Blog — compass rose design jewelry

Last week, I got a thick package in the mail. Inside were a collection of travel tokens collected for a best friend's wedding. The bride and groom love vintage - not faux vintage, but the real thing. They're getting married in an old train station and arriving in a beautiful old Studebaker, restored by the groom himself. I love this couple - even having never met them, I adore them and was honored to work on the project! We kept it simple - starting with the tokens from Santa Cruz, San Diego, Sacramento, San Mateo and Crescent City, all from...

We are in a brief break between summer Compass Rose Jewelry shows and I wanted to take a moment to talk about an interesting trend we observed early this year when people started donating their antiques to us. It's easier to get rid of stuff when we know it's going to a good home. We all have drawers of once-sentimental keepsakes waiting to be discovered! Earlier this year at the Edwardian Ball, a customer purchased a necklace one day and returned the next day with a box of unfinished medals – “junk in a drawer to her pure treasure to...

History is at the center of our work at Compass Rose Design. Lately, we've had trains on the brain and have been making lots of men's accessories with Railroad date nails and antique uniform buttons dating between 1880 and 1950. A few finds relating to San Francisco railroad history have been a delight!We've recently come across several antiques that have local historical significance. Notice the PPIE 1915 buttons in the above photo. These buttons commemorate the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exhibition - the Worlds Fair. Though the exhibition celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal, the event was perhaps more...

It's been quite a year at Compass Rose Design Jewelry. A combination of life and family circumstances, as well as a growing list of wholesale accounts in the US and our first International order has forced me to think a lot about the limitations of identifying as a one-woman operation. Despite being in recovery from non-profit burnout, I felt a lot of pride in being a one-woman indie-designer.  I have learned to transition from a state of overworked almost embattled orientation, but in some ways this initial phase is required believe that founding a small business is possible. Our work...