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Since Reconstruction has become such a big part of my work, I've been getting more messages than ever from people who love following these projects. They'll see an old wedding ring become an entirely new stack, or watch us take stones that have been sitting unworn for decades and give them another life. Then they'll send me a message that usually says some version of, “I wish I could do this, but I don't have any heirloom jewelry or stones to work with!”
If that's the only thing keeping you from reaching out, I have VERY good news for you. You don't need to bring me the materials to create something completely personal with me!
Reconstruction is one way we can work together, but it certainly isn't the only way. If you love the substantial shapes, mixed metals, unexpected proportions and stackability you're seeing in these projects, we can use that same design approach to create something from scratch. We can source stones and order new precious metal to work with. And if you do have old jewelry, we can sometimes recycle the metal for credit toward your new project even if the stones themselves aren't right for what we're creating.
Which brings me to Shawna…
Shawna came to me after seeing a post I'd shared about redesigning a wedding ring. She dug through her jewelry box and showed up with five rings: diamonds, rubies, her original engagement ring and her grandmother's wedding set. All of it sitting together in one glorious, eclectic little pile.
She'd been happily married for years, had four boys and had stopped wearing her original wedding ring. When her husband heard that she wanted to redesign it, he said, "Go bigger, Baby."
So clearly, I loved him already.
Now here's where her project gets interesting and where I think there's a misconception about Reconstruction that is worth clearing up.
Shawna brought me plenty of jewelry, but that didn't mean we had to build her new wedding set around the stones she already owned. There were trillion, baguette and marquise diamonds in her collection, and those aren't shapes we currently work with in my designs. Yet, at least! Rather than forcing those stones into a design that wasn't right for them or for Shawna, we went in another direction.
We removed the stones to save for a future project and recycled her 'lil pile of gold for credit toward her new fatty blinged out stack. Then we got to sourcing.
A lot of the Reconstruction process begins with seeing what a client already has and figuring out where we can take it. But sometimes we get to approach the process from the opposite direction. We figure out what we're trying to create first, then source the stones that make sense for the piece.
For Shawna, that meant sourcing a new 1.25 carat diamond for the centerpiece of her wedding set, along with the additional diamonds we needed to build out the stack. We weren't limited by what happened to be sitting in her jewelry box. We could choose materials specifically for the design we were making.
That's true even if you're starting with absolutely nothing. You don't need to show up with the perfect stone. We can find it for you! Maybe you already know you've always wanted an emerald, a particular shade of tourmaline or a big beautiful diamond. Or maybe you only know that you love pink, green or something dark and moody. You might come to me without knowing anything about gemstones at all, and that's completely fine too. Part of my job is helping you narrow down the possibilities and finding materials that give us an interesting place to begin.
Once we had Shawna's stones sourced, we could focus on what she actually wanted: something substantial, bold and unmistakably CMD.
And boy, did we go BIG.
Her new wedding set centers around that upgraded 1.25 carat diamond in a bezel setting, surrounded by wide gold bands, diamonds and plenty of pure, unadulterated armor. The finished stack feels completely different from the rings she walked in with, which was exactly the point.
I love this project as an example because technically, Shawna did bring me heirloom jewelry. She brought diamonds, gold, her grandmother's wedding set, and her own original engagement ring. But the new wedding set didn't have to be made from those stones to be meaningful.
Her old gold helped fund what came next, her original stones stayed with her and we sourced what we actually needed to create the piece she wanted to wear now. And apparently we had a pretty good time doing it because Shawna is already back for project number two.
Maybe you're celebrating a milestone birthday, an anniversary, a marriage, a career change or something you worked incredibly hard to accomplish. Or maybe you've reached a point where you simply want to invest in one extraordinary piece that feels like you and wear the hell out of it for the next thirty years. Those pieces have stories too.
The ring we're creating from scratch today may very well be the heirloom someone is talking about decades from now.
When I say we can create something custom, I don't mean we're trying to make absolutely anything someone can imagine. The reason to work with me is because you're drawn to the design language I've spent my career developing, and I want the finished piece to feel like it belongs in the CMD world.
We'll talk about the jewelry you wear, the shapes you're drawn to, the stones or colors you love and how you want the piece to work with what you already own. I'll take all of that and filter it through the way I think about proportion, geometry, negative space, mixed metals and stacking. I don't want to reproduce something you've already seen somewhere else. I want to understand what you're responding to and turn it into something that feels like you and like me.
And this isn't limited to wedding rings. We can create rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings through Custom and Reconstruction, depending on the project.
So if you've been following our Reconstruction projects and thinking you can't work with me because you don't have a jewelry box full of old gold or a family diamond waiting to be transformed, I hope this clears that up.
We can source stones and new materials, and recycle any eligible precious metal you already own for credit toward the project. We can incorporate an heirloom stone when it makes sense, save it for another project when it doesn't, or start completely from scratch. Have a specific budget? Let me know from the get-go and I'll do my damnedest to keep us right where you want to be.
Sometimes we get to give an heirloom its next chapter. Other times, we get to make the heirloom in the first place.
If you've been dreaming about a piece of your own, book a Custom and Reconstruction appointment and tell me what you're thinking. We'll figure out where to start from there.
With plenty more to dream up,
Colleen
© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: September 16, 2026
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