Fairy tales and jewelry

It's not uncommon for jewelry artists to be inspired by fairy tales, maybe sometimes without even knowing it.

For me it's also not uncommon to do it the other way round and think of fairy tales when looking at jewelry, so I thought I'd share a few examples with you.

When I saw this swan pendant by wirestormcreations, I had to think of Andersen first and the Grimm brothers next. The story is not unusual for a fairy tale. A king has several children. When his wife dies and marries again, the stepmother uses her magic to change all the boys into swans. Only the youngest, a girl, escapes this fate and has to rescue her brothers.

The origin of this fairy tale may lie in the Irish tale of The Children of Lir.

These pearl earrings by jonarablu say mermaid loud and clearly. Long before Andersen's little mermaid turned into an adventurous Arielle in the movie, I was in love with this fairy tale, as sad as it may end. The first time the little mermaid is allowed to visit the surface, she gets to wear a wreath with pearls. It says nothing about her earrings in the story, but if she wore any, I think she might have chosen these.

Stars? That's an easy one. The necklace by twochickstoo reminds me of the star money that fell into the little girl's frock after she had given away everything she owned from her piece of bread to the last shirt. I remember as a child I was less surprised about the fact stars were falling from the sky than about her wearing a new frock all of a sudden.

Do you remember the story of the boy who went forth to learn fear? He found himself in a haunted castle to meet the king's challenge of staying in there for three nights in a row. On the second night a few men fell through the chimney, bringing skulls and dead men's legs to play nine-pins with them. Instead of being scared the boy joined the men until the night was over. Needless to say he won the hand of the king's daughter in the end. And here comes the matching jewelry, little skull earrings by FeatheredGems.

Maybe the next time you look at jewelry you'll have your own memory of a fairy tale. It would be nice if you shared with us.

Featuring artisan handmade creations by the Etsy Starving Artists Jewelry Team. SATeam members create handcrafted jewelry and beads. More information about our team and its current Etsy shop owner members can be found at SATEAM.etsy.com.