TribeBlog

We had been on a mission for some time to get away from adhesives in our work as they are temporary and we feel that high quality body jewelry should not be subject to the whim of a sticky goo when it comes to longevity. After establishing ourselves as the first organics company to do consistent hardware set inlays of stone into wood, we moved onto non-adhesive stone into stone (an industry first), and even multiple stones set together, as shown below.

Now we have pioneered a method for hardware setting a stone inlay into a stone labret piece. This prototype labret is smoky quartz with a 10mm gem ammolite (see our ammolite blog post here) set into the face. The connecting hardare is all fine silver (including the bezel, the interior hardare, and the disc at the back plate). The back plate is contoured with the curve of the t-back labret to feel invisible, and resting in the seat immediately behind the back plate is an implant grade silicone o-ring to seal the interior from moisture. The entire labret is 7 separate pieces assembled to form a durable stone in stone inlaid 1/2″ labret plug. The inlay will not suddenly dislodge due to glue failure because there isn’t any. This is the kind of jewelry that gets found thousands of years later by anthropologists, intact and ready to wear

Using these assembly methods, we can do round or oval stone labrets with inlays of either round or oval shape. We can even do carved inlays, and multiple material inlays – wood and/or stone in more than one layer as referenced by the above flower plug photograph). We have a huge range of potential base stones for labrets and even more materials that can be inlaid into the face. The possibilities are endless! If you are interested in obtaining a high end stone in stone set labret, please get in touch.

Thank you for considering the investment of custom jewelry from Onetribe LLC. We pride ourselves on being innovators in the industry and we always look forward to the process of creating pieces of jewelry that individuals can be proud to own and wear. We hope this document will be helpful in understanding the process of going from an idea to a finished work of art, and the immense amount of planning and work that process entails.

Planning your custom project

Whether your needs involve style alterations to a product we already carry or intricately carved pieces with inlays and precious metals, having custom jewelry made is a special process that involves considerably more time and energy than a stocked, pre-made product available for immediate delivery. If you have a specific idea we are happy to work with you to make that a reality, and if you have a vague idea of what you want, we would be happy to help you make a choice regarding materials and potential styles.  We like to work closely with our customers to ensure what we create is exactly what you are interested in wearing.

Depending on the project we may ask for specifics such as sizing, wearing lengths, preferred dimensions, flare sizes, etc. We will also discuss with you ideal material options, and if you are interested in an inlay, we will speak about options for settings. We may provide photographs of rough materials, custom illustrations, etc. if they are necessary.

If you have a deadline for your project, this is the stage where we need to know that, as it will factor into whether or not we can realistically complete your project within the allotted time. With all of this information, we will be able to provide you with a quoted cost for your project.

Custom Project Quotes

After we are sure we’ve got all of the information needed, we will provide you with a quote based on the total materials and labor necessary to create your custom jewelry. Quotes are project specific, meaning that the quote may differ based on variables such as a change in the size, type of material (for example, a different wood or stone), or requesting a specific color/pattern which requires more labor or cutting into material in search of a specific aesthetic. Quotes themselves are based on three things: any prototyping or research/development (including illustrations) we may need to do to work out the logistics of your pieces, the labor involved in physically creating your pieces, and the material costs.

We send all quotes via email so that everyone has a record of it. Quotes may change over a period of time based on fluctuations in the cost of materials (silver and gold fluctuate frequently, and the pricing of certain woods and stones changes as well). We will never change the cost of your project once you have paid, unless the quote itself is open ended and everyone has agreed to the circumstances.

Paying For Custom Projects & Securing a Spot in the Order Queue

If you would like to proceed with your order, we require payment to initiate the project and secure a spot in the queue. Projects are produced in the order they are received, and we often work on several projects simultaneously, especially when they involve mixed mediums, such as wood with stone inlays in a precious metal. We require 100% pre-payment on orders under $200. Over $200, we allow a 50% down payment with the remainder due upon completion. This down payment is non-refundable because once we begin to cut into material and fabricate your project, those funds are required to pay for that labor and material. We allow changes or refunds for a 7 day time period from payment, after which cancellation will result in a 30% fee deducted from your refund if you paid in full (50% down payments are non-refundable), to cover some of the cost of the work we have already done.

Project Completion Time

Some projects take longer than others, but we always maintain a queue and they are worked on and shipped out in the order they are received. Our default queue is a 4-6 week completion time. This means 4-6 weeks from the date that payment is received for your order until we have worked through the projects in front of yours, completed your project and are prepared to ship it. Your project may take from a few hours to a week or more of labor to complete, but it is in line with other projects, all of which will receive our undivided attention and efforts while they are being worked on. If you need your jewelry by a certain date, we need to know that during the planning stage. We will not rush projects ahead of others upon customer request if there is not already a deadline, although if circumstances allow us to finish something ahead of schedule (this sometimes happens while we are waiting for material or doing complex settings that need to be fabricated) we will use the time to work on the next projects in line.

Exclusive Custom Projects

Onetribe frequently produces one of a kind jewelry from a variety of natural materials, and we sometimes give customers interested in custom work the honor of having their project be a total one off, with no other 100% identical pieces reproduced. This is only applicable if we design something with illustrations 100% unique to you (generally only in the case of completely original illustrations for intricate carvings) and it is verbalized that you wish for the project to not be reproduced. We do reserve the right to refuse a project if we decline exclusivity, but we are open to situations where the piece will remain one of a kind for a certain period of time so that you may have the only one in existence for that time period. Any agreements of this kind will be noted in advance of your payment, and please keep in mind that total exclusivity (ie, we make one for you and never reproduce an identical piece) commands a premium in price due to the additional work of illustrations and possibly scale models prior to production that can only be used for you.

An exception to our unique exclusivity rules involves custom hardware settings that we develop for your project. It often takes time and materials far beyond the total cost of your project to develop, test and fabricate a setting to achieve a specific aesthetic or set a certain shape or material. We reserve the right to re-utilize these complex methods in other projects unless you are interested in bearing the full cost of this research and development.

We hope this information will help you make informed choices about your special jewelry, and if you have any questions or concerns at any point during the process, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. We are 100% dedicated to ensuring that your custom order experience and the resulting jewelry surpass any expectations you may have.

In addition to standard round plugs, it is also possible to make plugs in a teardrop shape from nearly any material we offer. Teardrops provide an interesting aesthetic, in that it elongates the lobe beyond how it appears naturally (especially at larger sizes), and makes the bottom wider than the top. It provides a bit more of a streamlined visual effect than round plugs at large sizes as they do not protrude from the side of the face as much. There is no additional stretching or any preparation needed to wear this shape of jewelry beyond having well healed piercings and a well made piece.

The pieces below are blue tiger’s eye teardrops at 1.5″ (38mm).

Teardrops are tricky to make and can be uncomfortable to wear if the top portion is overly pointed. We have seen pieces looking almost like triangles from some vendors and can’t imagine how uncomfortable that must be to wear. Sizing is also an issue, as teardrops cannot be measured with calipers or ‘averaged’ by taking height and width measurements and dividing by two, which does not take into account the curvature of the sides. They must be made using the circumference measurements (distance around the piece, as opposed to across it as with measuring diameter with calipers) and wrapping an object around the piece to continually check the size of both the saddle and each flare – we generally utilize a marked natural fiber string that doesn’t stretch.

Onetribe can produce teardrop shaped plugs from 0g (8.2mm) and up from most materials. Teardrops are also an option for materials that have odd dimensions – we may not be able to carve round plugs from a given piece of material, but the tapered shape of teardrops may enable us to squeeze a set of jewelry out of it. Teardrop shaped pieces can be short and chubby or narrow and tall, depending on your personal preferences or the shape of the material itself. When making pieces without direction we aim for a balance between the two and an aesthetically pleasing teardrop shape, taking into account the texture and color of the material. Flare sizes are the standard 1.5mm of our round plugs but can be customized to your tastes, including doing Mayan flared faces. We can carve teardrops as concaves, with inlays, etc. just as we do any other style, but there is a major difference in cost associated with these options over doing them in standard round plugs due to the extra time involved in working in a non-standard shape.

1.5″ (38mm) Teardrops in Green Fluorite

Ebony Hollow Teardrops with CZ Inlays.

1″ (25.4mm) Rutilated Quartz Teardrop Plugs

0g (8.2mm) Labradorite Teardrops (they both flash light or dark blue depending on the angle)

1.5″ (38mm) Obsidian Concave Teadrops and 3/4″ (19mm) Concave Labret with 23k Gold Leaf

5/8″ (16mm) Aqua/Blue Labradorite Teardrops

2″ (51mm) Maple Teardrops and Assorted Friends

If you find yourself intrigued by this shape of jewelry and interested in having some carved in wood, stone or any other material (amber teardrops? Sure!), please feel free to get in touch with us, we’d be happy to make something special and unique for you!

One of the most popular materials we carry is a stone called Labradorite. This stone has one of the most unique characteristics of any stone in the world: it flashes with an entire rainbow of colors, sometimes so brightly that it can be blinding in full sun, and you often have to underexpose photographs of it to show any detail.

Labradorite is a feldspar with a hardness of approximately 6 on the Mohs hardness scale, and it originates from Labrador, Canada as well as Madagascar and a few other locations around the world. It occurs most frequently as light to dark gray or gray-green in rough form with large crystalline planes and seams throughout. In high quality material the crystalline structure is such that at the right angle, it refracts a huge spectrum of colors from various layers within the material.

We have had material ranging in color from white (essentially clear with flash) through light yellow, orange and copper, fuchsia and purple, light aqua to dark aqua, light blue, dark blue and near blue-black. Specimens may contain one solid color, two colors, a color shift (both within the same spectrum such as aqua to dark blue, or even opposite spectrums such as from aqua to yellow), or multiple colors across the same cut face of stone. In our experience, the rarest colors are the fuchsia and purples as well as some transitional shades of pink-copper, and very light blue to true white flash. We do have some examples of these that we keep as display specimens in our showroom in Richmond, Virginia.

Making jewelry from labradorite can be tricky due to the amount of time it takes to go from a large rough chunk of stone to a usable slab form cut in the correct manner for maximized flash across the face. Onetribe’s labradorite custom work consists of pieces cut for maximum flash on a case by case basis, and a great deal of time is put into selecting the best material for each project based on the needed size, color and shape. We aim for 85% or more solid flash across the faces of anything we create from this stone, and generally (not always but as frequently as possible) pieces will flash straight on when rotated to the correct viewing angle, allowing them to flash easily while being worn. We do not create concaves or tunnels from this material as it cuts through the flash, reducing or potentially eliminating any color that would otherwise be evident.

The labradoresence or schiller effect, as the flash is known, can be solid bright color, subdued “faded” flash color, flash only at certain angles, or create a “blinds” effect where lines of schiller flash on and off as the piece is moved. This “blinds” effect is uncommon, but particularly interesting because of the movement created within the piece as it ‘flutters.’ The flash effect always looks best in direct to diffused natural daylight, artificial light is not appropriate for viewing the true color and intensity of labradorite.

Below you will find examples of various cuts containing different colors.

Slab containing mixed orange copper to aqua flash.

A golden and aqua example of flash that ‘flutters’ as the viewing angle is changed. The crystalline layers have formed in such a way as to display lines of flash which fade and brighten as the stone is moved.

A specimen showing a vibrant orange to copper with border of deep blue. This is a great example of how erratic the interior of labradorite can be – as shown there is only a small amount of flash across this mostly dark gray stone. Everything but the flash gets cut away when making A Grade labradorite jewelry, contributing to the elevated cost of such pieces over standard stones.

The same stone shown at an alternate viewing angle with a highly desirable, very intense section of red-copper to fuchsia/pink flash.

A choice example of the great deal of variance in labradorite. This very desirable specimen contains a gradual fade from a very dark blue through aqua into the yellow spectrum. Again, note the dark gray base color on the corner. That is the way this stone looks when not rotated to the appropriate viewing angle for schiller.

A roughly cut specimen showing pockets of aqua and dark blue flash interspersed randomly throughout the stone.

An erratic stone featuring several colors of very, very vibrant flash including yellows, oranges, coppers, aqua, dark blue, and the very rare and coveted true purple in focus in the foreground. This stone gives a good idea of the challenges faced by stone cutters attempting to create items with solid flash across a plane.

A very interesting and uncommon specimen of labradorite with fading bands of color throughout.

Wonderful specimen showcasing a near perfect “gold” color.

This entire 2lb+ stone was entirely devoid of flash except for one section of light purple along an edge.

A large, very intense section of aqua flash fading to blue. This is world class quality rough.

Mixed colors featuring yellow into gold and copper with aqua-blue accents.

A choice specimen of rare true purple flash from our studio display collection.

A highly desirable, very intense display specimen featuring yellow into copper with bright pink accents and a beautiful mixture of texture and line.

Below we have shown examples of finished jewelry created by Onetribe from our select A Grade labradorite. Please note the sizes as this makes a big difference when it comes to the amount of color, number of colors and distinction of pattern within the pieces.

3/4″ (19mm) plugs with aqua/blue color and various lines/seams.

1 3/16″ (30mm) plugs with very intense copper flash.

5/8″ (16mm) ghostly light blue plugs.

A set of approximately 1 1/4″ (32mm) labradorite plugs flashing at just below the optimal viewing angle. With the camera raised up slightly to view the plugs straight on they would flash as solid color.

The same set at the optimal viewing angle.

1″ (25.4mm) plugs with yellow toward aqua and blue flash.

10mm plugs with slightly larger faces.

A large grouping of labradorite jewelry featuring plugs (both flat faced and convex) and a septum spike. Convex surfaces on labradorite cause the flash to appear a ghostly shimmer similar to tiger’s eye in effect, while flat faces cause the flash to appear all at once at the proper viewing angle.

Two sides of the same set of 1″ labradorite plugs from the previous photograph. Every now and then we are able to cut a slab that will flash on both sides, and this piece not only exhibits flash on both sides, but is effectively two totally different colored sets of plugs, with one side being more aqua/blue colored and the opposite side showcasing yellow/gold. The veining in this set and ‘flutter’ effect as light bounces across the pieces makes this an incredible set of plugs.

A 3/4″ (19mm) oval labret from labradorite.

A very oval 5/8″ (16mm) mixed blue-aqua labret.

Two views of a 1.5″ (38mm) set of labradorite plugs featuring several colors. Note the flat gray base color of the saddle and how the flash starts to fade out to dark gray as the viewing angle is changed.

0g (8.2mm) teardrop shaped labradorite plugs that fade from light blue to dark blue depending on the viewing angle.

3/4″ (19mm) very brightly mixed color labradorite plugs featuring a large amount of internal veining.

1″ (25.4mm) labradorite plugs taken side by side from the same slab, showing a distinct fade from light blue toward dark across the two pieces.

A 16×9mm oval labret featuring a light to dark blue ‘flutter’ effect, very interesting in a labret piece due to the amount of motion inherent in lip piece. The flash on this dances across the vertical lines as the piece moves.

A large array of plugs in different sizes showcasing the sheer difference in color and pattern evident in just a few pieces of labradorite rough.

A 1 3/8″ (35mm) set of plugs featuring a fade from yellow-aqua to blue across the pieces.

As you can see, labradorite is a stone with some very special qualities, and no two stones are completely alike in their color and pattern. We pride ourselves on sourcing and cutting some of the highest quality labradorite in the world, and we are happy to create custom pieces from it, both in solid stone form as plugs (round or teardrop) as well as cabochons for bezel setting and inlay into other materials, such as wood and other stones. For more information on the availability of this stone, please contact us with your needs.

For quite a while we have been wanting to do some traditional Aztec style obsidian plugs and labret pieces with a gold leaf inlay. Many antique labrets and plugs from the Mesoamerican region feature hammered gold accents and gold leafed onto other materials. We have a quartz Aztec labret in the Onetribe antiquities collection that features a concave in the face which likely housed a gold inlay centuries ago.

Jared’s wedding provided the perfect opportunity to give this style a spin. He created these 1.5″ concave obsidian teardrops and matching 3/4″ concave oval obsidian labret with 23.5kt gold leaf inlay for the occasion.

A goofy shot of the jewelry being worn while driving aimlessly on the honeymoon.

This is a style we will continue to experiment with and we can now offer obsidian and jade with gold leaf for custom orders, preferably in traditional styles (Mayan flares, concave labrets, etc).

We had incredible success with the Amazonite material that we sourced from a local mine in 2009 so we decided to ring them up and go out there again in January. Here’s a snapshot of some of last year’s material:

For more information on our previous trip and more photos of the mine grounds and such check out last year’s trip post: Onetribe Goes Mining! We didn’t document quite as much this year as we’d already visited previously and both us and the mine owner had schedules to keep.

Amazonite is a microcline feldspar with an incredible blue-green color that occurs a few places in the world, and one of those places is about 40 minutes from our Onetribe HQ here in Richmond, Virginia. Amazonite, depending on the quality, can vary from a mostly white to sea foam green color to a very deep, semi-translucent green-blue color unlike any other stone. For a while we had been working material from Brazil and by pure chance stumbled upon the local source, which conveniently happens to be hands down the nicest material we have ever seen. We started working the local material in early 2009 and received immense response from customers for standard plugs and custom orders, some involving gem grade semi-translucent material that is very rare.

The mine owner was happy to oblige and we made an appointment to show up on a Friday afternoon. Since we last visited we’ve hired one new employee and had another that didn’t go out last year so we decided to close up shop early and make it a company field trip. We had a ton of fun, as we often do at work.

The mine is a very small operation, family owned and mostly geared toward school field trips coming out and panning for Amazonite, small garnets, non-gem quality topaz, mica, quartz and other stones that occur here in Virginia. It’s a very basic setup with zero automation, minimal machinery, and lots of manual labor to get the material out of the ground. Walking around the grounds you really get a feel that this is not a fancy place, but rather a small scale labor of love for the owner, who has a background in much larger geology and mining operations.

There are large pieces of material of varying quality sitting around on the ground, and one of the neat things about visiting is that the ground is literally splashed with incredible color as Amazonite is very fragile and easily fractures into small pieces, which litter the ground like tiny bits of semi-precious trash.

When we visited last time we were told that there was some really nice material down in the walls that they’d yet to bring up to the surface. This past autumn they finally had a chance to get in there and do it, and the material got stored away unsearched until we got our grubby little jewelry making stone geek hands on it.

In 2009 it was bitterly cold but we roughed it for the sake of sweet rocks. This time not only was it bitterly cold, but it was raining so basically it was miserable. But we did it for you guys! Okay, a little for us too, we do heart sweet rocks.

We take a lot of pride in going through the effort to hand pick most of the materials we use for our jewelry. One stone at a time, from tiny slivers barely large enough for 6mm cabochons to pieces large enough for jewelry several inches in size, we spent the next couple of hours sorting for best color and quality and speaking with the mine owner about our selections.

I have no idea what the hell I was doing, but it was funny and I think Marshall, our wood turner and dedicated mine documentarian (and only other full time staff member in our Virginia studio not in these photos – we’s small!) was laughing so hard the shot got all crazy. I was obviously proud of “deez rocks!”

We walked out with nearly 100lbs of material, and I just took about half of that down to our second workshop in Indonesia for production runs of plugs, teardrops and some septum spikes that will be done a little later this spring. We also set aside some of the nicest material – deepest color and saturation and most translucent, for a run of very high quality cabochons for bezel setting, and of course there’s plenty on hand here at the Richmond workshop for custom work.

Expect some beautiful things to be available from this wonderful material this spring!