Valentine’s Day Tradition and Love Expressed Through Giving 0

   What a golden opportunity this Valentine’s Day is to start a new tradition of giving. Love is the greatest gift we humans have to offer and I just want to wrap my arms around everyone! It’s February and love is in the air. Spring is coming, and Valentine’s Day ushers in a new round of giving. Really this holiday is exceptional because it is an opportunity to stop and think about what your partner, spouse, girlfriend, or lover, if you will, means to you. Think about the impact this day can have on the rest of your lives together. It is a whole day for lovers. It is a day that invites us to be ridiculously in love with full permission to express it! How cool is that? Our everyday lives can take some of the zest out of romance if not remove it completely if we let it. I mean, who has time? Valentine’s Day is the day to create time for love. This could be the year to start your Valentine’s Day tradition and this is my invitation to all of us to step into the air of love. Give hugs; give flowers, cards, chocolates and jewels. Give compliments, it is so easy to be generous. We have nothing to lose on a holiday that just begs us to make fools of ourselves. As I write this I am dreaming of candles, music, a stroll on a wooded knoll. I will gaze into my husband’s eyes and remember the first time I met him. I want to tell him he is everything to me and without him I would be lost. I am a fool in love and if I don’t tell him now, Valentine’s Day will pass and I will again be pulled into the daily routine, on the hamster wheel of life and the moment will be lost. Valentine’s Day is in itself a gift to us all. Start your new tradition of giving this year and feel the love!
  • Susan Smith
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Working It All Out 0

  2013 was a tough year! In our world of titanium rings, the year began with a change of ownership and in the midst of our celebration, my breast cancer diagnosis. Just as my partner, Jacob Hansard, and I were taking charge at the helm for Titanium Rings Studio, I was promptly plunked into cancer treatment hell. This was not the way to start the New Year! However, we managed to take charge of a teetering business amidst a struggling economy while creating a new look and navigation for the web site. Hence our recent re-launch of the site with an updated new look that has been long overdue. It is a testament to our commitment and ability as a team to work together in the face of great challenges! I have to say here that I have the best business partner ever, because while I was going through the life-changing experience of cancer treatment, Jake was completely supportive…ready to step in wherever I fell out. I can’t thank you enough Jake! I also discovered that being on the phone with customers was absolutely therapeutic for me. I couldn’t be feeling pitiful and still be effective for our customers, so I found myself stepping outside of my pain and self-pity in order to be there for our customers, and that kept me strong. So, while there is never a shortage of work to be done both in the studio and on the web site, we are extremely grateful to have achieved such milestones in the face of extraordinary adversity. We invite you with warm hearts and proud faces to our website, Titanium Rings Studio and welcome any and all feedback. Jake and I have grown into our administrative roles, liberated from all confines, we are reveling in this newfound artistic freedom and ability to control every facet of our business. And I am now cancer free! As you browse the site be sure to check out our variety of Men's Titanium Wedding Bands, Playful Promise Rings and Black Titanium Rings. Included here are Thin Blue Line Titanium Rings as well as Titanium Diamond Rings and so much more. Jake and I are ready for 2014! We’re ready for a year of creative brainstorming and discovering what else can be done with titanium jewelry. Perhaps this is the year we can play with meteorite inlays! And I will get my hair back! We look forward to this being the year of great health and living life to the fullest and we want to do our part to make this true for you as well. Let’s celebrate!
  • Susan Smith
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Custom Titanium Ring Design - The Joy and The Horror 0

   So, this guy sends me an email. I get them all the time. “Do  you make custom designs?” My reply, sent with a mixture of hope and foreboding is “Yes, as long as it is something we’re equipped to create. Send me a picture or sketch of what you have in mind and I will let you know…” You see, titanium has its limits. While the metal works nicely as jewelry, given its hypoallergenic, lightweight qualities, persuading it to behave as a malleable metal is just plain impossible. In addition, casting titanium requires a vacuum since in its molten stage it becomes highly explosive if exposed to oxygen. Therefore, we have set ourselves up quite nicely with a working studio, in which we deal only with cutting titanium, not casting. In most cases, requests for custom designs are therefore denied due to these and numerous other limiting factors in the realm of titanium ring designs. In addition, when we are considering experimenting, we have to weigh in the initial cost as well as the potential for loss in materials and time if the design doesn’t work out. Now, back to my “guy” and his email. In his message, he tells me a story of a lost custom-made titanium wedding band. The company who made the band is no longer able to make them and his wife is upset that he is currently running around with no visible proof of being wed. Additionally, he has put in his request far and wide with no success. I’m not sure it’s a good thing that I work in customer service because it is really, really hard for me to say no. Especially when the wife is brought into the discussion. The ring in question is worth something more than just the metal and craftsmanship that went into making it. There are all the memories attached, starting from the first day of their marriage, the honeymoon, the hand-holdings, the pillow talks etc. Anyone who’s been married knows about the ring and all that it holds. Per my instructions, he sends me a picture of his long lost, custom titanium ring and I can see right away, without consulting my bold craftsman, Jake, that making this ring will require some work (if not a miracle). But I can’t rule it out because: #1) I can’t say no. #2) I believe in miracles. And #3) The ring design is not completely impossible. And sure enough, when I consult do with Jake, he has to agree. We both have a hard time saying no, and making a custom design offers us an opportunity to step outside of the box, which is always exciting. The design required hand pressing a platinum inlay into a Celtic knot pattern. After a practice run using silver, Jake felt confident he could manage the design using platinum. We were off and running! The entire project took some time as there were many details to attend to; sending out a sizing kit to our customer to confirm size, getting our machinist to cut the Celtic knot into a domed ring etc. In the end, I have to say, it was well worth it, and in the words of our dear craftsman Jake, “This ring was one of the most frustrating and at the same time satisfying rings I have ever made. I do love a challenge! It pleases me so much to work so hard on a project and to see it come to fruition so beautifully. I love to think of the person who will wear it and all that it will mean to them. It is why I do what I do." And yes, our customer, and his wife, are extremely pleased!
  • Susan Smith
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