First of all – Happy New Year! 🙂 Hope you all had a fantastic festive season – and for those in snowy climates – I am soooo jealous right now!! 😉
It’s been far too long since I last blogged, something I want to sort out this year (I’m not saying I’m going to aim for every week, but once a month would be good!) For this first blog post, I want to talk about charms…
Just before Christmas last year, my mom phoned me, and asked if I’d be able to make some little charms to go in the Christmas pudding – she said when she was young, they’d had silver charms in theirs, as opposed to money.. I said yes (even though I was hectically busy!), then suggested each charm be customised for each person.. This led to the following set of charms:
The star charm was for me (I’ve always loved stars, hence my business name), the bow & arrow for my husband – who loves archery, the airplane was for my uncle – who used to be an airplane engineer, the puppy was for my aunt – who has 2 golden retrievers, and the kitty for my mom’s best friend – who loves cats!
Even though these were just tiny, fun charms – it led me to think about charms – as well as traditional totems and amulets.. For thousands of years, different cultures have carried tokens as symbols of their tribe or family (totems), or as good luck charms (amulets), or simply to portray a piece of their history (where they’ve been or what they’ve done) or show off something they liked (like with charm bracelets)
I don’t know if I’m really a believer in something protecting you, but I love the idea of showing off your love of a particular thing – be it an animal or TV show.. I’ve done this for ages with my starbrightsilver geek range of jewellery on etsy – the designs are based on oblique references from geek culture, which allows only other geeks to recognise them, and thereby instantly form a subtle allegience with the wearer.. Some examples below:
I think this has had an effect on my design choices for the rest of my work.. I started doing Africa heart charms ages ago, and they’re probably my most popular item – I guess people love to show off where they’re from, especially when traveling. From this I progressed to making other “items” as opposed to just designs.. I have a range of little animals & birds with hearts (like a squirrel – which is probably my favourite animal) – and I love to hear people at the market exclaim how much they love a particular animal when they see the pendant on display! I also have some other objects – like the bicycle, and a classic camera – which fans of cycling and photography seem to love..
So essentially, for me a charm (whether to be worn as a pendant or on a bracelet), is about showing off the things in life you love..
Towards the end of last year, I also had a request to make a wild dog pendant – as the customer could not find one anywhere.. It was a challenge,but so wonderful to see her so happy with it when it was done!
So, I’m going to keep on doing what I do – creating items for people to show off a side of themselves that the world might not know about – whether it’s a geeky side, or just loving the cuteness of hedgehogs! Whether it’s a charm, amulet or totem to the wearer is irrelevant – as long as it’s something they love, I’m happy 🙂
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