integrated seamlessly, making the pendant feel like it grew from the chain rather than being bolted onto it. For the other two, I found vintage rhinestone chains and vintage silver chains that had a sculptural smoothness to them, creating aesthetic variance and visual interest. Each flanked a center cluster of multiple vintage components that I wove together for movement and dimension.

The result was three necklaces that drew from the same vintage palette but expressed it in completely different ways: one architectural and centered, one cascading and organic, one structured and deliberate. Loretta also ordered the Oseberg Ship Herkimer and Silver Necklace for herself and picked it up in person at my Denver studio. That visit was the first time we met face to face.

Year two: Black-and-white necklaces. This was the project that tested patience. Loretta reached out in early 2020 with a black-and-white theme for that October's gala. Then the pandemic hit. The event was postponed. Then postponed again. For over a year, Loretta and I kept the project alive through check-in messages, adjusting timelines, holding the creative vision steady while the world rearranged itself around us.

When the gala finally happened in late 2021, those necklaces carried more than a year's worth of anticipation. I used black onyx, white topaz, and high-quality Swarovski crystal beads across all three pieces. One featured hand-fabricated sterling silver chain links with a clustered black onyx and crystal pendant. Another hung from a double-strand station chain with a dramatic cascading cluster of black and clear stones. The third, the longest of the three, combined vintage pearls with hematite-toned beads on a lariat-style silhouette that moved differently from the other two.

All three women wore black gowns. Each necklace caught the light in its own way. The photos from that night show exactly what I aim for with every set commission: three pieces that clearly belong together, but never for a moment look like the same necklace.

Year three: Aquamarine earrings. The gowns that year were shades of cool blue, from navy to ice blue. I suggested aquamarine in sterling silver, similar to my Glacier collection. All three pairs needed what Loretta described as "some chunkiness with a dangling feature."

For each pair, I hand-fabricated sterling silver frames and hand-set Herkimer diamonds along the perimeter, creating an icy, crystalline edge around large sparkling aquamarine briolettes. The Herkimer diamonds catch light from every angle, which gives the earrings a depth and movement that you can't achieve with uniform stones. Each pair had a distinct personality but shared a similar spirit of equal drama: one with cascading C-curve forms, one with a medallion-style cluster, one with a tiered double-drop silhouette.

The earrings were finished just before Labor Day. Loretta FedExed them to herself and hand-delivered Ally's and Chris's pairs the following week in Poland, where the three of them were traveling for work. They wore simple black gowns specifically to let the earrings be the focus.

Year four: Vintage-component rings. This was the year they went bold, and also the year the design process became the most collaborative.

All three women sent me inspiration images of rings they loved: oversized floral cocktail rings, gemstone clusters, statement pieces with serious presence. Ally was clear that she wanted something that "stands out." Chris wanted something similar. Loretta preferred more understated. Together we built a mood board that gave me a shared visual language for what they were collectively drawn to: bold, sculptural, floral, and unapologetically dramatic.

From there, I went into my personal inventory of vintage components, brooches, rhinestone pieces, necklace elements, earring findings, and pulled everything that shared a similar aesthetic to their mood board. These are pieces I've collected over years from antique stores, estate sales, and vintage dealers. The idea was to find vintage elements that could be deconstructed and rebuilt as rings, giving each piece genuine history alongside new fabrication.

Ally's ring featured a large vintage flower brooch mounted on a hand-fabricated sterling silver band. Chris's was a similar-scale statement piece built from a different vintage component. Loretta's was about half the size, elegant but quieter, exactly as she'd requested.

When Loretta opened the boxes with Ally and Chris, she texted me that they were "wide eyed and pretty much mute other than a couple of oh my gosh or Holy cow." They all committed to wearing press-on nails to do the rings justice.

Year five: Aquamarine and zircon bracelets. Cool blue theme again, sterling silver, this time as bracelets. I collected wrist measurements from all three women, seven inches for Loretta, seven and a half for Ally and Chris.

These bracelets gave me the chance to use a technique I love: lost wax casting. For each bracelet, I created organic shapes to integrate among the gemstone clusters by dripping hot wax into cool water and letting the forms emerge naturally as the wax cooled. No two shapes come out the same, which is exactly the point.

Once I had the wax forms, I attached wax sprues to each one to prepare them for investment, a process where the wax is baked out at high temperature, leaving behind a hollow impression of the original shape. Molten sterling silver casting grains are then injected into that impression through centrifugal force. After the silver cools, I remove the investment material, saw off the sprues that allowed the silver to fill the entire form, sand down the connection points until the shapes are seamless, and then polish and finish everything by hand.

The result is a set of organic silver forms that look like they grew naturally alongside the aquamarine and zircon clusters, because in a way they did. Every wax drop, every cooling pattern, every form is unrepeatable. It's one of the most direct ways I know to guarantee that three pieces made in the same spirit will each have a personality of their own.

The bracelets were shipped via Loretta's FedEx account and presented in person when Ally and Chris visited Boulder. After the gala, Loretta sent a photo: "Here's us AFS ladies with our beautiful bracelets!"

Year six: Baroque pearl earrings and sterling silver cufflinks. This was the year the tradition expanded. All three women wore black, and Loretta wanted statement earrings with serious movement.

I hand-fabricated sterling silver arch and twist frameworks for each pair of earrings, creating tiered chandelier structures where baroque, Keshi, and freshwater pearls hang at different lengths. The architecture gives the earrings constant movement when worn, the pearls swaying independently within the silver framework so they catch light and shift with every turn of the head. Each pair shared the same design language but the irregular shapes of the individual pearls gave every earring its own character.

Then Loretta added something new: three pairs of cufflinks for the three women's husbands. The men had been watching their wives come home with custom jewelry for years. It was time they got to be part of it too. For the cufflinks, I hand-fabricated sterling silver T-bar mechanisms and hand-drilled AAA gem-quality baroque pearls to mount onto each one. The design was intentionally clean and understated, letting the organic shapes of the baroque pearls do all the talking. No two pearls are the same shape, which means no two cufflinks are identical, even within the same pair.

"Your artistry always captures us beautifully"

There's a detail in my messages with Loretta that I keep coming back to. She never tells me exactly what to make. She gives me a color palette, a budget, a jewelry type, and three women's measurements. Then she says something like: "We have no requirements and totally rely on your artistry."

Six years of that. Six years of sending me a color and a date and trusting that what comes back will be right.

That kind of trust isn't something you earn once. You earn it every single year, with every delivery, with every reveal when Loretta opens the box in front of Ally and Chris and watches their faces. If any year had been a miss, the tradition would have ended. It hasn't.

"You are so talented and so intuitive," Loretta wrote after one delivery. "Your ability to create something perfect is such a gift. We're so grateful that we get to take part in your beautiful creativity."

More than a corporate gift

I want to be clear about what this tradition actually is, because from the outside it might look like corporate gifting. It's not.

Loretta, Ally, and Chris have worked together for nearly twenty years. They've built something real together, a company, yes, but also a friendship that runs deeper than org charts. The annual jewelry commission isn't a perk or a bonus. It's how Loretta marks another year of what they've accomplished together. It's how she says: I see you, I value you, and I want us to carry something beautiful into the room when we celebrate what we've built.

The year she added cufflinks for the husbands was the moment that became crystal clear. This wasn't about accessorizing executives. It was about honoring relationships.

One year, Loretta's friend borrowed one of my necklaces for a Christmas party. "My friend rocked your necklace at her Christmas party," Loretta texted. "She wanted to borrow something stunning and she got the right piece. Keeping your beautiful art alive!"

The pieces don't sit in boxes. They circulate. They get worn by people who weren't even part of the original commission, because the women who own them love them enough to share.

What this means for someone considering a commission

Loretta's story answers a question I don't hear often enough: what happens after the first commission?

Most people think of custom jewelry as a one-time event. You have an occasion, you commission a piece, it arrives, and the relationship ends. Loretta proves that a commission can become something entirely different: an ongoing creative partnership where the jewelry evolves as the relationship does.

Year one was necklaces. Year six was earrings and cufflinks for couples. The scale grew, the formats changed, the people involved expanded, but the tradition held. That only works if the first piece earns enough trust to warrant a second. And the second earns a third. And so on, for six years and counting.

If you're considering a commission and wondering whether it's worth starting the conversation, consider this: Loretta started with three necklaces inspired by a sold-out piece. Six years later, she has a standing reservation on my design calendar, and three women walk into their company gala every October wearing one-of-a-kind pieces that no one else in the room will ever own.

That's what a commission becomes when you let it breathe.

The pieces: 18+ one-of-a-kind pieces across six annual commissions, including vintage rhinestone necklaces, black-and-white statement necklaces, aquamarine earrings, vintage-component cocktail rings, aquamarine bracelets, baroque pearl earrings, and sterling silver cufflinks with AAA baroque pearls.

The materials: Vintage rhinestones, aquamarine, blue zircon, baroque pearls, Keshi pearls, freshwater pearls, Herkimer diamonds, sterling silver.

The timeline: Six consecutive years and counting.

The clients: Three women who have built a company together over two decades, and the three men who stand beside them.

Every piece Andrea Li makes is one of a kind. If you're looking for a way to mark what matters, whether it's an annual tradition, a milestone, or a team that deserves to be celebrated,start a conversation.