Archives for November 2006

Well in an earlier post I told you about my alter life as a Reptile guru, and now I’m going to reveal yet another alter life! Yes, I am a woman of many interests, talents?, and careers.

When I first moved to Toronto I had come to go to Sheridan College to take a course in Special effects make up as I had decided I wanted to work in the film industry as a make up artist. Unfortunately I found out two weeks before the course was to begin that they had overfilled the slots and I would have to wait until the next course began.

I was crushed. I’d left my hometown to move the big scary city of Toronto to go to college and in the end I couldn’t get in. What a disappointment.

I was living with my sister at the time and she worked in the jewelery trade. So, while I had initially been working in the same company as my brother – it’s nice to have connections isn’t it?- my sister was pulling strings to get me a job in a new jewelery manufacturing company. I got the job and I had the most gorgeous Armenian boss. I eventually moved up to manage the company and all his girlfriends for him. The only real bonus was that I often got a drive home in his Porsche for my efforts.

Actually, I learned a lot while I worked for Arthur – from wax molding, to casting, to being able to manage 13 chauvinistic European male jewelers. No, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all European men are like that- it’s just these men were master jewelers and suddenly an 18 year old Canadian girl is there boss? They gave me a hard time but I stood up to them and gained their respect in the end.

I learned enough from my former boss to eventually start my own business as a Diamond cutter. No I didn’t cut diamonds- I cut designs in gold with a hand held diamond flywheel and a massive diamond cutting machine that spun at 35,000 rotations per second. That machine scared me!

The majority of my work was wedding jewelry. I did a lot of the beaded millwork you see on the edges of wedding bands, or the bright straight cut along the edges of rings, ladies and mens wedding rings and bangles. I also cut the bright star shape that you often see smaller diamonds set into on wedding bands or signet rings. That type of design can be done with engraving tools but it’s not as bright as when it’s cut with a diamond.

My sister and I had an office together when I had my business. She had about 200 customers a day come in to see her as she was a very fast, very popular engraver. Why am I saying was? She still is an engraver. Unbeknownst to me, a young guy would visit my sister but he had his eye on me. This guy turned out to be Chris – my husband.

Yes, Chris was a jeweller as well. Eventually he worked up the guts to talk to me when I was out with some other jeweller friends – uh drinking at a bar across the street if you must know.

From the moment we started talking we both knew we would eventually marry. In fact I think we even talked about how things might be when we got married on our first date. It was true love.

Unfortunately Chris was nervous about the proposal , and he didn’t even end up asking me until we’d been together for five years. Yes, he kept me waiting even though we knew from day one we’d get married. What a silly guy, eh?

He proposed to me at a New Years party we were hosting. He’d told one of our friends that he was going to propose but then got nervous. I had a feeling he was going to propose as well and I was getting upset that he hadn’t asked yet. Our friend eventually grabbed us both by the hands and dragged us into our bedroom and then shut the door on us. He finally asked after we had some privacy. LOL

Now, I don’t know if you know this but it’s very bad luck for jewelers to make their own wedding bands. Luckily, Chris’ old roommate from his college days had become a jeweller as well – and had married Chris’ sister – so as a wedding present for the two of us he hand crafted our bands.

My band is about 10mm wide, and it’s concave. It has hand carved grape leaves and vines entwined around the whole band, with alternating diamonds and emeralds encircling the whole band. Emeralds are very delicate creatures so I do not wear my band all the time. Chris’ band is convex, crafted with yellow gold with a strip of platinum in the center encircling the whole band. He’s got big fingers so I personally think the band looks like a very fancy napkin ring, but that’s just me. Both bands are lovely.

As you can see I’ve had a few different career paths in my life plus some bumps along the road that aimed me in a different direction than the one I was headed. I’m glad those things happened though, because if I had gone to school to be come a special effects artist I probably wouldn’t have met Chris and that just wouldn’t be right.