Shelly,
When I turned 40 I realized my heart was not complete, so I started dating. It wasn't until I met and got to know you that I realized the extent of the hole in my heart. I still don't know completely. I only know that when I am with you that hole is not only filled but my heart overflows with joy. It may be selfish of me but I would very much like to spend the rest of my life with that hole filled and overflowing.

Shelly,
will you grant my dearest wish and marry me?

I spent awhile thinking about what the ring needed to say.
The size gave me 2-3 words at most.
Be prepared, this gets mushy:

1. I am giving her 'My heart'
2. She has filled the piece I didn't know was missing in 'My heart'
3. 'My heart' is only two words so I could make it larger and maybe be able to actually saw the letters

I chose 1/4 inch as the width of the band ring.
Then I gave myself a little 'oops' room.
I didn't have a ring gauge at work while making the drawings so I made it 3 inches long and was willing to cut it down to the proper size.

I use Corel Draw 9 to make my drawing templates.

I chose the font, Freefrm721 BT, because it is very readable and because it is a stencil. It leaves breaks between parts of the letters so that when I saw it out you can see more than just the outline of the letters.

I should have converted it to curves because the M is too close to the Y, the E is too close to the A, the bar of the A is about a blade thick but a #80 drill bit(the smallest I have available) is as big as the drop in the middle of the E. I made the adjustments freehand while I was sawing, a risky process.

See that bulge at the bottom of the T? That's where the drill bit broke and stuck in the sterling sheet. I had to put another bit right next to it and drill through hoping that the extra large hole wasn't terribly noticeable.

I didn't polish it after I finished sawing out the letters. I didn't want the surfaces to be anything but flat and polishing can change the surface contours. Then, since my soldering skills have a 50/50 chance of ruining the piece and I didn't have enough time to redo it if I melted it into slag, I took the band and the solid band backing strip to a local jeweler in Lincoln to solder and then size.

I could go on at great length describing the goof-ups in my sawing job on the ring, but Shelly said she would rather have this one even if I redid it.

The local jeweler did a great job, under an extremely short deadline(about 28 hours). After Shelly wore it for a couple days I rounded the edges which were still pretty much square after the initial polish that the jeweler gave it. That made it a LOT more comfortable to wear.

The door to my office cubicle has the 'Have a Day' poster in the door window. The little green square is a piece of static cling plastic. You can just peel it off and restick it somewhere else on the poster.

This is the 'day' that my coworkers picked after seeing the pictures of the finished ring.