Blog

Blackened silver and warm gold have been part of my design vocabulary for years. I love the contrast between matte, oxidized sterling silver and shiny gold, especially when they're stacked together. Here's why BLACK + GOLD became such a signature CMD combination, how we create that darkened finish and what [...]

I love a cuff bracelet year-round, but there's something about fall that makes me want to pile them on. Cuffs are easy to wear on their own and even more fun when you start stacking them. From mixing metals and widths to adding pieces you've collected over the years, here's how I build a bracelet stack that [...]

I started the CMD Ring Bar Happy Hour when so much of life suddenly had to happen through a screen. I'd hop onto Instagram Stories, pull out trays of rings and start building stacks in real time. What began as a way to stay creative and connected during a strange year became one of my favorite chapters of CMD [...]

Sankil and Christopher started with the same Channel & Diamond Square Ring and ended up with two wedding stacks that couldn't be more distinctly their own. Sankil mixed shapes while Christopher went all-in on squares, proving that wedding rings can feel connected without actually matching. Here's how their [...]

San Francisco was where I found myself, built CMD and created a life I loved. Nearly 20 years after arriving with a suitcase and a few hundred dollars to my name, saying goodbye was harder than I could have imagined. All these years later, a little piece of my heart still lives in my City By the Bay. I still remember [...]

Friday Ring Bar Happy Hours were one of my favorite excuses to pull out a pile of rings and start experimenting. The goal was never to create one perfect stack. It was to show how much personality can come from mixing widths, metals, shapes and the pieces you already own until the whole thing feels unmistakably [...]

One of my nicknames growing up was "Mauer Power," so when I built a ring stack that felt like my heart and soul in jewelry form, the name practically chose itself. Strong, graphic, mixed-metal and just masculine enough to balance the feminine parts of my style, the Colleen Power Stack [...]

Hilary and I met waiting tables back in 2005, not long after I returned from traveling around the world, and bonded almost immediately over our love of making things. Before long, we were doing outdoor art shows together, throwing parties filled with jewelry, art, food and friends, and slowly building creative lives [...]

The best ring stacks aren't necessarily the biggest or the most perfectly coordinated. They're the ones that feel like you. Start with a ring you already love, mix widths, metals and shapes, add something unexpected and let the whole thing evolve over time. Here are a few of my favorite ways to build a stack that's [...]

In June 2020, I invited my best friend Lisa to join me for an Instagram Live happy hour with a little jewelry and a Lillet Spritz in hand. What started as a fun excuse to connect during lockdown became one of those small reminders that friendship, laughter and a good drink can make even the strangest days feel a little [...]

When I originally wrote this post in June 2020, we'd just wrapped up the strangest Sample Sale we'd ever held. What had always been one of our biggest in-person events suddenly had to happen almost entirely through a screen. We had no idea then that those virtual appointments would change the way I [...]

In April 2020, I suddenly found myself FaceTiming with CMD customers from Sacramento to Michigan to France. What started as a way to keep our Virtual Sample Sale going during lockdown became a completely new way of connecting with people. Looking back now, it’s funny how something that felt so [...]

What began as a way to keep connecting with customers when our San Francisco shop closed in 2020 ended up changing CMD for good. Virtual appointments showed me that meaningful jewelry conversations don’t depend on geography, and six years later they’ve become an especially important part [...]

Sam plays an essential role in CMD's production and product development, working closely with me to turn sketches, experiments and half-formed ideas into finished jewelry. From tiny design decisions to the problem-solving that happens at the bench, Sam is one of the hands, hearts and minds behind [...]

Mothering can look like a lot of different things. Sometimes it’s our mom, but it can also be a grandmother, sister, friend, mentor or chosen family who loves us, encourages us and helps shape who we become. I’m sharing a little about the women who have done that for me, the jewelry and stories [...]