How Bird’s Tail is Brought to Life: a Peek Inside the Design Process

As a young girl, I remember going through my mother’s jewelry box and admiring all of her jewels: her earrings, her necklaces, her rings. I loved feeling the pieces in my hands—their weight, their sparkle, their shine. (If only she had known! She would have killed me!). I would try each piece of jewelry on and admire my seven-year-old self in the mirror; I felt beautiful.

Even now jewelry has the ability to transform the way l feel. I can be in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, not feeling exceptionally pretty, but if I put on a necklace or a pair of earrings, that piece of jewelry instantly changes the way I look and feel.

As women, we want to feel our best regardless of which clothes we’re wearing or what we are doing (or not doing) that day. This is why designing and making jewelry is so special to me. My goal is to help women feel empowered, beautiful, and able to take on anything they face that day.

Each piece of jewelry I make has a story behind it. Here’s a little peek at the story of how I create each Bird’s Tail piece, from inspiration and experimentation to execution, and a whole lot of mess-ups and revisions in between.

Getting inspired:

My inspiration for jewelry design comes from many sources. I can be in a yoga class and inspired by the shapes that our bodies make, or out walking my dog and find inspiration in the the trees—the shapes in the leaves and the limbs. I might be window shopping downtown and be inspired by the angles and clean lines of a building. Here are just a few of the inspirations behind the Bird’s Tail pieces:

Nature - stars, moons, organic shapes, movement
Yoga - movement, shapes that the body can make, symbolism, spirituality
A city skyline - geometry, clean lines, shapes

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”

— Coco Chanel

Bringing the Pieces to Life:

After inspiration strikes, creating jewelry is a multi-step process.

First, I sketch an idea. I try to think of the type of jewelry and shapes that would make a woman feel beautiful. I think of the many facets of her life: what she needs, what she wants, what she could wear over and over again and in multiple ways. The ideas come to me at random times, sometimes even in the middle of the night.

Then I put all of the stones and metals out on my bench. And it gets messy. Sometimes the findings do the talking first. I put beads, metals, and stones together in hopes of turning them into something beautiful. I think about the healing properties of the stones and what women want and need from their jewelry.

Next, I bring the piece to life: hammering, cutting, shaping, filing.

Revising and Refining:

This part of the process involves lots of successful attempts and some not so successful. At times I will completely ruin a piece and have to start all over again (even starting over several times!) —it’s certainly a lesson in patience.

When I’m working on a piece of jewelry and the design doesn’t translate from the page (or my brain) to execution, I have to scrap or table the idea for another time when I can approach the piece with a fresh perspective.

Designing and creating jewelry can be a pretty emotional process. Sometimes I overanalyze the creative process or the actual design. Will others like this shape or this color? Does the piece match our brand, our mission? Ultimately, I have to trust my instincts, my taste, my talent and my experience, but that’s not always easy.

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

— Sylvia Plath

Appreciating the Nature of Handmade:

In the end, nothing I create will ever be perfect. But I truly believe that the beauty of handmade jewelry is in the fact that no two pieces are exactly the same. The joy is in the details, in the imperfections. Handmade means made one piece at a time. It can be a slow process. But the process is beautiful, one-of-a-kind and totally worth it. And just as we are all unique women, the beauty of each piece is found in its individual differences. In the words of Elizabeth Taylor: “Jewelry has the power to be this one little thing that can make you feel unique”.