Jewelry Design Idea: Design by Numbers
by Rena Klingenberg.
A neat jewelry design idea is to create a piece containing a number that’s significant to the person who will be wearing it.
For example, the number five is strongly represented in the dangles of this necklace design:
People’s significant numbers
can represent things like:
- how many children or grandchildren they have
- their lucky number
- the date they quit smoking or drinking
- the date or age when they made a significant life change
- a birth date
- a birth year
- a graduation year
- a reminder of something
- in memory of someone or something
- a significant address
- the score from a sports event
- a sports player’s uniform number
- something derived from numerology
- etc.
Cabochons are another way you might use this jewelry design idea. The nine stones in this piece (and the way they’re arranged) could have a personal meaning to the wearer:
Beads and dangles are also useful for incorporating a significant number into your jewelry design. A necklace like this one could be designed to portray significant numbers, based on the number and placement of the shell dangles:
How I Came Up with This
Jewelry Design Idea
Several years ago my neighbor Miss Coralee, a lovely grandmother, asked me to make a bead necklace for her.
The only specification she gave me was that she’d like the necklace to be “something Southwestern”.
From previous chats over the fence with her, I knew Miss Coralee had four children and three grandchildren, and that she was very close to all of them.
So I decided to surprise her with a jewelry design idea that suddenly occurred to me: I would create a Southwestern bead necklace that contained four special beads representing her children, and three additional special beads representing her grandchildren.
I got the necklace design all laid out on my bead board – and then realized something was missing. So I added two more unique beads to represent Miss Coralee and her husband.
The final necklace was primarily liquid silver beads, with two onyx beads for Miss Coralee and her husband, four turquoise beads for their children, and three red coral beads for their grandchildren.
When I took it over to her house a few days later, she exclaimed how lovely the necklace was – and then I told her what all the special beads symbolized.
She was thrilled and very touched to discover that the necklace’s design actually represented her family. It truly made the piece a thousand times more special to her.
After that, I don’t think I ever saw Miss Coralee without her custom Southwestern family necklace draped lovingly around her neck.
Except for her wedding ring, it was her favorite piece of jewelry.
And because she loved to tell her friends and family what her necklace symbolized, I had quite a long run of orders for custom necklaces (and sometimes bracelets) with meaningful numbers worked into the design.
More Ways to Include Significant Numbers
in a Jewelry Design
This jewelry design idea is actually an interesting niche that’s fun to work with.
Of course, if you design “custom jewelry by numbers”, you aren’t limited to just beads. Here numbers are stamped onto metal tags that could be used in a jewelry design:
In mixed-media jewelry you can use actual printed or stamped digits, or spelled-out numbers. For example, an old postage stamp with the significant number printed prominently on it could be included in a jewelry design:
There are all kinds of interesting ways to work numbers into jewelry designs.
It’s a fun idea to explore with any jewelry making materials – and it’s fun to wear (and give) jewelry with a personal, embedded meaning.
