First of all, I have new rings and I moved my Claddagh ring:
In other words, I'm engaged! :-) yay! For about a month now, almost. To MyJohn. ♥
^here's both my rings, after they were sized down.
At first they were way too big, 'cause I have really small fingers and there's a standard size that jewelry stores sell rings in without having the wearer's size known. (I mean if you know what size you need you can get it sized right after you buy it, but if not you have to go back for the sizing; they keep them at size 6 or 7, I think.)
^too big, before resizing
And when we went to get them sized the saleslady at the jewelry store said the jeweler wouldn't size my rings down to my tiny size because the stones on the sides would fall out. I kind of expected that, because I've seen that before. Fortunately, my brother's a jeweler (that's how I'd seen that problem before) and he wasn't afraid to adjust the rings all the way down to my 3.5 size, since he knows how to secure the stones so they don't fall out. :-) Probably the other jeweler does too but he wants to avoid liability with a customer that he doesn't know.
Now my new rings actually fit better than my other ones, so I was thinking about having my brother resize my other rings, but I still want to try to gain just a little bit of weight and if I do then I hopefully don't need my rings to be smaller. Of course then I'll need him to size my new rings back up a little. I might have more on that topic later.
So I'm still using "the white stuff" i.e. Liquid Ring Guard. But I'm starting to like it less, because it only lasts a few weeks instead of months before it starts rubbing off. Since my knuckles are bigger than my fingers, taking the rings on and off rubs the white stuff off. Last time I redid my Claddagh ring I put a thinner layer pretty much all the way around the inside of the ring, and it seems to be lasting longer; but I'm really tired of redoing the white stuff every few weeks and waiting a day and a night for it to dry. My brother gave me a new package of Ring Snuggies because he says jewelers don't like it when people put stuff on their rings (like tape) to make them fit. So I've started using a Snuggie on my amethyst ring.
I guess I could've zoomed in more on that, but oh well.
It's sort of a compromise between the white stuff and the clasp thing I was doing before. It's like the clasp because I have to put it on the ring after I put the ring on my finger, and take it off before I take the ring off; but it's better than the clasp and more like the white stuff because it keeps the ring from slipping around and from slipping up and down my finger. It's somewhat uncomfortable though, especially when my finger swells slightly (or stops shrinking) and the snuggie pulls the top of the ring against the top of my finger. It was doing that the other day so I pulled the snuggie off, and it flew out of my fingers and into the pantry which I happened to be standing in front of, and disappeared. Fortunately I still have a couple more of the same size but all the rest are bigger. I think I'll have to cut one of the small ones in half and use each half for my Claddagh and birthstone rings, hoping that won't be any more uncomfortable. Or I can get more snuggies but a whole one might be uncomfortable on my small rings. Snuggies are also more difficult to put on and off of the rings than the clasps. But once it's on it's better.
I have to put the snuggie on before I put my handflower on because the finger chain gets in the way, and sometimes the chain gets caught on the outside of the snuggie, but once I fix that it's fine.
Oh I also have a new chainmaille ring in my shop:
This is the first chainmaille ring with a bead that I've made, and I'm pretty happy with it. I'll make more of these with other colors and stones, if I can remember how I did it. ;-) First I'm working on eyeglass chains and more handflowers, 'cause those have been selling. :-)
