MARQUISE ENGAGEMENT RING
THE GREEN LAKE SHOP
Translating our client’s ideas into beautiful custom jewelry
to celebrate the iconic moments in life since 1996.
Your piece was crafted in the
the Seattle studio
The Seattle shop was our first large scale facility with room for 50+ artists. It includes a state of the art casting and production shop, all visible to the public. The design studio has 14 design stations, private meeting rooms and a full scale coffee and wine bar.
Green Lake Jewelry Works opened its doors on Seattle’s Green Lake Drive in 1996. Since then, its craftspeople have grown to win national recognition for excellence in the art of fine jewelry making with two distinct workshops where each piece is made by hand.
The flagship Seattle studio is home to all metal casting and a majority of 3D printing technologies for Green Lake Jewelry Works. Its workshop is also home to some of the most talented jewelers in the country, where a tradition of dedicated craftsmanship is passed from masters to journeymen and women.
YOUR CUSTOM DESIGN
Custom jewelry at Green Lake always begins with ideas, inspirations, and a sketch, where the many design elements that make for the perfect ring are discovered through ideation.
Oftentimes, a ring will go through many iterations and changes along the way before the final look is achieved.
DESIGNING YOUR PIECE
Ideas and inspirations used in your project.
DESIGNER
Chelsea was raised in a creative atmosphere in Southern California. She inherited her passion for fine art from her dad who makes surrealist paintings and sculptures, while she attributes her love of fashion to growing up listening to the hum of her mom's sewing machine and watching her rapidly sketch elongated fashion figures.
Jewelry as wearable art seemed to her the perfect combination of her interests.
She earned her bachelor's degree in fashion merchandising from California State University Long Beach and her Graduate Diamonds and AJP credentials from the Gemological Institute of America.
Chelsea worked for five years at Mark Schneider Design where she advanced from apprentice to Design Director. There she designed for the engagement ring and color gemstone jewelry collections, competitions, and custom requests. She has won three design awards: First Place Custom Distinction in the MJSA Vision Awards, a commendation and a First Place in the CPAA International Pearl Design Competition.
YOUR GEMSTONE
Your gemstone was hand and eye selected from thousands of stones that we view before choosing the finest, most beautiful gems that suit our very choosy designers and clients.
We are as picky about our gems as we are about every other aspect of our work.
GREEN LAKE GEM LAB
Above and BeyondTM Gemstones
The Green Lake Gem Lab sources rare stones through a responsible network of globally dispersed miners and reputable traders, and verifies the validity of each gem with sophisticated testing equipment and independent certifications.
MOISSANITE
The mineral moissanite is a silicon carbide originally found only in meteors, and later discovered in exceptionally rare instances in nature – particularly in diamond inclusions. With a hardness second only to diamond, moissianite maintains an uncanny brilliance and sparkle, but is grown with modern technologies rather than mined from the Earth.
3D MODEL
CAD
Engineering the X, Y, and Z coordinates of a design is not only a way to inform sophisticated milling and growing machines to create a model; they’re also a powerful way to communicate the vision for a ring.
Realistic renderings and physical models help transform sketched ideas into reality in an interplay between the client, the designer and the CAD team, all of whose input and ideas help create something that both looks right and fits perfectly.
The entire Green Lake project team collaborates on each piece, adding nuanced details and subtle improvements to the design, all while making sure that design cohesiveness, stability on the finger, and stone security are perfected.
Bringing your design to life
WAX MODELS
Lost-wax casting is thousands of years old, and it’s how we still cast today. From the increasingly rare skill of carving by hand, to the employment of digitally guided milling machines, blocks of wax are cut down into precise models.
These models are used both for design ideation and adjustment and casting the actual piece.
CASTING
At the workshop, the model was cast in a specialty plaster-like investment and heated to release the wax or resin from its mold, then cast using a specialized induction casting machine from Italy.
CLEANUP & DETAILING
Each ring in a small casting batch shares a common vein of gold or platinum, from where it’s cut and prepared for setting. Rough castings first need to be carefully cleaned and polished before more bench work can be done. Even the inner surfaces are carefully detailed.
100 PERCENT RECYCLED
Green Lake’s use of gold and platinum comes from 100% recycled or certified Fairmined sources. We are one of the nation’s first adopters of recycled casting grain certified by SCS Global Services. Today we return all scrap and unused noble metals for refining in a transparent supply chain.
CRAFTSMANSHIP
All areas of old-world jewelry making are completed in a single workshop. Master gold and platinumsmiths receive rings from casting and set to care for each pieces as a one-of-kind, collaborating with designers to ensure each detail is included.
GEMSTONE SETTING
It required steady hands and confident mastery to set your gemstone for a lifetime of confident wear. Gems can be especially small and terribly rare, so the responsibility for this final stage in crafting a ring falls to our most experienced professionals.
ARTFUL FILIGREE
Filigree is the thinnest of wire extruded from precious noble metal, and fashioned by hand into delicate curls to add intricate details to open spaces. The ability to form fine wire like this is almost a lost art. In a world of mass produced jewelry, it’s a skill that takes years to master and it imbues pieces with a beauty that’s nearly impossible to match.
ERIC HARMAN
Filigree Artist
HAND ENGRAVING
Hand engraving is the pinnacle of the jeweler’s craft, displaying fine artistry in crisp detail. It takes perfectly honed, hardened steel tools, a steady hand and years of dedicated practice to get it right. Green Lake's skilled engravers maintain world class craftsmanship within the increasingly rare art form, of which this piece provides a stunning example.
FINAL POLISH
Each custom made item in the Green Lake workshop receives a final polish before it’s carefully inspected and reviewed for standards of excellence. Each project is at last stamped with the Green Lake leaf quality mark before delivery.
YOUR FINISHED PIECE
Marquise engagement ring
Custom 950 platinum ring holding (1) 6-prong set GLJW provided marquise cut moissanite center stone. 8-Petal metal halo framing the center setting with milgrain outlining each petal. The petals have hand engraved dots on the inside of the milgrain. (2) Leaves stretching partway down both sides of the shank with milgrain edges, hand engraved dots on the inside of the milgrain, and hand engraved vein details. Short split on both sides of the shank following the leaves that taper to form a single slightly domed band for the remainder of the ring, all with milgrain edges. Both side faces have (2) hand fabricated filigree curls in the open panels at the top and hand engraved half wheat patterning eternity style with milgrain edges. All with a high polish finish.