Part 1: A behind the scenes look at where it all begins

Well, this is me, Rosie and the creator behind all this delicious jewellery. Something I have been really excited about with launching our blog is getting to share with you a real 'Behind-the-scenes' look at what we get up to on a daily basis and what goes into creating each & every beautiful La Luna Rose piece. Over the next few months I want to share with you the stories of our makers, our processes and how our designs come to fruition.

I often get people asking me ‘So Rosie, how did you come up with this design’ and well, as much as I would like to have a straight forward answer for them so they can happily put that piece of the puzzle together, my creative brain just isn’t wired like that. I also get a number of questions about where La Luna Rose is made and, well, for this one I do have a one word answer ‘Bali’. But the truth is, my jewellery doesn’t get made on the whole island of Bali. Nor is it constructed by just anyone. I have decided to put together a series of blog posts here to start to tell the story behind our collections, how they come about, who is behind making each piece and what goes on behind those pretty pictures on our social media and website. So, here we go, Part 1: A behind the scenes look at where a La Luna Rose Collection starts off.

Phase 1: DESIGN.

The line of where a particular design begins is slightly blurred. As you can imagine, I work on designing our new collection, whilst still selling our previous range and promoting our current range – ah the beauty of working across seasons! Although ideas are constantly floating through my ever-working brain, to me, the beginning of a collection is when I block out a couple of weeks in the calendar, grab a whoooole bunch of A3 paper, colourful pens, some old magazines and get down & dirty drawing. Time away from the computer screen is always a treat but often hard to maintain! I try and allocate an hour each morning to get all the admin out of the way (Post yoga!) and then hit the pad of paper.

Generally my ideas have already been previously formed in my head whether from a recent travel mission, a photo I have taken on an adventure, textures that I have been inspired by in nature or random thoughts that come into my mind in the middle of the night (I have a little black book next to my bed for these ones – otherwise they can keep me up for all hours!)

Often I find myself going for very long walks during this time as most of my ideas ( I would go as far to say 95% of them!) come when I am out in fresh air and pounding the pavement/beach/park. I also like to get out and about and see what colours are happening in nature & society, homewares stores etc. Colour is a huge inspiration for me so anywhere I can find it is guaranteed to get the creative juices flowing.

My designs will often begin with a random doodle (similar to those I would draw on my school books back in the day) and evolve into some form of geometric creation. I will just draw & draw for days until I have something that stands out to me, something unique, something potentially wearable and something worth expanding on.

From here I will use that as a centre piece to develop a range from. Keeping design lines, shapes, colours, sizes, angles the same throughout a selection of earrings, necklaces, rings and bracelets to generate a cohesive looking collection. Our bracelets continue to be our top-selling pieces so I make sure to spend a good chunk of time on these designs, which are pretty fun as they are repeat patterns. Colour is the most important thing here which means....selecting bead colours.

I'm not sure if you have ever tried to pick out bead colours from a supplier manual but I can tell you it is tiring on the eyes to say the least! Our beads are TINY and the color variations are so small but can make a huge difference once they are beaded into one of our designs. With pages and pages of beads, I often need a few extra set of eyes before confirming our new seasons bead order. The below design on the right that I am pointing to has approximately 1450 individual beads sewn together....let's just say it's the small things that make a difference!

A few weeks later and once I have a semi-polished looking little collection of ideas to develop, I hand over my designs to both my silversmiths and our beaded pieces to my beautiful beading guru Anise to work on the next VERY important part – Sampling.

We’ll be back in touch in a couple of weeks with our next post on our Sampling process. For now, go and check out or latest collection ‘Urban Loft’ and see if you can tell how we work to create a series of cohesive designs across the different styles. You can see the whole collection here.

PART 2: Jump over and read up on Part 2 of our behind the scenes series hereor start reading up on our Bali Best Eats series of blog posts about our favourite places to eat at on our island home!