GEM
The Guided Experience
The Guided Experience Making (GEM) was born from a desire to help others find catharsis through creating something with their hands and heart.
GEM is a deeply personal, collaborative jewelry-making retreat designed to help you create custom keepsakes that embody emotions, memories, or significant life moments.
Held in my Vermont studio, this experience is not a traditional class — it's a two-day guided journey where together we will create a piece of jewelry touched by your hands and heart.
Whether it's a locket, reliquary, or something else you dream up, together we will create a beautiful keepsake infused with love and personal significance.
Participants can engage as much or as little as they like in the process, with my guidance every step of the way. The goal is to create a tangible representation of a memory or emotion that serves as a lasting, meaningful talisman.
This experience is especially helpful for those processing grief, loss, or life transitions, offering a cathartic release through creation.
GEM provides a space to honor emotions—loss, grief, or transition—and transform them into something tangible and lasting. The jewelry we create becomes a vessel for memory, love, and connection.
Whether you come alone, with a partner, child, or sibling, GEM is about presence—connecting with yourself, your story, and those you hold dear.
With over 15 years of experience crafting memorial and sentimental jewelry, I will help you bring your story to life in a piece touched by both our hands and hearts.
Your journey begins with a free 30 minute call.
Sara's GEM
Sara approached me to create something to honor her late husband. Though they were divorced when he died, they share a son together, and she wanted a way to memorialize and remember him with love: the love they shared — the love that bore this sweet boy.
We started with a poem and a stone.
Words he penned early in their love, enamored by her blue green eyes:
I've watched the stars and seen the past
and all the shadows their light has cast
into this heart that rarely warms
two oceans blue
sometimes green
a gateway rarely seen
mind me not
when I stare in
It warms my blood
and heart again
The stone chosen for its ocean blues and greens.
They'd gotten married. They had a son. They got divorced. The relationship was complicated, but they were working on it for the sake of raising their son.
And then, unexpectedly, her ex husband died.
Though the relationship had ended, there was love. There was a history, and losing someone, even when you are no longer together, is devastating. The loss was profound and made all the more difficult because there was no funeral, no gathering in grief — no "closure".
At the end of this weekend, Sara put the locket on, and with tears shining in her beautiful blue green eyes, she said: "I feel like I finally have closure."
Initial sketches and components being built. The magic of etching — revealing the poem in his handwriting, etched into the silver.
Getting comfortable with the saw. Building confidence with the torch.
The locket form is starting to come together. Marking the locket to position the bail.
Hand polishing the inside back of the locket. Setting the stone.
Your journey begins with a free 30 minute call.
Sophie's GEM
What does a magenta egg carton have to do with jewelry?
Absolutely nothing.
But also, everything...
Back in May, at the Paradise City show in Northampton, I was approached by a young woman with her sweet toddler in tow. She looked around the booth and must have liked my work because, a bit shyly, she asked if I did custom jewelry. I told her I did, and she mentioned a “kind of weird” idea involving a pink egg carton. She had me right there — I was immediately sold.
I LOVE this kind of creative request.
She emailed me before I’d even returned from the show to ask about the GEM experience and whether she could do that.
So when I got back from Massachusetts, we had a phone conversation to go over a few details, and she was all in. In May, we booked a weekend in August for GEM.
That pink egg carton was, of course, so much more than a pink egg carton. It carried connections to Vermont, gentle greetings from the universe, and signs to trust the path and the process. It was about motherhood, legacy, the future, life...
Sophie was ready to add to her family, and she wanted to create a talisman to keep her connected to that vision.
She was hoping for a daughter (and considering the name Gemma!) and she was hoping to conceive her in Vermont, as they found it to be such a magical place.
Every decision that went into the piece was a conscious one. Sophie wanted a bubble in the resin. We made several "stones" of the egg carton and resin, aiming for the perfect bubble. I pointed out that the one she liked the best had two bubbles- perhaps a good sign?
She only treated part of the carton with sealant because she wanted some of the color to bleed. Some choices happened organically, like adding the three faux rivets.
And none of these are decisions I probably would have made if I’d been creating the piece on my own. They were design choices that evolved naturally as we worked with the materials. Sophie was so clear in her vision, and it was a privilege to help her bring it to life. And my goodness — it was magic.
She knew she wanted a flash of gold behind the round cut out in the arch shape, and I suggested she use the sticker on the top of the carton for Trapp Family Lodge (which happens to be in Vermont)
It wasn't until she lifted up the stencil that she realized she had perfectly framed the word "Family"
When it was time to assemble, she included a photo of her grandmother, hidden behind the gold and the egg carton. A tribute to heritage, and to legacy.
It was such an honor and absolute delight to have Sophie spend two days in the studio with me, working together to create such a special and unique piece of custom jewelry. I’m stunned by, and delighted with, the final piece. But more importantly, Sophie loves it.
And as an update— I contacted her several months ago to check in and see how she was doing. Her response?
Erin! I have also been thinking about you and was planning on reaching out! Ahhh working with you for the GEM experience was SO special. So glad to hear that you found an amazing studio! And hope to hear more about how it all progresses!
I am currently curled up with my new baby daughter. Can't remember if I gave you the full details…but she was in fact conceived as planned in September in Stowe VT. I feel like creating the piece with you was part of the magic of calling her in. SO CRAZY! Her name is Rose (Rosie). Not Gemma after all… but glad the name helped lead me where I needed to go. Hope we cross paths again soon
Heathers GEM
One of the first GEM's I hosted came almost out of nowhere (or out of everywhere- I think the Universe was leading me down this path), when a good friend asked me about making a piece to honor her late brother, a jeweler himself.
I mentioned the Wear Your Love concept to her (that's what I used to call GEM) and her face lit up. She jumped at the idea. What a way to honor her jeweler brother- by being a part of making the pieces!
We actually made two lockets and a charm so she could gift to her mother and sister in law.
As children, Heather and her brother used to delight in watching the swallowtail butterflies down at the river behind their house.
After his funeral, she walked down to that river to think of him, and was approached by a lone swallowtail.
She found a tattered wing, and we set that beneath a clear crystal for one of the lockets. His handwriting “love Dave” is on the back.
