Every maker has a bead they bought on instinct and haven't figured out yet. Mine is a bowl of polished serpentine — stunning, stubborn, and still waiting for the right...
The hardest part of making jewelry for a shop isn't the wire or the beads. It's learning to hold your own preferences loosely enough to make room for someone else's.
Some beads are pretty. These beads have been somewhere. A look at the chevrons, Peruvian pottery, Tibetan agate, and mala beads in my latest haul — and the history, culture,...
I've seen the prices. I understand the appeal. When you're a very small business watching every dollar, a strand of beads for $1.50 is not easy to scroll past. What...
The amethyst made it home. Now came the harder question: what did it want to be? Follow the design process — the failed first attempt, the unexpected find in the...
Every bead in my shop came from somewhere. And wherever possible, it came from someone. The vendors behind the jewelry — and why sourcing small always comes first.
Every bead has something to tell you before it ever touches a wire. Color, texture, shape, size, weight — and then something beyond all of those, something that lives in...
There's a question I get asked more than almost any other: Do you prefer gold or silver? Honestly? Both. But let me tell you when and why. I reach for gold when I...
