This past winter, I lost my favorite ring. It was a simple, sterling silver circle on a plain band, marketed as the “Karma Ring,” and I fell in love with it and its symbolism immediately. The ring resided on the middle finger of my right hand for YEARS and whenever I took it off, I felt the strangeness of its absence. Admittedly, I have misplaced it before, but it has always turned up somewhere painfully ordinary, like stuck in the finger of a glove for a week. After searching everywhere, this time it seemed to be gone for good, but I was intent on replacing it. I managed to find the exact same ring online but was unsure of my size, so I planned on checking my fingers against the metal ring sizing gauge in the studio one night during Jewelry/Metals II class.

As I was complaining about my predicament to everyone who would listen to me, my professor Heidi Geertgens dropped a piece of silver wire on my bench and said, “You’re in a jewelry class, just make another one!” Genius.

In about two hours, I had a shiny new ring and a new appreciation for how handmade jewelry can be tailored to your own needs. I made sure this band fit perfectly, as obviously my last one was a bit too big, and that the circle was curved on the edges to lay flat against the top of my finger. So essentially what was lost was found again, and made even better because now whenever I look at my ring (which will never leave my finger), I feel proud of being able to recreate a piece that I admired so much. As beloved as my last ring was, this one brings a deeper layer of meaning to “what goes around comes around.”