Back in late May / early June, we began a conversation with a lovely young man from Australia. Chun was looking to design a very special ring for his beloved; Anna.
At that point, they were both PhD students and Chun wanted to incorporate their research projects into Anna's ring.
As Chun explained, Anna's project studies the contaminants of urban billabongs (oxbow lake) which involved a lot of sediment core samples. Chun's PhD project was investigating the use of special polymers to produce hydrogen for renewable energy. One aspect of his work was making films on clear glass microscope slides. After a bit of conversation back and forth, Chun packaged up and mailed a glass slide from his own PhD work and a little chunk of basalt from Anna's research work.
Through no fault of our own; mine or Chun's ... it was a long, long wait till the package finally arrived at the post office in Williams Lake. Chun mailed his inlay material on the 15th of July. On the 13th of August we still hadn't received the package but got the happy news that Chun had just submitted his thesis! That was cause for celebration on the home front!
To this day neither I nor Chun have any idea where his package disappeared to for those 6 weeks. We were both trying to chase it down and were reaching the point of giving up on it ~ then lo and behold. . . There it was, safely delivered to our post box on September 1st. Yah! Still in time for David to complete the work on Anna's ring for Chun's planned proposal in November.
Chun chose Australian Blackwood as the primary wood. It's a beautiful rich dark wood that rivals Hawaiian Koa for beauty and depth of grain. His research slide and Anna's basalt made up the center inlay with a full moon inlay of mother of pearl. The center inlay is bordered by bright maple.
Anna said yes!! :) Was there ever any doubt?!!
Chun and Anna were kind enough to share some of their happy post engagement pics with us too.
I especially love this photo of Anna, her cup of tea, the view and her ring.
Chun and Anna are currently visiting Japan and Anna's family there.
This photo is showing off Anna's ring against the beautiful fall colours in Japan right now.
It's such a lovely thing to be in touch with our wood ring friends over a period of time. By now we feel that Chun and Anna are old friends and we wish them tremendous happiness in the days and years ahead.
Our sincere thanks to Chun for contacting us so many months ago and for working with us on this special ring for his beloved. It has been very much our pleasure!!
Danny is originally from Australia. He met Melissa who is from Manitoba and he's been in Canada off and on for about 6 years. Melissa and Danny married in July and will be settling on the west coast of Canada. Danny and I began our conversations in the spring. He settled on woods that were symbolic of both their homes as Melissa pointed out. :) Australian Blackwood with two offset inlays of Canadian Maple.
