Like Snowflakes
10.29.08
I don’t know just how many custom charm bracelets I’ve designed and created to date… lots though. Dozens, maybe 50, maybe more. And each time one of these delightful opportunities comes into my life, I suffer a moment of doubt at first (the typical facing-the-blank-white-page fear)… Have I found all of the possible solutions? Can this one be as perfectly unique and stunning as all the others so as not to disappoint my dear customer?
The custom bracelet is a very important thing I’ve been entrusted with, and these are investment pieces, not inexpensive. I take it all extremely seriously. (Really. For once, I’m not joking around). Seriously, but joyfully, if that makes sense.
So I fret a little, but as the process unfolds, a remarkable thing happens. The emails start flying, maybe a few photos too. I read and reread, and sometimes I even read between the lines (just a little!). I ask questions and I let the project (the person really) live in some place I imagine to be a special room deep in my creative heart.
Occasionally, I wake up in the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning… and the bracelet has begun to materialize visually, in my mind’s eye. One of the first elements to show up might be color. And yet, the color is really the last thing to be finalized during the process… I don’t pull beads from my (80 and counting) fishing tackle boxes until the last charm ordered has arrived.
Usually, the colors I’ve thought of initially will become the foundational palette. Occasionally though, I am surprised by something that happens during the design process. The bits of red in Cathy’s Lovely Garden was one such surprise. And it really worked with all of the gorgeous ambers, coppers and greens as just the right tiny hit of bright color. The neons in Lee Anne’s Carpe Diem were tricky and I wasn’t sure I could pull that off. The result was unexpected even though I’d had a rough plan.
The two bracelets pictured through this post were in my studio during a recent overlapping period. Lee Anne, a super creative and beautiful young American girlie is a riot of celebratory charm and color. Cathy, a gorgeous artistic woman living in the UK with her young son is a lovely garden of wise warmth and cherished memories. If you look closely, they both have a charm in common, a vintage rhinestone studded butterfly from a pair of earrings I had found months prior. I love that and hadn’t realized I’d done it!
Like snowflakes, no two are ever alike. And it is always a privilige, an honor, and just plain fun getting to know each of you and creating art in the form of keepsake jewelry to charm and delight you! To learn more about the custom process and some idea of costs, scroll down to the bottom of the custom page at So Charmed. Think it over a bit, and then get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.
