I love doing custom work for gorgeous clients. My policy is that if you can describe it and pay for it, I can make it!
I did two custom necklaces recently. The first one was for a gentleman who wanted to get his entrepreneurial daughter a necklace that featured the name of her start-up company as a birthday gift. Gotta love a man who supports a lady’s business!
When I do letter or word jewelry, I normally don’t engrave. I either use individual “cut out” letters in my own special font …
… or a word cut out of the customer’s signature font, like this necklace for gorgeous rapper Gangsta Boo.
But, in this case, the company name wasn’t in a font that was conducive to that style, so I went with an engraving. Gotta be flexible when doing custom work! We made the piece special by creating it in of-the-moment 18K rose gold and using a diamond for a dot in the company’s name. Here’s the result.
![parzival](http://wendybrandes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/parzival.jpg)
The birthday gift.
I find that photos of jewelry are often misleading size-wise. Designs read much bigger or much smaller than they are in real life. Gangsta Boo’s necklace is 3 1/2″ wide, while the new necklace is only 1 5/16″. That’s why it’s very important to read the measurements on my website. If you don’t see measurements or have a question, email me at wbjewelry at hotmail dot com before ordering. I’m also happy to send you a photo of a piece in my hand or being worn, in order to give you a visual of the size.
Here is another “size matters” example. In October, when I was hanging out with Gangsta Boo in New York, I wore my small, silver 666 necklace in her honor because Boo’s original rap group was the Oscar-winning Three 6 Mafia. Her new group — which reunites some of the original group members — is called Da Mafia 6ix, so there are still sixes involved.
Boo loved the necklace, but I knew she couldn’t wear a necklace with 5-millimeter pendants on stage.
A rapper has to go big or go home! I made her a special version with numbers that are 1 1/4″ high. Big difference, right?
![big666](http://wendybrandes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/big666.jpg)
The special Boo version.
Here’s how the necklace looks on Boo.
Much more appropriate!
You can catch Da Mafia 6ix on tour these days; I will definitely be at the New York City concert later this month. For custom designs — whether they’re your own concept or a version of one of my existing pieces — get in touch with me at the same email as above: wbjewelry at hotmail dot com. (And, of course, I do any kind of engagement/wedding jewelry, ranging from traditional to totally unique.) Note: very complicated, one-off designs are going to be more costly than something you’d find “off the rack” in a store. Read more about that here. Simple designs and easy variations on my existing pieces are less pricey.