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Fur Babies & Jewelry

I make no apologies — I’m a huge animal fan. So when I first started creating jewelry over 15 years ago, one of the early pieces I created was to celebrate my pups at the time (a boxer and a boxer mix, thanks for asking 🙂

In fact, before we had kids, our dogs were our kids. Unlike our human kids, they never got potty trained. On the other hand, though, they would often ignore my commands and eat us out of house and home, so maybe they weren’t that different, after all.

Point being, when a customer tells me how important their pet is to them, I totally get it. That’s why we offer a whole bunch of jewelry options for pet lovers.

Our most popular items feature your pet’s actual paw print on the jewelry! Just send us a photo of the paw print, and we’ll create a necklace, bracelet, or even a ring that will let you keep your furry loved one near, even when you can’t be together.

A sterling silver ring, etched with the actual paw print shown in the picture — Paw Print Ring Round, in sterling silver, made from your pet’s actual paw print

If you have a cast of your dog’s print, we can use that, too.

We’ll create a print from the image of a cast of your pet’s paw print to create your jewelry

Of course, we have wonderfully creative customers. So when one saw the words, “paw print”, she thought a nose print would be even better for her!

Dog nose print on a pewter key chain — Our customer wanted her dog’s actual nose print on a key chain

If you have a whole pack of dogs (or a clowder of cats), you might like our Etched Paw Family Necklace. Made from sterling silver, it features a stylized paw print, along with all your pets’ names. It’s a unique and adorable way to celebrate the kids that are always happy to see you (YMMV with the cats on that account.)

Silver necklace featuring pet names, a stylized pet paw, with the names shown in relief on a black background — Etched Paw Family Necklace, made from sterling silver

Thinking of getting a piece of personalized jewelry to celebrate your pets? Let us know! We’d love to help you design the perfect piece.

Creating Handwriting Jewelry When You Don’t Have the Words to Put on the Jewelry

We can create words from your handwriting sample by combining the individual letters from the document(s) you provide. It might be a recipe, or an old handwritten letter, or some other writing that has the letters needed.

Customers will often come to us with a handwritten note that contains words or a phrase that they want to put on a piece of jewelry.

Sometimes, the words they want aren’t all from one note, card or document. In that case, customers send us images of the different documents, and our artists will use pieces from each of them to create the combined writing for the jewelry piece.

We combined “Love “, “Lisa”, and “Mom” from the image on the left, and “you” from the image on the right. For the comma, we can use a piece of a letter (like the bottom of an ‘e’, or hand draw it to match the rest of the writing.

This can often be the case when someone is looking for a piece of memorial jewelry in memory of a loved one that has passed.

But what if you don’t even have the word you want in your loved one’s handwriting?

For example, you might have a letter in her handwriting, but it doesn’t have any or all of the words you want to put on the jewelry.

In that case, we can create the words from the handwriting sample by combining the individual letters from the document(s) you provide. It might be a recipe, or an old handwritten letter, or some other writing that has the letters we need.

Sculpted Rectangle Handwriting Necklace, with original handwriting

In fact, we’ve even helped customers create a special message when some of the letters weren’t there (like with the silver handwriting cuff bracelet shown at the top of this post!) In that case, we have to get creative. With some fancy Photoshop footwork, a ‘d’ can be transformed into a perfect ‘p’ or a ‘q’, an ‘h’ can become an ‘n’, or an ‘n’ can be used to create an ‘m’. We’ve worked with many thousands of handwriting samples, and have plenty of tricks up our sleeve.

On the small chance the individual letter can’t be created from existing letters, we can hand draw the letter. To do this, we do a careful analysis of the handwriting sample we have – the size, the thickness, the writing angles, the style and sizes of ascenders and descenders, etc., to make sure it will be a perfect match.

Once all the letters are ready, it’s time to combine them!

A person’s handwriting can vary quite a bit throughout a document. An ‘i’ near the top of the piece of paper is often larger then one near the end, when the writer was running out of room! If an ‘i’ from the top is paired with an ‘s’ squeezed in from a word at the bottom of the page, the letters won’t look like they go together, and the resulting writing will look wrong together.

So, it’s essential to make sure all the letters all scaled to matching size & thickness.

Typically, the writing is cursive, so each letter then needs to have a hand drawn connector to the adjacent letters. Whenever possible, we use the existing connectors from the letters.

Of course, this is a time-consuming and painstaking process, and requires a lot of experience and skill. But the results are worth it to produce a precious piece of jewelry that’s exactly what you want.

Have questions? Let us know — we’re here to help!

Using More than One Handwriting Image for Your Jewelry

We can combine handwriting from more than one image to create the message you want on your jewelry.

Customers often ask us questions like:

“I want the phrase, ‘Love Mom XXX‘ on my bracelet/necklace/ring/etc, but I don’t have a document where my mom wrote that exact phrase.”

Or maybe you have a card with the writing you want, but you like the way Mom signed her name better on another card, so you want to have that version of “Mom” on your piece.

No problem! In this case we can combine handwriting from more than one image to create the message you want.

Here’s how it works:

Send us images of the handwriting you want put on the jewelry. You can upload the images when you order, or just email them to us afterwards
Our artists will extract the handwritten words you want from each image. As part of that process, we’ll take a number of steps to make sure your writing looks its very best.
Often, the handwriting from the images will be different sizes or thickness. So, we’ll carefully adjust the writing so that it all matches seamlessly.
Then, we’ll lay out the writing so that it elegantly fills the charm, and is visually balanced for the perfect look. This is an important step that, done well, can make a huge difference in the aesthetic appeal of the jewelry.

Have questions? Let us know — we’re here to help!

Necklace of the Month for January

We’re a little over a week into the year — a perilous time for those new resolutions. It’s not their fault, and they mean well, but sometimes it’s just hard to be mindful of change you want to bring.

Whether it’s a word you’ve chosen for your year, a shorthand for your resolution, or any other word that has a special meaning to you, our Affirmation Bar Necklace is a beautiful way to always keep it close to your heart.

Featuring a lovely Swarovski crystal, the Affirmation Bar Necklace is one of our most popular necklaces. And it’s our January Necklace of the Month!