Frekkel Designing

 I love watching custom car reality shows.  I like watching the team pull various talents together, I like the resourcefulness, and I like to watch an idea become reality.  But, I really, really, like the look into what it's like to pull thoughts from a client's mind, to shape those thoughts with hints of what they enjoy, to fuse everything with what will actually work, and, hopefully, create something fantastic.  This is really what custom is supposed to be about - adventure.  Like most adventures you embark on with a stranger, the first custom project with a new client or artist is exciting, full of possibilities and hidden expectations. Clients have come to me with an idea for an engagement ring, a pendant, earrings, brooch or something innovative and new.  No matter the item, the conversations we have about musical tastes, favourite people, most memorable travel spots, and dreams for the future are what give me the information I need to create something...

  I have a truth to tell. The best-smelling, cleanest, most beautiful, put-together people you can imagine, usually have the grimiest jewellery repairs.   Without getting too graphic, let me remind you of what the tops of sunblock bottles, hand lotion tubes, and jars of face creams look like, right around the edges, where air dries out the build-up.  You got it.   These same products get up under watchstraps, diamond settings, earring backs, and absolutely everywhere.  The oil that makes them so great for moisturizing, also makes them great for sticking.  To  jewellery.  And for collecting every speck of dust, dander or dna to form enough layers, that one may wonder if the wearer had taken a pottery class recently.  But it's not recent at all.  Much the same as the the product containers I've mentioned, the buildup is slow.  If people realise at all, it's usually not until they are getting a piece back from their jeweller,...