Brent came to me with a wonderful story that he wanted represented in a ring for his wife Eldyne, to celebrate the birth of their daughter Amelia or "Millie"...

"5 months before Amelia, aka 'Millie' was born, we were getting her room situated when we started to notice ladybugs flying into the through the doors that go out to a second story balcony. There would be 10-30 in the room (and often throughout the house) at any given time. This went on throughout the pregnancy."

Brent wanted an elegant piece that spoke of this, but he didn't want the ladybug to be too obvious. He also wanted to incorporate Millie's birthstone - Garnet.
Together we designed this piece. The wings open and close over Spessartine Garnets around the ring. I chose Spessartine garnets since they were the color of his two favourite ladies' hair - both Eldyne and little Millie have the most wonderful flame colored locks.
Brent had read that Spessartine garnets were once mined in Amelia County in Virginia. Commercial mining at the Amelia mine has long since ceased, but the old mine was open to fossickers who scour the dumps in the hope of finding a facetable stone. It was a tall order, but we simply had to find a Spessartine garnet from Amelia County for Millie's ring...
After weeks of searching, e-mailing and posting on forums, a very kind man contacted me. Dick had a small amount of Spessartine rough he had found at the Amelia mine and was willing to facet a stone from his cleanest piece. The Amelia stone is set in yellow gold in the most open winged ladybug.
Thank you Dick Davies, you made the Millie ring very special; and also to Brent - it was a wonderful project to work on.

I designed and made this sugar spoon for the 2006 Memento Awards. It won best Memento of Queensland, sponsored by Tourism Queensland.
It is made from solid Australian tarnish resistant sterling silver and the sugar cane leaf design is inlaid with dark brown Queensland sugar and resin.
Sugar is one of Australia's most important export crops and a vital industry for Queensland which produces about 95% of Australia's raw sugar. Queensland's warm sunny weather provides ideal growing conditions for sugar cane and the industry is at the heart of many Queensland communities. The tropical grass grows on family-owned farms which stretch along Queensland's beautiful coastline, providing a livelihood for many Queenslanders.

Yunna was fairly clear about what she wanted for her engagement/wedding ring and gave me a great brief. She was keen to have a cluster of different shaped diamonds and sapphires and wanted the ring to be larger than is usual for an engagement ring since she was going to wear only one.
Yunna's fiance Jacob contacted me in secret whilst I was designing Yunna's ring for her. He wanted to commission some matching earrings for Yunna as a surprise for her birthday. The earrings dangle freely on a hinge just below the top diamond and are shaped to echo the profile of her engagement ring.

I designed and made these cufflinks for the Saul Bell Design Award 2006 competition and was delighted when they won the Grand Prize. Thank you Rio Grande.
They are entirely handmade from silver and gold sheet and wire. From the top they look like fairly simple round cufflinks, but looking underneath reveals a carousel. There is a car, train, plane, boat, ship and truck which spin around when the yellow sapphire roofs are turned.

Todd wanted to commission a piece for Hiroko as a graduation gift.
He liked the carousel ring shown on my website, but wanted something designed especially for her. She likes to wear diamonds and Todd thought that white diamonds in platinum with just touch of color would suit her taste.
I designed a slightly more delicate ring than the carousel ring which combines Diamonds and pink Sapphires for the centre spinning section.