Before I ever make a Signature necklace, something shows up in my inbox: a photo of a piece of paper. A name scrawled on the back of a birthday card. A few words from an old letter. A kid's handwriting from a school assignment, held up to the camera.

I've been making these necklaces for almost two decades, and that's still the part I love most - not the finished piece, the photo that starts it.

I think there's a difference between a thoughtful gift and a personal one. Thoughtful is remembering someone's favorite lotion. Personal is giving them something that could only have been made because of them.

I take those actual lines of handwriting and turn them into a unique personalized gift. Nothing gets cleaned up along the way. If the letters are uneven, they stay uneven. If the pen pressed harder in one spot, that becomes part of the finished piece. Those little things are what make the handwriting recognizable in the first place.

Handwriting is strange when you stop to think about it. You probably know your mother's handwriting. Your best friend's. Maybe you could pick out your partner's from a pile of envelopes without seeing the name. Handwriting is like a voice - familiar, specific, and something you take for granted until it's gone.

This is the reaction when someone unwraps a Signature necklace: they know it before they've even fully read it. Their handwriting. Or their daughter's. Their mother's. Someone they miss.

I've made a lot of different kinds of jewelry over the years, but I don't think I've found anything else that creates quite that reaction. A personalized Signature necklace isn't just a name made into jewelry. It's a piece of someone's handwriting, exactly as they wrote it, turned into something they can keep forever.

That's also why I think custom handwriting jewelry makes such a good gift. You don't have to guess what someone will like. You start with something that they already love.

That’s what makes it personal. It could only be theirs.