The sun shines through Sophia Luppino’s window on a cold 2020 December morning. The rays come through her half-washed window in Fort Lee, N.J., and reflects off of jewelry material she had laid out on her crafting table. She makes a fresh cup of coffee and gets started on her jewelry pieces.

Luppino, like a lot of people, took the pandemic as a chance to start something she has always wanted to do: her own business. Handmade jewelry is steadily becoming a more mainstream fashion statement and she wanted to get in on the ground floor.

According to the website www.issuewire.com, the use and popularity of handmade jewelry shot up during the first lockdown in 2020. She has been making jewelry ever since she was a child and now, she wanted to do it as a side business. So, she set up her online store site on Etsy and since December 2020, Luppino, who is 27 and works full-time for an accounting firm in New Jersey, has garnered a steady following on her Instagram and Etsy page. She says she sells close to 30 pairs of earrings whenever she does a drop on her Etsy page.

Luppino describes a drop as a selling period. She put items on sale every few months or so instead of having a year-round selection of options. This allows her to make items in stock instead of behind or on backorder.

A collection of Jillian Gasarowski’s crochet earnings. – Courtesy of Jillian Gasarowski

She is able to make her items unique by using a material that isn’t the norm: clay. makes intricate pieces using clay in a process that can take her five or six hours to complete. With every piece she makes, she is driven even further to having her own business. “I’m a graphic designer so in my day job, I don’t really get to express myself. It’s a lot of doing what my clients want me to do and not what I would like to do,” she says. “So, this is like an outlet for me to get the creative energy out and express myself with things I like.”

The art of making handmade jewelry has been around for a long time, practically since humans emerged. The earliest records and signs of handmade jewelry can be traced back to Europe and the Neanderthals. They made perforated beads from seashells and small stones. These have been dated back at least 100,000 years.

According to www.carriehoffman.com, Metal became a more mainstream element around 7000 B.C.E. Copper was the cheapest metal around at the time and was used extensively in handmade jewelry. The most prominent and extravagant pieces, however, came from ancient Egypt. Gold was prominently used in jewelry made in ancient Egypt as well as special gemstones, each one having a special meaning.

Fast forward to now, handmade jewelry can be made with anything ranging from clay to feathers. The only restriction on the material is a limit on the artists’ imagination. The popularity of handmade jewelry was heightened by the pandemic as it gave artists an opportunity to venture into this field. Not only did the pandemic allow people to try other ventures, but it also gave them a customer base stuck indoors. Since most artists use online selling platforms, readily available to most home-bound customers.

Handmade jewelry is such a fad now mainly because of quality, according to www.medium.com. The human element it possesses makes it much more appealing to the masses. Not only is the customer getting a superior quality item, but also something that a buyer can customize. Another positive aspect is the design. A lot of pieces have intricate designs that just cannot be replicated by a machine.

When using the word handmade jewelry, the main materials that come to mind are probably metal and stones. But yarn is slowly making its way into the scene. Crochet, like handmade jewelry, is an old practice that first started in the 15th century. It is the process of handcraft wherein yarn is transformed into a patterned fabric while being looped with a hooked needle. Usually, crochet is used for clothes, but it is also being included in the world of handmade jewelry.

Jillian Gasarowski, living in Philadelphia, Pa. does that. She has been crocheting for the past 17 years. An art form passed down from her mother, Gasarowski perfected her skills over time and has what she calls a fairly successful business of selling her crocheted items. While she started out by selling crop tops, she has recently started selling earrings as well. A huge fan of 1960s and 1970s fashion, Gasarowski wanted to pay homage to a decade she identifies with. Every piece she makes has a nostalgic feeling to it.

A pair of earrings made by Jillian Gasarowski – Courtesy of Jillian Gasarowski.

Crocheting is known to be a labor-intensive task. Gasarowski wanted to have more options available for people to buy so she started crocheting earrings this past fall. Compared to the bigger items she makes, like sweaters, the earrings are made in a fraction of the time and cost. Many of the bigger items on her page can often take days to complete as she also works full-time for Urban Outfitters. Her crochet earrings have already become her most popular item, because of the price point and convenience.

“I started with the earrings because it doesn’t take me long and I can make a lot of it. The customer base of people who want to buy a $400 sweater is not that large,” Gasarowski says. “The creative spark and fulfillment I get when I start working on a new design is indescribable. Being able to create unique and one-of-a-kind pieces for people truly makes me so happy.”

Ashley Meadow also uses crochet to create jewelry. Like Gasarowski, she also started out by making clothes but soon transitioned into also making smaller items like earrings and bracelets through crochet.

Her East Boston apartment is strewn with yarn and half-finished projects. She has the habit of starting a project and leaving it half-finished and then starting another one. But, in the end, she makes sure all her pieces are completed. Unlike many others, Meadow doesn’t have an Etsy page, nor does she take any custom orders. As soon as she is done with a particular piece, she will post about it on her Instagram account and is sold on a first come first serve basis.

While she has a relatively small following on Instagram, she is happy with the things she sells and has no plans to change the way she goes about selling her pieces. She calls her pieces a mix of gnarly and chic and has a rather unique style.

“I love doing crochet, but I have no plans of making it bigger. It is something I normally do on the side and is not my main focus. I’m not too obsessed about selling right now,” Meadow  says. “I normally make things for myself or for my friends but once in a while I will sell a few pieces on Instagram. Sometimes, because I barely have 300 followers, items even go unsold. I’m not really bothered by that.”

Spiritually plays a big role in her life and it is evident in the pieces she makes. Apart from crocheting jewelry, also does work with crystals and spreads knowledge about how effective she believes crystal energy can be. While Meadow doesn’t make jewelry using crystals, she does buy them.

Her friend, Sylera Rojas, who lives in Salem, is also a big believer in spirituality. She is also a user of crystals; Rojas implements this energy into the jewelry she makes. She uses crystals a lot in her pieces, she says, because of the energy they produce.

“My whole family is a big believer in crystal energy and I’ve always grown up with it. I started making jewelry with this back in 2016,” Rojas says.” My mom is the main one who really got me started not only in this but in many forms of art. My main purpose was to always spread joy, but once in a while I’ll make a piece that has special meaning, like the ones I make with healing crystals.”

Necklace made by Cevher Demirel – Keshav Vinod.

Few craft jewelry artists have any formal training in the art they are making. Most of their skills and knowledge are passed down to them by family members or relatives, or they just pick it up on their own.

Tiffany Wang, 23, lives in Los Angeles and is one artist who picked up the art of making jewelry on her own. She started experimenting with various materials but eventually fell in love with making jewelry with polymer clay. She started delving into the world of handmade jewelry with her sister when the pandemic first started, which eventually led her to sell items in October of 2020.

Wang has quite a substantial following on social media, boasting more than 11,000 followers on Instagram. This has helped her become an established handmade jeweler and she is almost always swamped in fulfilling orders she ships across the continental U.S. She is now doing acrylic earrings.

“I started with polymer clay during the pandemic, but I wanted to try a different medium and that’s when I started making acrylic earrings,” Tiffany says. “I don’t really have any formal training I just picked it up by practicing and doing my own research. It’s my creative outlet outside work and I love doing it.”

Craft jewelry is also a great way to bridge a cultural divide. It is a uniting factor among many people across the world, especially when the materials needed are so easily available.

Istanbul is one of the oldest cities in the world and has a long history of culture and significance. Turkey is uniquely situated wherein half of the country is in Asia while the other half is located in Europe. This uniqueness means that Turkey, and especially Istanbul, is a melting pot for so many cultures.

Crystal necklace made by Cevher Demirel. – Keshav Vinod.

Cevher Demirel is a 25-year-old architecture student from Istanbul. Demirel makes jewelry that is heavily influenced by his heritage. Like Rojas and Meadow, he also uses healing crystals a lot in his work. Weaving Asian and European influences with healing crystals, Demirel makes truly unique pieces.

“I recently also got into yoga in last few months and I use my crystal pieces at the same time. It really does help with stress and my mental health,” says Demirel in his Brookline apartment. “I don’t really sell my items. Like Ash (Ashley Meadow), I just make mostly for myself or my girlfriend. Maybe future I will try selling, who knows.”