I wanted to do something special to celebrate and mark the occasion of our 25th anniversary. So I commissioned a custom necklace pendant… and in a reference back to our Mac-shaped wedding cake toppers and Mac history, I wanted to make one in the shape of a Mac, specifically a Macintosh Plus, my first Mac:

I scoured the web for silversmiths with the skill and interest in such a project, and found Gennady Larin of Pazori in St Petersburg. (His Etsy store has a lot of intricate works, though be warned, a lot of skull motifs.)

We worked together for a couple of months to come up with the design and refine it. An early concept was to faithfully replicate the appearance of the Mac; this is a 3D model he created for me:

But we realized that using the scale-accurate dimensions would make a too-massive pendant. We experimented with a much thinner interpretation, plus plotting out our initials, DJ+JD in sapphires on the topaz “screen”, with a ruby representing the Apple logo:

In the end we settled on a design that more accurately preserves the Mac shape, while being more thin than the true proportions, and with a chain hole through the top to reduce the weight and keep it from twisting on the chain:

Once the design was finalized, Gennady bought the stones:

And cast the silver:

After finishing, polishing, and setting the stones, the final result:

On the back, an inscription celebrating the occasion, referring to the “four C’s” that we live by:

I purchased a chain separately, though it really needs a thicker chain. Here are the packaged pendant and chain:

A closer look at the pendant, still wrapped in plastic so I don’t get fingerprints on it before giving it to Jenn: