The material is very important. In fact, I would say that finding good quality and beautiful material and reliable suppliers with whom you will have a good relationship is half the battle. I personally take great pride in quality material. I really make my jewellery for you from the heart and with love, and since I believe that the good energy I put into a piece of jewellery when I make it stays in it and you carry it around with you, your jewellery is like talismans, it is important to me that it stays beautiful for a long time. To make your jewellery last long beautiful you need to take some care of it, but I will tell you more about that in another article. I search all over the world for the materials I use to make jewellery for you. I won't divulge what I get from where, I'll keep it as a family recipe, but I really feel like I've found the best possible materials and components over several years of searching. Yes, currently you might say, what about the carbon footprint when it's flying across the world? To at least offset this a little, I pride myself on the fact that the materials I buy are from small suppliers, family-owned businesses, and from companies that work on equal and fair terms. You won't find gold-plated components from China in any of my products. So, what do I make the jewellery out of for you? I use exclusively or 95% sterling silver (AG925) earrings, which are gold plated in yellow or rose gold. I also use AG925 sterling silver, gold plated sterling silver, or gold-plated brass, which you may know as gold-filled, to make the chains. I like to use this material for high stress jewellery such as necklaces, chain bracelets and cord bracelets because of its high durability. What is gold-filled? Gold-filled material consists of a layer of gold (typically at least 5% of the total weight of the jewellery) that is mechanically - by plating - bonded to a carrier metal, which can be silver or base metal. I work with a base metal, namely brass. Quality "gold-filled" components look like gold and even with daily wear they can last for several years before the layer wears off on the base metal. The layer of gold in such gold-plated jewellery is 5-10 times thicker than in conventional gold plating and 15-25 times thicker than in electroplating. Not only from metal but I make jewellery for you. What other materials do I use and what are my favourites? This is a tough one. I'm a big creative and "collector" and even as a kid I loved my grandmother's box full of all kinds of buttons, hooks, and beads. It's actually very hard for me to say what my favourite material is because I really love all the materials I create with. Stones I love stones in all their forms - raw and cut. I have a slight preference for faceted cut stones, for the way they reflect light and for the way they can elevate any piece of jewellery. I only ever work with natural stones and never use coloured stones. You will often find moonstone, garnet, or rose quartz in my jewellery. Not to mention, these are stones that are great, and every woman should have them, but more on what magic they hold for another time. Pearls You must be familiar with the myth of the goddess Aphrodite, who was born as a pearl from the foam of the sea. Aphrodite is considered the most beautiful of all goddesses and because I consider all of us women to be goddesses and because pearls are a symbol of feminine beauty, energy, and love, you will find pearls in a really large number of my jewellery. Maybe it's the age, maybe it's the way you have to mature like olives :), but pearls and diamonds just don't age, and they will hold you up to any occasion and you will always feel beautiful with then. Even if you have a day when you just want to crawl into a big sweatshirt and eat ice cream straight from the cup. That's why I love pearls, I enjoy working with them and you would find a lot of strings of pearls in my studio in all sorts of different shapes and shades. I'll talk to you more about pearls sometime too. There is no such thing as a pearl, each one is valued differently for its properties and each one finds its way to someone's heart. Coral Coral is the last of my favourite materials I would like to mention. Ever since I was pregnant for the second time, I have been strongly attracted to the colour red. I felt the need to make something out of coral. When I started to look for materials and the right supplier, and became more interested in coral, I came across some beautiful fables and stories about coral and its importance. Did you know that red coral is a symbol of motherhood? It was even given to newborn babies to put by their cribs as a talisman to protect them and according to myths, mermaids gave coral to sailors they loved to guard them during their voyage, lest they perish at sea in a storm, isn't that beautiful? Have you thought of who you would like to give a piece of coral jewellery to? But coral is rare, protected and limited in its harvest. I care a lot about the material I work with and that's why even with coral I check where it comes from and, most importantly, I only work with it in limited quantities. I will dedicate a separate article to coral next time and it will be an interesting story. I wanted to give you a little insight into the materials I work with most often and most often. I hope I have succeeded a little bit. Material is a big topic for me, and I could talk about it for hours. A lot of my jewellery ideas come to me during the process of finding materials, picking out stones and pearls and researching new suppliers. The material just speaks to me and kind of tells itself what it's going to be. Sometimes I'll open a package, pull out a string of stones and get right to work. Sometimes I buy the material for the sake of it, and then it sits and waits for its time for the next few months until the right next component is found to go with it. But what I can tell you is that during the last year when we were all cooped up at home with the kids, I didn't have much room to create new things, but I spent my evenings researching and finding and collecting beautiful components, stones and chains. I have a head full of ideas and look forward to manifesting them for you all. Kristýna