My love of jewelry goes back to childhood, when I would play with the little kits you can get in the store with plastic beads. Over the years, my mother has established a collection of little pieces I've made her for various holidays. What you might call my 'professional' jewelry career started about eight years ago when I started making my own chainmaille, which is quite an experience. My co-workers would ask to purchase them, as I would work on a project during meal periods, and this led to selling on Etsy.
My style has taken several evolutionary leaps over the last eight years. From chainmaille, to stringing with tigertail, to wire wrapping, and to brass stamping work. I discovered VintageJewelrySupplies.Com among the ads of a beading magazine and it changed my entire outlook on jewelry. It gave me the opportunity to recreate, after a fashion, the vintage and victorian jewelry I'd idolized for as long as I could remember.
Jewelry is my entertainment, my hobby and occasionally my sanity, but my son is my life. Riley was born on November 21, 2010 and he's changed my life forever. Jewelry is now a side job, second to raising my son and delighting in every little accomplishment he makes. I'm so fortunate to have such a wonderful little guy who allows me a little time in every day to work on my 'sanity' and I couldn't ask for a more wonderful life with him and my husband.
Collen and Desiree Bigard
July 25, 2009
Me and my son, Riley. 2011
My husband and our son, 2011
