lots of new rings being made

I've been working hard in the shop making lots of rings for the upcoming Festival. I'm just making what ever my mind can conjure. If you plan on coming to the festival and buying a ring, you might want to pre-order your ring so you can guarantee that you'll get the one you want. I'm making random sizes and random styles. I'll try to get them all photographed before the festival, but I'll most likely be making rings up to the last minute so there will definitely be rings not posted on this blog.
So, if you wanna buy a ring at the festival, the best thing to do is to email me at: www.hopewood1@gmail.com
Let me know what ring size you want and what style ring you'd like. If you don't know what style ring you want and you just wanna try them on in person, then just send me your ring size so that I'll be sure to make rings in that size. Here's a chart to help you find your ring size.
http://www.jewelrylist.com/sizer.pdf
Generally I'm making rings that are about size 7. some are 5.
remember, you can be creative with your order. Your eclipse ring (for example) doesn't have to be just like the one on my blog. You can have any kind of wood you want in it and in any order too. I say ,any , depending on whether I can acquire the material.
I welcome creativity, so if you have any ideas you'd like me to realize for you, just tell me what you want and I'll make it.
Finally, There's no obligation to buy a ring if you just email me and say you'd like to see a "wow ring" in a size 9for example. It just helps me know to make that ring and have it available in case you do want to buy it. I'd hate for anyone to have to walk away disappointed because there wasn't a ring that fit them or that the style that they liked didn't fit. And if you want me to hold on to it until you check it out...still, no obligation to buy. I'll be happy to do it. Just say so in your email.
Thanks everyone for your interest in hopewood rings.

Olive wood ring

The Olive Tree (Olea europaea). They may live as long as 1500 years. It's native to Northern Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe. Also grown in California, Florida and Arizona. This particular tree, is found near le-Pont-du-Gard west of Avignon, France, it's believed to have started its life ca. AD 709.
I doubt that this ring is made of wood from a 1300 year old tree. but it's olive wood none the less. Olive wood has a faint yet nice smell to it when you cut it. As you can imagine it's kinda olivey. I like the texture of this wood, its very smooth, very fine with closed pores. There is a certain allure to it's simplicity, it's hard for me to describe any more than that.

Brazilian Tulipwood Ring

This is the Brazilian Tulip wood tree. As far as I can make out. There seems to be some confusion as to the real identity of the tree Brazilian Tulipwood comes from. Some sites say it comes from the Dalbergia decipularis, others say Physocalymma scaberrimum . This picture was taken by Chris Diewald who traveled to Brazil and had this to say about it.
"I found a lot of these trees in flower near Pirenopolis, Goiás, Brazil, in August of 2007. This belongs to the central Brazilian savanna biomes (Cerrado). The tree appears not to be well known even in Brazil. I have since found the English name 'Tulipwood" for it and added this to the tags. Unfortunately, I don´t have good close-up images of the flowers.
It is truly a show when in flower! "
Well, I bought this wood from my local Rockler store, and on their web site it identifies the species as Dalbergia variabilis, so I'm going with that.
Here is an example of what Brazilian Tulipwood looks like in a ring. It smells great when you cut it; kinda like perfume or potpourri. It's a hard/dense wood like ebony, it's nice because you can't really notice the end grain with this wood. Not like oak for example where the end grain is very pronounced.
Brazilian Tulipwood is prized for it's color : irregular streaks of yellow, rose, red and violet on a creamy straw colored background.

Liptus trees

I couldn't place this picture in that last post when I talked about Lyptus wood. So here they are, happy Lyptus trees hanging out in brazil.

Rings for sale!

It's come to my attention that I haven't given any hint that these rings are for sale.
I've been concentrating on creating a variety of designs to showcase my ability and creativity. My goal is, naturally, to sell my work. I'm proud of the fact that I don't make "assembly-line" jewelry; each piece is different.

If you want to know the price on any piece you see here OR you want to commission a custom piece, you can e-mail me at:
hopewood1@gmail.com

I will be glad to give you any info you require.

Abbot Kinney Festival

I'll be sharing a booth with Denise Saffren at the 24th annual Abbot Kinney Festival in Venice beach, CA on September 28th. If you can make it down, I'd love to meet you (and if I already know you I'd love to see you too). I'll have lots of items for sale, we'll see how the general population likes the hopewood rings.
http://www.abbotkinney.org/abbotkinneyfestival.html

Check out Denise's work, it's really cool. I have the skull belt buckle.
http://denisesaffren.com

Lyptus Wedge Ring

When I think of a ring, this is the shape that pops into my head. Obviously I try to create every shape possible, but I think the wedge shape is the most comfortable and it's showy without being cumbersome. Lyptus is a wood that comes from a hybrid tree. Eucalyptus grandis and Eucalyptus urophylla. It's grown in Brazil and is considered an environmentally friendly wood. Like most woods, Lyptus will get a bit darker with exposure to UV light. But I think This particular piece shouldn't get any darker. Lyptus starts off kinda salmon-colored and mellows to a nice reddish brown like you see here. Again, most woods have this feature.

by the way, Thank you Heather for your coments.

hu ar iue?

Please, don't forget to sign your comments. I'd love to know your name. please tell me, won't you?

And for those of you who haven't commented yet, please give me some feed back. I'd like to hear what your feelings and impressions are about my work. send me ideas, thoughts, or even criticism. if you like a particular piece, just write that. I'd like to get some gauge of what's popular and what's not.

Hope to hear from you soon.
Stay healthy and happy,
-Carlos Cabal

Knot-eye Ring

I liked the texture of this log that I had in my backyard. It had been sitting there for about 5 years, sucking up sun, moisture, and an impressive array of bugs. I don't know what kind of wood it is. A few days ago I picked it up and decided to do something with it. I pealed off the bark and became fascinated with the leathery-like texture of the wood. So I figured why not make a ring that exploits (what I consider) the beauty of this wood. I went for a very organic shape, I didn't mean for it to look like anything accept a piece of wood with a small knot in it, but doesn't the knot kinda look like an eye? I guess it's like looking at clouds (each person sees their own thing). This here is definitely a one-of-a-kind piece. I can make similar ones, but they will all be different. That's another beautiful thing about this ring.

new "Eclipse" ring