Each Erma jewel is a unique piece of art. It is important for me to share the process of creation, from the initial concept sketches, through the drawings, inspirations and the creation of the jewel itself.
As Valentine’s Day is at our Door step, I wish to introduce “The Kiss” Necklace which is inspired by Gustav Klimt, 1908. For me, this Jewel expresses connections between lovers, material aspects that combine into a spiritual whole. The twisting lines of the delicate jewel represent the yearning for love. This Jewel symbolizes eternal love. Read More »
Ana Claudia Schultz, a Brazilian Brooklenite, created Ana Claudia Design in 2012 after many years of working for others’ design studios and dreaming of creating her own jewelry collection. Her background in architecture design and Brazilian culture inspired her jewelry designs including Ana Claudia Design’s current collections, Archetype FW12 and Audubon.
Archetype was inspired by Ana Claudia Schultz’s, owner and designer of ACD, background in architecture. Truss-t from the Archetype collection stemmed from the engineering element, the truss. And a temple in Florianopolis Brazil, Templo Ecumênico, inspired Façade. Read More »
The one thing that makes Tara’s jewelry different is – her jewelry has a story behind it: Tara’s jewelry literally saved her and helped in the rebirth of her spirit. Tara is a wounded war veteran of the Army. She lost her leg on Valentine’s Day, 2006, while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Due to the subsequent brain injury from the explosion, she was left with a permanent Parkinson’s-like movement disorder, and during rehabilitation an occupational therapist suggested Tara become involved with a hobby that used her fine motor skills.
She decided to buy every book and read every article she could find on jewelry making, and she eventually taught herself difficult jewelry techniques. She crafts her one-of-a-kind jewelry out of gold, silver and fine gemstones and sells it on her website and at trunk shows. She is truly an artisan who handcrafts beautiful pieces of one-of-a kind wearable art. When people purchase a Tara Hutch original, they aren’t just buying a piece of jewelry, they are purchasing a bit of Tara’s spirit; a small amount of her ability to look beyond and overcome adversity. Read More »
I studied fine art at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), graduating in 2008 with a BFA in General Fine Arts. During my final semester at MICA I discovered a Jewelry 101 course offered through the Continuing Studies department. When my grandfather passed away in 2004 I inherited his jeweler’s tools, equipment, and remaining raw materials as well as his collection of precious and semi-precious gemstones that he collected over a period of 20+ years along his travels throughout the US. I had long been interested in taking a jewelry course in order to learn how to use these tools, and four years later finally found my chance.
Having always been more attracted to the more process-oriented art forms, in metal-smithing I found a new world of possibilities opened up to me. Since taking this jewelry course, I have continued to develop my skills at the workbench through trial and error, practice and persistence. I began my business “Nadine Essra Designs” in 2010. Read More »
When my boyfriend and I moved in together all of my jewelry went into hiding in bins and other such jewelry boxes. After a while I started to forget what I had. While at a friends house I saw this silver tree with her rings and earrings and I fell in love with the idea of a real tree to display my jewelry. This idea rolled around in my thoughts for the next 2 years when it suddenly came to me that I could make trees out of Manzanita branches! I searched high and low for the perfect branch to display my own jewelry and finally came across the red tree that you see in my 30″ Red Tree ad. This is my actual tree and 5 years later it still looks just as amazing as it did when I first made it.
Two years went by and I had received a ton of compliments for my tree and kept hearing that there was nothing like it in the market. I started making a tree here and there for my friends for gifts and then selling them to my friends for their friends. This is when I decided to open my little store on Etsy.com. It took a couple of months for the word to get out about my listings and it a slow build of likes and potential sales, but October 2011 rolled around and we were starting to receive orders! We sold 50 trees between October and December, with the most (30 trees) sold in December for christmas. Read More »
Sónia Nunes, who lives and works in Portugual, is the Designer-Maker at Moldarina®. With a degree in Social Education, she worked eleven years in social housing areas of Lisbon, Almada and Coimbra.
In 2006 she experienced the pleasure of creating jewelry, after a casual visit at a supply store. Since then she started a self-taught path where she learned to embroider, knit, crochet, sew, photograph, among many other things. Read More »
My name is Erika Iozsa and Jasmin Blanc is my special place to explore, learn and immortalize beauty, but also a means to get my message through. This brand was born in the beautiful lands of Transylvania in 2010, today being based in London, UK. My current work is a fine shaped jewelry line, handcrafted in ceramics, with a focus on delicate, feminine shapes, pastel colors and detailed textures. Recently I have launched my first wedding collection as well.
I come from a family of creatives, and art has always been the perfect way to express myself. I have learned most of the technicalities from my father, who is a professional mold maker and an artisan of ceramic decorative items. It was exactly this knowledge I got from him, which has become the foundation of everything else I have later learned from experience and a lot of research. Read More »
Unique and whimsical jewelry has always appealed to me, and when a friend started making her own pieces I decided to experiment. I had an idea for a necklace and bought some materials. My first piece turned out really well and I was delighted. With the spare materials I hadn’t used I began experimenting by making other pieces, and soon I was hooked. I’ve been in love with the process of making jewelry ever since.
My processes and materials have developed a lot since the beginning. However the simple enjoyment of making something beautiful has not changed. Read More »
I launched Sabi Collection in May of 2012. I am attracted to natural materials. They have inherent beauty, just by virtue of their existence in nature. I love the unrefined perfection in wood, in all forms. That may, in a way, be a means of understanding my very disorganized (yet desperate for order) personality. There is a very elegant (dis)order in the way wood weathers and ages.
The wood that is collected and used in the jewelry is personified in my mind. Each piece has a life cycle. I do not know what the wood was used for (or not) in the past, but it has been found it at some point in its life. The wood is transformed as it becomes a piece of jewelry. The process of multiplying the raw wood into a family of pieces is done in a way that respects, even embraces, its natural imperfections. Then, the addition of things which offset the rustic nature of the wood are worked into the design: bright chain, color, etc. I am a strong believer that good design is always balanced. The most impactful objects, fashions, spaces are those which utilize two contradictory aesthetic techniques: a crystal chandelier above a rustic table, edgy spikes juxtaposed with sweet pearls, a clean and modern home on a jagged mountain; the list goes on. Sabi Collection attempts to achieve this balance. Read More »
I attended the Perpich Center for Arts Education, otherwise known as the Minnesota arts high school and had a jewelry making class that I loved taught by Cheryl Rydmark, a jeweler who now lives in northern California. I ended up getting an apprenticeship with Cheryl, which we originally thought would just be for the summer, but I ended up working for her for almost 7 years, during which time I attended college.
In 1999, I started my own business, growing it slowly from a part-time business in a shared studio space, to a full-time business in a big sunny space of my own, although I still work alone. I sell wholesale to stores and do quite a lot of custom wedding rings. I really try to use the most eco-friendly and socially conscientious materials for my work, which means using recycled metals, and gems which are either recycled, fair trade or laboratory-grown. Read More »
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