NEWS — behind the scenes

Three years ago today, I was gearing up for a busy holiday sales season..... and I was also very pregnant with my first son. 

And here I am, once again very busy and very pregnant! 

Yup, I'm getting ready to welcome another baby, though hopefully he'll wait until his January due date to arrive. 

With my son Gabriel on Christmas Eve 2016. He was 10 days old! 

I often talk about how much I love my job, to the point where I have to be reminded to step away from my bench and PUT THE PLIERS DOWN! Thank God for my wonderful, hilarious and lovable son, who reminds me daily that there are far more important things in life than making jewelry. I'm so grateful that I decided to become a mother -- something I never thought I wanted to do! 

I'm pregnant now with another boy, and while I'm not looking forward to those sleepless nights and the utter lack of free time, I'm so excited to have another child to love as much as I love my son, Gabriel. 

I'll be hard at work this holiday season, filling oodles of online orders and slinging my wares at art markets in New Orleans and beyond. Then (hopefully!) I'll have a few short weeks to catch my breath before giving birth. Fingers crossed.... 

Apparently Christmas time babies are becoming a holiday tradition in my house! What holiday traditions do you celebrate? 

A common problem for most artists (most creative people in general I'm sure!!) is that we have more ideas in our head than we ever have time to execute. 

For years now, I've been playing around with the idea of creating a line of "message" jewelry. With the current political climate, now more than ever I think it's important to be loud and proud about not just the things we enjoy, but the ideals we care about deeply. 

With that in mind, I finally began working on a line of message jewelry.

I wanted the line to contain messages that motivate, that bring peace and that make you smile. 

To make these pieces, first, I sketched out each design: experimenting with fonts and playing with layouts. Then I worked with a graphic designer to turn my chicken scratch into something legible. With the help of my ridiculously gifted friend Amber, we etched out the final designs onto sheets of brass. Once the design was etched, I used a disc cutter to cut out each piece. From there, the piece gets cleaned, blackened (to make the design pop) and lightly polished.

I'll be making these new designs available for purchase on my website soon. To find out when they will be released, join our email list (link in the footer of this page) 

And keep checking the website for more of these sassy, smart ass, fearless message jewelry -- because my brain isn't slowing down anytime soon! 

The first piece of jewelry I ever made that I was truly proud of was my Rocker Chick ring. 

I'd been dabbling with jewelry making for a while, and making the things most new jewelers make: blobby circles, overly-hammered linked shapes, etc.

Then I took a wax carving class and everything changed. 

I realized I could create in metal any shape I dreamed of, beyond the limitations of wire and sheet. I traveled to Thailand for vacation and was inspired by a random shape I encountered while wandering one day: a sleek, curved horn with two pointed ends. I envisioned it as a ring, long enough to cover multiple fingers. I sketched it in my travel journal, and when i returned to the states, i carved it in wax and cast it in sterling silver.

When I finally had the finished product in my hands, I knew that this piece was the beginning of everything I had envisioned for my jewelry line. It was a balance of hard and soft; the curving form was enduringly feminine, while the pointed ends were tough and masculine.

To this day (13 years later!) it's still the ring that i wear the most. And I have such a personal affinity for this ring, whenever a customer buys it, I have to control myself from hugging them. This ring is where my life as a jeweler and a small business owner began and when someone else falls in love with this ring, I feel like maybe I'm meeting a kindred spirit.