PB Cohen Creations

In the beginning of the year, I stumbled on a group of people on Flickr who got together and decided to make a ring a day, for a year. Not everyone is making a "proper" ring every day (I'm looking at you, Peep). But the entries are always interesting: playful, creative, thoughtful, and often beautiful. I became obsessed, and looked at everyone's new photos every day. You can, too! Click to see the Ring a Day group on Flickr.

After many weeks of looking and being inspired, I finally asked if I could join, even though it was already about 100 days into the year, and I knew I'd never be able to make a "proper" ring every day (since I only have access to a torch two days a week [and might have no access to fire over the summer]). You never know what might happen, right? So I joined.

You can see random photos from my Flickr account below and to the right on this page, or see all my Ring a Day entries here. It's been a fun process. I've chosen to only make "proper" rings so far, but since I'm a little short on time, the designs have been somewhat plain (um, streamlined?). We'll see what happens. It's been great to focus on rings, on finishing things, and on getting them photographed. I have a couple of my favorite designs available in my Etsy shop.

Here's one I made yesterday, first the stamped sheet, then the finished ring:

I've been doing a lot of flowers, and should probably move on, but the weather in Michigan has been a little hard to take. My poor daffodils have hardly bloomed this year, what with some very early warm days, and the more normal frost at night. Maybe this "Spring Talisman" ring will help!

I bought this ring a couple of years ago at an outdoor art fair. I'm not showing you the whole thing, because I have a complaint about it, and I don't mean to give the artist a negative review. I love many things about this ring, including an aspect of the very thing — I'm pretty sure — that has me complaining about it. So I won't identify the artist, or even show you the whole thing, so that I don't give you the wrong idea.

As you can see, the ring shank is made out of square wire. (You can click on the photo for a bigger version.) The sides have a nice random line texture, but the inside and the outside were left smooth. The artist had a range of ring sizes available at the show, but if she didn't have one that fit exactly, she'd take a slightly small one, pop it onto a steel ring mandrel, and tap it evenly with a small hammer to stretch it out. What a great way to size a ring on the fly! And this would really only work with square wire, since round or half-round would lose its "round" from the hammering.

The problem I have with the ring is — I'm pretty sure — that the corners of the square wire ended up getting a little sharp from the stretching. As I recall, she ended up stretching the ring quite a bit — and apparently enough to leave sharp edges on the square wire. I keep meaning to "fix" is, all it would take is a few minutes of gentle sanding or filing. And then I'll love everything about it.

Probably. Truth is, most of my rings are either wide, or have shanks made out of larger gauge wire. So maybe I'm just used to wearing differently-shaped rings.

One of my sisters has asked me to create a ring for her daughter, to replace one lost while scooping up leaves. Julia has blond hair, blue eyes, lives in Southern California, and became taller than I am a couple of years ago. Technically speaking, because of that last item (really, just that last one), I don't have to speak to her anymore. But I've decided I can still make her a ring!

I made the mistake of sending Susan to a few web sites to try to find something close to the ring that was lost, and possibly get some new ideas. Several hours later she came back with "Geometric shape but not too squared off. With texture. Probably not too big and not too sticky-up." Plus about 20 pictures, none of which were "perfect," and only some of which even came close to resembling each other.

Obviously, if she had found the "perfect" ring she would have purchased it from somebody else; I'd never make an exact copy. But we narrowed it down to three (click on the picture for a larger version). I apologize to the original artists for not being able to name them.

The current plan is to take these three images and let them stew in my head, and try to come up with something interesting, in my own style, that Julia (and of course my sister) might like. On the list are: texture, sorta modern, maybe even a little cute. I'm not likely to do a stone right now, since I haven't done any in awhile and don't feel like practicing. But I think I can figure something out.

Here's the first try, which is on the "cute" end. Unless Susan loves it, these won't be the final product, but sometimes you just have to get the first try out of your system.

Stay posted.