Our founder, Alison, started making jewelry after a particularly tough year in her life. She had just finished up surgery and cancer treatments. During her recovery, she discovered the therapy of creativity and art and began stamping jewelry. The only spot she had with enough room was the unheated garage beside her house, and that is where Southern Stamped Jewelry was born. Every night after work as a radiologist at the hospital, she would work on getting her jewelry creations just right. For most of those months, it was winter, and the garage was far from insulated. She knew she had stayed out too long when she could see the chickens waking up for the day and moving between the slats in the floor. She had at least 3 space heaters running and wore fingerless gloves, and it was still cold. The table she worked on would shake each time she hammered the pieces and they would all jump and jumble around so that nothing ever stayed put. But she kept at it because this was important. This mattered.

After a few hundred tries, she started finding her groove. The art she was creating reflected what she wanted to put into the world. It told a story and it helped her heal. Soon word spread and Alison was thrilled to create unique treasures for family and friends, then friends of friends and coworkers. In a few months came a Facebook page that’s now grown to nearly 400,000 followers, a website with over 45,000 customers and thousands of heartfelt reviews and messages from people all over the country. Next came a new state of the art studio. While her surroundings have changed, the quality and devotion she puts into every piece of jewelry hasn’t. She still holds every single thing she sells in her hand before it heads to its new home. While SSJ is now a full-time job, she still finds time to work part-time at the hospital doing cat scans because helping people is part of who she is and what she loves.

What Alison didn’t know when she stamped her first piece of jewelry, was that she was creating more than just a keepsake. She was starting a community. A place for people to share their joy and their sorrow and have it honored, shaped and retold. She was creating a village where her friends and family could work side by side. Where her husband, John, could join her and find his passion for learning and innovating business practices. Where they were supported and encouraged when their family grew unexpectedly and she and John were thrown headfirst into parenthood with their precious 9-year-old daughter, Joanna. Where dogs are usually asleep at your feet during work and a true crime podcast is playing in the background of the studio.

Most importantly, she encouraged others to share their most authentic selves. In a world of social media that highlights the not so real parts of us, Alison encourages us to share our unique stories. The raw parts, the happy parts, the hard parts, the scary parts, the pure joy, the pure heartache and always the real us. Each piece of jewelry, made by hand and with a lot of heart, tells a story. She creates treasures that allow us to wear our stories and show the world our hearts. Knowing that our stories matter makes us stronger, braver, more compassionate and more joyful.

Southern Stamped Jewelry is much more than a jewelry store. It’s a friend sitting on the front porch with sweet tea. It’s riding around listening to music late at night. It’s tucking our kids in and kissing them a few extra times. It’s saying goodbye for the last time. It’s saying I do for the first time (or the 5th, because you know, life happens). It’s all the memories we hold so tightly, lovingly polished and personalized and worn close to your heart. And it’s an honor to do this work.