Sharing some Love ~ from Meghan and Mary

Dear David and Nicola,

I wanted to write to you to thank you sincerely for creating such an extraordinary gift of love for Mary and I. Your Touch Wood Ring is unlike anything I've ever seen before. 

It fits perfectly and glistens beautifully in the sunlight. The stone and the Purple Heart Wood inlays are incredible. People love to linger over every impressive detail that you have carefully carved into the ring.

Mary proposed in a very memorable way and the ring is just stunning. We are both very happily engaged, and we have you to thank for giving us the token to remember that by. 

We hope you are enjoying the month of June and we hope to meet you someday.  

Thanks again for all the love and care you put into the making and the process of communicating about this ring. We will always remember this.

Best, 

Meghan

Thank you Meghan 💕 It was our absolute pleasure and honour to work with Mary on your ring. 

Mary put so much love and thought and care into it's design ~ and David thoroughly enjoyed creating it for both of you!  We send our dearest love ~ now and always ~ and wish you and Mary immeasurable joy in the days and years to come.  Congratulations and warm hugs from both of us to both of you.  

A short history of steam bent wood rings

Touch Wood Rings

Touch Wood Rings are steam bent wooden rings. While steam bending wood is an ancient art, David is the originator and pioneer of the steam bent method of building a wooden ring.

A wooden ring is hardly an oddity anymore. There aren't many people nowadays who haven't heard of or seen a wooden ring and lots of people wear them. When I first introduced David's bent wood rings online in 2003, a wooden ring was considered a bit of a joke.

That was then.

David and I are humbled and honoured to have started "a revolution in the jewelry industry", as a very early client of ours predicted.

There was only one other wood ring maker when I introduced David's work online. Dale Randles of Artistree Wood Art has offered his wood crafts online since 1998. The main difference is that Dale's rings were (and still are) carved wooden rings; not bentwood. 

Every other bent wood ring maker you find online now (and there are hundreds) came after David. We trained and mentored some of them and we've watched a whole industry grow up behind us. It's been pretty incredible really. Humbling.  


A Touch Wood Ring as a Work in Progress

Natural materials have been carved into objects of personal adornment ever since humans began adorning ourselves. Materials like shell, bone and stone have of course survived the ravages of time better than tiny carved wooden objects.

One carved wooden ring that has survived is in The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. They have in their collections a 'carved' Bog Oak Wood Ring from Ireland dating from about 1775. The museum doesn't have a picture of the ring online but here is a photo of a set of Irish Bog Oak Rings David made for couple a few years ago. The light wood in this set is Australian Huon Pine.


Irish Bog Oak Wood Rings with Huon Pine inlay and liners

Through my research, I've found references to a wooden finger ring (recovered) from an Egyptian mummy, and carved wood rings found on the battlefields of WW1 and WW2; sad reminders of too many young men who loved someone back home and quite likely lost their lives; leaving their little mementos of love to molder in the trenches.


Apple Wood Ring with Braided Birch Bark inlay

Finnish folklore of long ago offers a song about a young fellow making a birch bark ring for his beloved after he drank away all his money. This song was sent to us by one of our early clients who wanted a birch and birch bark ring for his Finnish girlfriend. Here is a rough translation of that song:
Heisuli hei, my song sings, I am a trouble free vagabond rascal! This boy drank his last coins, one cannot live rich. I made a golden ring out of birch bark, I will engage a girl for myself. This birch bark ring and my love lasts one night at a time. 

So, what is steam bending exactly?

"Bending wood dates back to antiquity in the form of baskets from willow branches. Fresh growth willow twigs are readily bent in practically any shape.



When wood has been separated from the tree and dried, it is more rigid, difficult to bend and breakable. Bending drier wood with the help of heat and water is centuries old. Fishing hooks, barrel staves, and planks turned into boat hulls are examples." Source

"There are three basic ways of softening wood fibers. The first is to heat moisture already in the wood. This means using already moist, green wood, or soaking dry wood to replace the necessary moisture, then using a fire, or other heat source to turn the water to steam. The second method is to create steam first, and then force the steam into the wood. The final method is to use boiling water to penetrate the wood fibers." Source

If you are interested in learning more about bending wood, Steven Edholm has an excellent blog post titled: Bending Wood: What you need to know.


Touch Wood Oak Rings featuring the natural figure and grain of the Oak wood.

And so it goes. 

Wooden rings would not be a reality if people like you didn't find them beautiful and have a desire to wear one on your finger. And we thank you!

Touch Wood Rings has always been just the two of us. David is the artist and craftsman and I (Nicola) do the other stuff. Talking with you is what I love most about my work.

We live remote and off grid on 48 acres in the Cariboo Chilcotin area of BC. Our nearest neighbour is 10 miles away and town is a 45 minute drive on a good day ~ over active logging roads. David's brother has a cabin here as well. Our 48 acres is precious to all three of us. We consider ourselves stewards of this little corner of the planet and we take that very seriously.

We live a good life. A quiet life. The real difference I find about living remote is that our lives are mostly uninterrupted. This uninterrupted time allows us to focus on the natural world around us and to focus on you and fulfill your desire for a hand crafted Touch Wood Ring. 

We are truly blessed. And ever thankful.
And we invite you to be in touch.
Please drop me a line at nicola@touchwoodrings.com ~ I'd love to hear from you.
Visit our website (currently being updated, thank goodness)
And join us on social media is you like  Instagram,  Twitter,  Facebook and Pinterest

In closing, here are some snapshots from around our off grid homestead.
As always, thanks so much for dropping by!

The little log cabin that overlooks the creek


Wildflowers in July


Our place from overhead ~ the creek and hayfields


Nick and Kali on walkabout


On our walking trails, looking over at the homestead


Dandelion delight and solar panels


Mom and the young Mister with a cowbird along for the ride

My Myrtle Moment

Some of the woods David works with I just fall in love with. Oregon Myrtle is one of those woods. 

Here are a few examples of Touch Wood Rings incorporating Oregon Myrtle. The horizontal inlay on this juniper heartwood ring is Myrtle. The inlay is a 'full moon' ™  mother of pearl.

The interior liner on this Grenadilla / African Blackwood ring is Myrtle and it's also one of the spiraled inlays.

The single spiraled inlay on this juniper heartwood ring is Myrtle.

Brent and Sarah's Black Walnut rings have inlays of Myrtle wood. Sarah's ring also has a crushed shell inlay.  I'm partial to the wider myrtle inlay on Brent's ring as it lets us see the beautiful cross hatched grain that David coaxed out of the wood.

"These rings are simply amazing! We were just floored by how simple, clean and comfortable they were. They fit perfectly; like an old friend. My (Brent's) ring fits so well with (the unusual shape of my hand), I loved the way David didn't just taper it, but just made a space for my finger. It looks great and feels better. Sarah's looks amazing with her shell and she said its a perfect fit. Both of the rings go on quite easily but fit snug once they are on so there is no danger of them slipping off. Thank you for your amazing work and the love you put into it. We are so happy that we could share this experience with you. Brent and Sarah"

Myrtle has also been called pepperwood, spicebush, cinnamon bush, peppernut tree, headache tree, mountain laurel, and balm of heaven. 

Myrtle grows very slowly. The slow growth produces a close grained and fine textured wood. Oregon Myrtlewood offers a wide variety of beautiful colors and grain patterns.

As with most trees; the color of the wood is often influenced by the minerals in the soil. The colors of Oregon Myrtle range from blond to black with many shades of honey, browns, satiny grays, with reds and greens in between. 

The myrtle plant has long been a symbol of love and an emblem for marriage. It is also believed to be the flower of the gods, being sacred to the Greek goddess Aphrodite.

Myrtle wood is often used as a wedding garland or decorations for the marriage ceremony, and utilized in many wedding rituals.
The myrtle also symbolizes good fortune. It is believed that cultivating a myrtle plant will usher in peace and love to your home. Myrtle is considered a representation for long life, as well as joyful living.

Thanks to the Myrtlewood Gallery and Aunty Flo's website.  And as always, thanks to the awesome people we work with who wear a Touch Wood Ring.  

This Earth Day, We Thank You.

On this Earth Day, we'd like to send a huge thank you to all our Touch Wood clients. People who are making a positive difference in the world. And they are legion.

Chas and Jenna commissioned their rings in the summer of 2013. They sent David two woods from remote Mfangano Island in Western Kenya. Both woods were bits of old fence posts. The two woods are "Kang'o" which Chas believed to be a wild olive (the long lighter piece) and "sangala" which he understood was a species of Sumac. (short reddish piece).



They designed their rings incorporating their two woods and our heritage black walnut.



Chas and Jenna are part of an awesome group of people called Organic Health Response. The organization, founded by Chas, describe their mission as "supporting an ecosystem of diverse community health initiatives on Mfangano Island, Lake Victoria, Kenya." Jenna was a WWOOFer (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) at Joel and Richard’s farm on Mfangano for six months and now serves on the board of directors of OHR.
We invite you to visit the OHR website, like their facebook page and please, get involved!



Kat and Scott's Touch Wood Wedding Rings incorporated a very special piece of wood that was connected to a beloved rescued elephant who lived out the remainder of her life at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee of which Scott was co-founder. Kat and Scott have dedicated their lives to the care and comfort of elephants.



This couple spearheaded the awesome organization called Global Sanctuary for Elephants. Please visit their site, follow them on Facebook and support their amazing work with Elephants any way you can. There's an online auction coming up on Bidding for Good, June 5th to 13th. 

Elephant Sanctuary Brazil

And, if you are looking for earth friendly rings that offer a kinder gentler way to proclaim your love ~ please be in touch. David and I would love to hear from you!
Thanks again to all our incredible Touch Wood friends ~ you never cease to inspire us.