It all started in Bolivia.

In the fall of 2009, my mother and I traveled to Cochabamba, Bolivia to spend six months volunteering in an emergency shelter for abused and abandoned girls.   I worked as an educator in a classroom for adolescents who had little previous schooling.   During our walk to the shelter each day, my mother and I noticed the thousands of seedpods cast off by the fragrant Jacaranda (Ha-ca-Ran-da) tree and my mother, an artist, suggested we collect them for some creative undertaking.  An avid jewelry collector, I decided to turn the natural beauties into earrings.  I gathered, washed, drilled, paired, painted and hooked the seedpods, transforming them into miniature pieces of wearable art.

While finding a love for teaching these girls, I also found passion in my artwork.  I held jewelry-making classes in the shelter, which my students loved.  Represented in each pair of Jacaranda earrings is the profound love I discovered for a people, its culture and its children, who changed my life forever.

Since starting my small jewelry business, I have traveled around the world collecting my seedpods – from Hawaii to El Salvador, Ecuador to Australia.  I even returned to Bolivia to where it all began and rediscovered my Jacaranda heaven.  My artistic style has evolved over the years, and my various global adventures continue to inspire my work.  I can promise that each pair of earrings is unique, bold, colorful and made with love.