Special Occasion

What happens to your wedding jewelry when the marriage ends, but the gold, diamonds and memories are still yours? Reconstruction offers another option besides keeping it tucked away or getting rid of it completely. I’m sharing how old wedding rings can become something entirely new, [...]

 Solid gold is forever material. It can be repaired, reshaped, melted down, reconstructed, handed down, redesigned decades later, and worn continuously for generations. It holds value. It becomes part of your story. And increasingly, people are craving exactly that. We’re living in a time where many people are [...]

I wish more divorced women knew that redesigning and reconstructing their original wedding bands would make them feel like a powerhouse. Lorie is one of my clients who already knows the power of reclaiming her story through jewelry, and this is her reconstruction story! The pieces that carry our histories are rarely [...]

When LP Giobbi asked me backstage at the Fox Theatre if I would design her and Chad’s wedding bands, I was absolutely floored. Floored in the “hold it together, Colleen” kind of way. Internally, I was doing cartwheels. If you’ve been here a while, you know that LP and I first connected through music and mutual admiration. [...]

Have heirloom diamonds, an old wedding ring or precious metal you no longer wear? CMD Reconstruction gives those materials a new direction. I’m breaking down how we reuse stones, recycle eligible gold for credit, design custom jewelry, determine pricing and sizing, and what to expect from your first conversation [...]

Long before I became a jewelry designer, I understood how different I felt with my hands covered in metal. The first chunky silver ring I bought at 18 is still with me today, carrying a piece of who I was then and the winding road that brought me here. That feeling is at the heart of CMD: creating everyday armor [...]

Cori originally came into the CMD Shop looking for something bold and nontraditional to mark her upcoming marriage. As we played with ideas, her vision evolved into a five-ring square stack built around seven diamonds that had belonged to her mother. Mixing sterling silver, oxidized silver, yellow gold and rose gold, [...]

Becky came to me with an engagement ring that had a broken setting, a collection of loose diamonds from her original wedding stack, and the feeling that after more than twenty years, she was ready for something new. We started with one idea, changed direction completely, and ultimately built a stack [...]

The Line Ring grew from one of our longtime favorites, the oxidized silver Sausalito Ring. By translating that same hand-carved line into solid 14k gold, the design takes on a completely different feeling: warm, substantial and especially well suited to a wedding band or everyday heirloom. Here’s how one [...]

Leo isn't exactly known for shrinking into the background, so I wasn't interested in designing its namesake ring to disappear, either. Ruled by the Sun and associated with creativity, confidence, vitality and a little well-earned extravagance, Leo inspired a raised diamond ring designed to catch the light and steal [...]

Are lab grown diamonds real diamonds? Yes, but there's more to the story. We use lab grown diamonds in many CMD designs because they give us another beautiful, durable option when we're designing around your style, your project and your budget. Here's what they are, how they're made [...]

I love being a designer, but I especially love creating jewelry to mark something meaningful. Engagements and weddings might be the obvious Special Occasions, but I've made pieces for anniversaries, milestone birthdays, new chapters, big accomplishments and plenty of reasons that don't fit neatly [...]

Solid gold costs more than gold-fill, so when is it actually worth the investment? For me, the answer is about more than having something precious. Solid gold can be worn for decades, repaired, passed down and even transformed into something completely new. Here’s why I think it can be worth choosing for [...]