Only 1 more week till the ring comes off the shelf!!

[Mannequin]

Congratulations!

I am dying to hear the story of how he did it! Beautiful ring!

 

[sk8rjen]

Yay! Success! The ring is beautiful! Come back SOON and tell us all the story --- you know we just can''t wait to hear what he was up to! CONGRATS!!!!!
jen

 

[caligal]

Oh Rhapsody... it is just beautiful!!!

I LOVE the setting- the milligraining on the edges, the beautiful center stone, and it looks the engraving maybe?

 

[Rhapsody]

Sorry for the delay everyone, my car was not cooperating today and I ended up stranded at my boyfriends office for the afternoon. I imagine this is some retarded karma intended to balance out my happiness or something

Well without further delay, the end of the mystery. On monday night at about 10 til midnight my boyfriend comes bouncing into the living room where I''m watching tv and tells me he doesn''t think he can wait 10 more minutes until our anniversary officially begins to give me my present. So he brings me his present which is a book he made that details one of our first days spent together our sophmore year of high school. The book is covered in black and red velvet (my favourite colours and fabric) and the individual pages are all hand drawn and painted. He painted them on multiple layers of plastic that are slightly separated so that each page has a lot of dimension and shadows. It must have taken forever to paint it all!

So at the last page is a little box with a ribbon that says "pull me", and when I pulled on the thread the ring popped out!

It was so freakin'' cute. He wrote me a card with everything he wanted to say since he said he didn''t trust himself to have it come out well if he said it live.

First is a picture of the outside of the book

 

[Rhapsody]

Opps, that came out rather blurry. Ah well. And heres the first page, an aerial shot of the school taken from google maps and the tree that we used to sit under. I wish you could see it in person, everything looks so 3d because of the way he built it.

 

[Rhapsody]

And my favourite page, an excited little chibi-boyfriend

He won a game we had been playing.

 

[Rhapsody]

And a few more ring pictures. The stone is a 0.55 ct princess, G, VS1. I can pull out the sarin with all the specs if anyone here cares. The setting is a Tacori setting I had to jump through hoops to get after they changed the design. The setting is milgrained along the egdes with a scroll-wavy engraving pattern along the shank. The shank is about 2mm at the widest and tapers to about 0.5mm near the side stones.

 

[Rhapsody]

This shows the proportions of the ring well

 

[Rhapsody]

Sparkle!

 

[Rhapsody]

Can see the gallery a little better on this one. I took all my pictures at the same angle so I have no good shots of the side or the engraving. I''ll work on that tomorrow

 

[Rhapsody]

And one less crappy handshot. You''ll have to excuse the puffy fingers. I took the pictures at 7 this morning before I had to head out for the day.

 

[Blenheim]

Oh, I love it! It looks really sparkly.

And the book looks amazing. It''s great that you''ll be able to read it in the future and remember how it felt when he proposed.

 

[anchor31]

I love love love the ring and your fiancé is SOOO sweet!!

Congrats again!

 

[jas]

I second that -- the ring is beautiful, and the proposal makes the heart soar.

Congratulations!

Jas

 

[IrishAngel7982]

That is so sweet! Thoughtful gifts are always the best imo. Congratulations and I love the ring!

 

[sk8rjen]

A book!!! That''s SO cool -- and thoughtful, sentimental, romantic --- he did great!!

Ooooooh the standards have been set so much higher for the rest of our boyfriends!

I am just SO excited for you that your wait is over and you are happy!!! Congrats again

jen

 

[jesterjigger]

OMG, what a wonderful present!!!! Congratualtions!!!!! And your ring is gorgeous...well worth the wait! I''m glad he was spending all that time working on a really cool present too...what an amazing keepsake to have for the rest of your years together. Someday you''ll be showing it to your grandkids. Congratulations again!!!

 

[Rhapsody]

Thank you everyone for all your wonderful comments

I'm so elated now, although my new fiance has banned me from driving since I'm so easily distracted by my ring. Which works out to be a non-issue since my car stopped running anyhow

We have 3 cars between us and only one of them is running. Yuck.

Anyhow back to the ring

I'm so thrilled with it. Those giant blown-up photos did bring a spot that needs to be polished a little better to my attention though. These huge pictures are dangerous. I would never have even noticed if I hadn't seen it in the picture.

And my boy is so happy that people like his present. He said he was very afraid I would be annoyed and think it wasn't worth waiting for so long. I think he's a bit disappointed because his original plan was to make each pop a little pop-up thing, but it was just getting too big (as it is the book is about 7 or 8 inches thick) so he just made the ring pop up, out of a little hidden pocket that opened. SOOO cute.

Jen and Anchor, thanks for hanging with me through this whole waiting process. It would have been a lot uglier around our house if I didn't have you ladies to talk to!

 

[ilovesparkles]

It is just gorgeous and so fiery! The book is so amazing I can only imagine how fabulous it must be in person! Do you have any more profile shots of the ring? I am dying to see more angles!

 

[sk8rjen]

Glad to have been here, Rhapsody! Yours is my favorite story so far --- and it had a perfect "ending/beginning"! I was just curious -- where are you from? I notice you didn''t post in the "where are you from" thread and I''m too impatient to dig through old threads to find out!!

Anyway, where I used to live in Colorado there was a Smoky Hill High School and if I would have stayed there, that''s where I would have gone. One of my best friends went there. I moved to Wyoming and then years later, here to Arkansas. Just caught my eye -- one of those "small world" coincidences maybe?

jen

 

[anchor31]

Date: 5/18/2006 3:11:40 PM
Author: Rhapsody
Jen and Anchor, thanks for hanging with me through this whole waiting process. It would have been a lot uglier around our house if I didn''t have you ladies to talk to!

Aw, you''re so sweet!

I don''t know how you did it, but I''m glad I helped a little!! J and I are going ring shopping this weekend and we''ll probably be making the final decision, so it''ll be my turn to need your help so I don''t go crazy!

 

[Rhapsody]

Date: 5/18/2006 3:50:58 PM
Author: sk8rjen
Glad to have been here, Rhapsody! Yours is my favorite story so far --- and it had a perfect ''ending/beginning''! I was just curious -- where are you from? I notice you didn''t post in the ''where are you from'' thread and I''m too impatient to dig through old threads to find out!!

Anyway, where I used to live in Colorado there was a Smoky Hill High School and if I would have stayed there, that''s where I would have gone. One of my best friends went there. I moved to Wyoming and then years later, here to Arkansas. Just caught my eye -- one of those ''small world'' coincidences maybe?

jen

I am indeed from Colorado and did go to Smoky Hill. The school that looks like a prison with its tiny slotted windows

Thats quite some coincidence!

I''m glad you to have helped entertain you while you searched for your perfect pear. I cant WAIT to see your ring done. I have major pear envy now

 

[Rhapsody]

Date: 5/18/2006 3:39:19 PM
Author: ilovesparkles
It is just gorgeous and so fiery! The book is so amazing I can only imagine how fabulous it must be in person! Do you have any more profile shots of the ring? I am dying to see more angles!

Diamonds and art work, neither are done any justice by photos

My camera battery is recharging after the last 400 picture-taking-fest of the last few days. I''ll try and get good shots of the gallery view and the engraving later this afternoon.

 

[Rhapsody]

Date: 5/18/2006 4:04:33 PM
Author: anchor31
Aw, you''re so sweet!

I don''t know how you did it, but I''m glad I helped a little!! J and I are going ring shopping this weekend and we''ll probably be making the final decision, so it''ll be my turn to need your help so I don''t go crazy!

Oooh, have fun shopping this weekend! I hope you find something that makes your heart sing. The only easy part of my ring buying process was that once I saw that setting I knew that was *it* and never wavered. I think it''s the one thing in my life I''ve been sure about

I think I might try and talk my boyfriend into going window shopping to look at wedding bands this weekend

We wont be getting married for at least a year but I''m so excited about the prospect I just want to get going on it! I need to get the ring I used to wear on that finger resized anyhow so we might just "accidently" find ourselves over by the wedding rings.

And you know I''ll still be here if you need any "what the heck is he waiting for" support

 

[anchor31]

Thanks, Rhapsody! I have a feeling I''ll have to take you up on that offer...

He''ll be here tomorrow and Saturday for my dad''s birthday, then we''ll be downtown on Sunday and possibly Monday (we have a national holiday) for the shopping. In the mean time, enjoy your engagement!!

 

[sk8rjen]

OK, Rhapsody -- that''s just plain weird. I actually *went* there (for a day!) as my friend''s guest when I was in town once and then went with her to some party/after prom type weird thing. I used to live really close to there, but it''s all different now. It was still a pretty new area of town. Went to Cimarron Elementary, though, for 6 years -- was the first class in it! Ring a bell? I miss my CO days, but I got the better end of the deal moving to WYO (had really great schools!) I cannot get over how small this world really can be sometimes

Anchor have fun ring shopping!

jen

 

[allycat0303]

Rhapsody!!! Why didn''t you start a new thread??? I''m late, so sorry, but congrats on your engagement. Wow! And what bling, it''s to die for, I love scroll work under the ring. Now I''m going to hunt for pics of you honey and you together!

 

[Kaleigh]

Congratulations Rhapsody!!! What a sweet proposal. Your ring is gorgeous, no wonder he doesn't want you driving!!!

 

[E B]

Rhapsody, it''s beautiful! I love the engraving. Congratulations!

 

[AndyRosse]

Oh it''s beautiful, CONGRATULATIONS!!!