Introducing Jeannie Hwang

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Turtle Love Co.

Jeannie Hwang‘s wedding rings are different. They’re clean, they’re bold, they’re wearable. We like them.

Also, we like Jeannie.

As a kid, Jeannie aspired to be an important corporate business woman. “I loved the thought of wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase and having important meetings all day,” she says. She pursued her dream, and some years later, she was a market research analyst in Sydney, Australia, working very stressful 60-hour weeks.

On a whim, Jeannie and a friend decided to take an art class together to relieve some pressure. Through pure serendipity, jewelry-making was the only class that fit into their busy schedules. “It was a blast!” remembers Jeannie. “We learned the very basics of sawing, filing and using some hand tools. I was hooked.”

Having pursued and achieved her childhood dream of corporate glory, Jeannie turned her sights to excellence as a jeweler. After lots of experimentation and hard work, and a two-year jewelers’ apprenticeship, Jeannie embarked on her own as a jeweler. She now lives in San Francisco with her husband.

We love Jeannie’s raw and elegant engagement rings, like the Horizon Solitaire, which we set with a gorgeous recycled diamond, so that your treasure is thoughtful AND gorgeous.

Jeannie Hwang’s second career is obviously fruitful for her, and we count ourselves fortunate to be able to enjoy her vision.

Need a beautiful, hand-made gift post haste? We’ve got you covered.

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

Hello! Seasons greetings, happy holidays, may the force be with you…

The holidays can be stressful times, especially these last few days leading up to Christmas when your favorite stores are packed to the brim with other last-minute shoppers. We believe it’s important to give thoughtful, personal gifts, which can make gift shopping that much trickier.

If your gift-ee is someone who loves finely-crafted, artisan-made jewelry, we’ve got you covered! Turtle Love Co. has a selection of pieces that can still be shipped in time for Christmas. Our Holiday Gift Guide has all the details, with gifts spanning our sweet dinosaur necklaces and bronze key necklaces to lovely designs by Bree Richey as well as our beautiful vintage rings. You will be sure to find a gift within your price range, too!

This holiday season, let us help you find the perfectly affordable, perfectly lovely, perfectly meaningful gift.

Have a happy, stress-free holiday with Turtle Love Co.!

Do you think you could build a business with your mom? Or your daughter?

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

Not everybody can do it, but Roberta and Talley Starbird seem to be doing a mighty job of building a mother-daughter jewelry design studio!

Roberta (the mom) and Talley (the daughter) design jewelry in their studio in Austin, Texas. They each have a unique style, each appealing in its own way. Roberta’s work is focused on ribbons of silver, coiling and springing into shape. And Talley’s work uses lots of riveting to create otherworldly designs that seem like they belong underwater, or in space, or in a steampunk exhibition!

“When I was little,” Talley says, “my mom and I would bond by taking crafting classes together.” Clearly, those times together have paid off!

After fifteen years working as a computer analyst for IBM, Roberta decided to focus on building her skills as a jeweler. ”I think I became a jeweler because I like jewelry so much,” Roberta says. ”I liked focusing my creative ideas on that medium.” After Talley graduated from college with a degree in math, she joined her mom in the business.

In her spare time, Talley loves to swing dance, and often travels to attend swing dance conferences. She also plays soccer, and has two kittens, Walnut and Nugget, as well as two guinea pigs named Ansel and Flower Pot.

Roberta reads mystery novels and often spends the evenings doing crossword puzzles with her husband. She has a corgi named Pip, “but Talley is hard at work trying to convince me to get another dog,” says Roberta.

Check out Roberta and Talley’s work at Turtle Love Co.

Fresh flowers and skipping stones from Bree Richey

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

Every designer at Turtle Love Co. brings something totally unique to the Turtle Love Co. collection of jewelry.

Bree Richey is one of our most recent additions, and we can honestly say we’ve never seen anything like Bree’s jewelry. The sterling silver shapes are pleasingly smooth and geometric, evocative of flowers, dew drops, Venetian gondolas, skipping stones, and space ships. (Though to be fair, some of us see spaceships in pretty much everything…)

In any case, these pieces are gorgeous. And fun to wear. Which one is your favorite?

Find a perfectly pretty, perfectly affordable Bree Richey piece at Turtle Love Co.

Meet Page Sargisson!

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

So, we’re super-excited to introduce the work of Page Sargisson! We’ve added a bunch of her work to the TLC collection, with some awesome options for down-to-earth wedding and engagement rings.

Page describes her Brooklyn studio as bright and happy, with a couch where she occasionally takes afternoon naps. The colors are fuchsia and orange - with two boys at home, ages 4 and 2, she doesn’t get to see pink very often. Page has always been a designer of sorts, starting at age eight, when she would knit clothes for her Cabbage Patch Kids.

In creating her jewelry, Page doesn’t always follow convention. “Too much of this world is made by machine now and everything looks sterile. I love seeing the imperfections, the hand of the artist.” Page mostly wears her own jewelry, although she and her husband found her engagement ring - a 1950′s cocktail ring - in Rome.

Page has never owned a car, and is passionate about car-less transportation. She lived in Europe for a time, and is particularly fond of the railroad. With two kids, she rarely has thirty minutes of downtime, but takes those once-in-a-while opportunities to lie in bed and read. She indulges in chocolate on a daily basis.

See more of Page’s earthy yet sophisticated rings at Turtle Love Co.

Check out this awesome vintage engagement ring!

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

Dude. Check out this ring!

Let me tell you, this picture doesn’t even do the ring justice. This ring was made in 1925, and is one of the most recent additions to our vintage engagement ring and vintage wedding band collection. Our vintage wedding bands are totally awesome to look at, but they also subscribe to the “reduce, reuse, recycle” philosophy.

Isn’t the this vintage engagement ring simply stunning? We can imagine it gracing the hand of a glamorous 1920′s movie star like Louise Brooks…

Meet Rebecca McNerney

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

Hey! We’re excited to introduce Rebecca McNerney and her work. It’s got an awesome hand-sculpted feel to it that’ll be a welcome addition to your wardrobe or a well-loved gift. Check out these earrings - don’t they look like a familiar well-loved pebble?

Also, Rebecca has PET TORTOISES. So we hit it off right away!

Originally from San Francisco, Rebecca McNerney has been living in Phoenix, Arizona, for the past twenty-five years, where she designs and creates jewelry out of her home studio. Although she aspired to be a fashion designer as a child, her career as a jewelry designer began when her golden retriever broke a string of beads she’d inherited from her grandmother. What started out as a repair job turned into a career in jewelry design.

Rebecca’s work has a peaceful, familiar feel to it. “All of my designs are very simple, and focus on the intrinsic beauty of the materials,” Rebecca says. She’s interested in fiber arts and textiles, which you can sometimes see in her work.

Rebecca is an avid reader - she devours two to three books a week in between hiking, walking, and watching films. Rebecca shares her home with her husband, Max the rescue dog, two desert tortoises and a box turtle. Her sons are away at college.

See more of Rebecca’s lovely jewelry at Turtle Love Co.

Meet Laura Serrafero - and her luscious new jewelry!

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

As a child growing up in Genova, Italy, Laura Serrafero loved to draw and dance. She announced to her parents at the age of seven that she was going to be an artist, and has been designing her unique jewelry for almost 20 years.

Based in Toronto, Laura shares a work space and shop with her husband to showcase imported African art as well as Laura’s designs. “We were not sure at first how it would be working together… But realized that we really enjoy it!” Laura says. In her time outside of the studio and shop, Laura enjoys the outdoors with her husband and daughter. She also loves Toronto’s cultural offerings and can often be found visiting art galleries, museums, or the theater.

From now until October 30, we’re offering a 10% discount on all new Laura Serrafero rings. Use promo code ELES10 during checkout.

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

from commons.wikimedia.org

Okay, so we’re dying to know: what does the modern marriage proposal look like? Who proposes to whom? Is the down-on-one-knee proposal still apropos? In our day-to-day work at Turtle Love Co. we hear from all kinds of couples about their nontraditional wedding ceremonies, not to mention the unique engagement rings and wedding bands so many of them are opting for. With rings that range from the classic to the extraordinary, we suspect that the act of proposing can vary just as much!

Tell us what made your proposal unique. E-mail us at [email protected] with your story (and photos!) if you’d like to be featured in a future blog post. Check back next week to see some responses!

Bon Voyage!

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Turtle Love Co.

We just got wind of news from A Practical Wedding (one of our favorite blogs!) that their editor, Lauren, is leaving her position for new adventures. We enjoyed reading about how much she loved her job there, and also why she chose a ring from Turtle Love Co. to wear as her wedding band (the luscious Water Lily Diamond Engagement Ring in gold). She says, “As I’m typing this I am rocking my Turtle Love Co. wedding ring—100% paid for because supporting artists is incredibly important to me.”

Hearing from others who share our passion for supporting independent artists is one thing we love about our jobs! We wish Lauren the best of luck in her new adventures.

TLC

the blog

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