Last-Minute Christmas Gifts: 7 Etsy Shops for Tiny Jewelry

Fawn and Rose

• Elephantine is one of my favorite jewelry stores.  The delicate, tiny-as-can-be style of everything from the charms to the details on a ring brings an ultra-feminine vibe to a modern look.

• Edor has a similar aesthetic but specializes in geometric designs.

• Jools sells jewelry with very unique and very quirky designs.  Here you can get everything from earrings shaped like PacMan to a gold Shetland sheepdog-shaped pendant.

• Contempo is a jewelry design company selling beautiful, colorful pieces predominantly featuring pyrite and freshwater pearls.

• Fawn and Rose is THE shop of choice for those seeking triangular necklaces and rings.

• Sevenstarz is a British company selling cute animal-shaped pendants in silver and gold.

• Matoto has absolutely adorable charms, from owls to giraffes to a tiny sterling silver paper airplane charm!

Edor

Matoto

life tip #2: calling cards are timeless

Calling cards are the new business cards, which is funny considering calling cards have actually been around a lot longer.  As more and more entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals take their careers and self-publicity into their own hands, it seems that the globalized, Internet-based world seems more friendly towards the calling card than the business card.  As a fresh college graduate riding endless waves of short-term internships and part-time jobs, it's not exactly time for me to be investing in business cards.  Business cards imply stability, an individual within a fixed career path - certainly not a bad thing, but for many of us young wanderlusting 20-somethings, it's just not the time.  Which is why I set my sights on getting myself some stylish, unique calling cards.  They're way more versatile, because they can be offered in situations ranging from a formal business introduction to meeting someone at a bar.  Plus, there's something timeless about having a hard copy of your contact info, should you ever have the opportunity to leave it behind on a silver platter...

I wanted something simple but classy, so I started searching around for affordable, smaller-quantity sets of calling cards.  I stumbled upon Washington-based Hoban Press, which does old-school letterpressing by hand with early 1900s printing presses!  They're classy as hell and their Etsy shop offered the option of pre-designed templates in sets of 100.  At less than $1 a card for such a labor-intensive type of printing, these were quite the deal!  They arrived today and I could not be happier with how they turned out.  The best part?  Hoban saves your plates and gives you a 20% discount on future reprints!  Business cards come and go, but calling cards can last you for life!

One last thing - check out this video of Hoban Press's machines!  I think this is so cool, but it might just be because I'm a publishing nerd.  I'm currently interning at Yale University Press, and as I'm working in their Production department I literally spend my days dealing with printers, inks, dies, paper, foil stamping, &c., so seeing how these processes used to be done on machines in the early 1900s - and finding a company that maintains and puts to good use those same machines - well, that's pretty spiffy. :)

New School Hoban Press from DonVintage on Vimeo.