LouiLoui Designs is owned and operated by me, Allison Birney. People often ask how I began making jewelry and hair accessories. When our daughter, whom we call Lu, (and sometimes Loui), was about 3 years old, I set out to create a fairy land in her room. My vision was a magical forest with beautiful creatures peeking out from amongst the thickets on the ceiling and walls, and moss (spotlessly clean, of course) creeping up every vertical surface with sparkles and lights evoking magic everywhere.
With this goal in mind, I set out to Michael's Crafts and bought myself a truckload of artificial vines, flowers, trees, fairy's, sparkles, and anything else I could find to make my vision become reality. With that, I set to work. For an entire summer, I worked and worked on that room. The picture in my head was great! The room...not so much - oh well I give myself an A for effort! Besides Lu loved it!
One of the elements of her fairy garden was a "pearl" and "diamond" lighted doorway. I bought (from Michael's) about a billion plastic pearls and tiny diamonds, and strung them on pieces of string to form a curtain. By doing this, I became completely addicted to beading. I couldn't get enough of it. I started reading everything I could about jewelry making, and buying my supplies at Michael's Crafts and the Bead Bungalow in West Annapolis. I was also able to take some classes at the Bead Bungalow. I began to experiment with wire as well, and really fell in love with metal. When I learned to solder, anneal and harden metal, I was just blown away by the things that could be done with metal.
I am still completely amazed at the exquisite beauty of precious metal, especially Sterling Silver. It is incredible to me that I can take a piece of Silver wire or sheet and melt it, bend it, heat it again and again - completely mangle it and transform it and it will almost always come back to a beautiful shine as lovely as the day it was purchased. I could write pages on how much I love to work with precious metal clay but so many others have, I would hate to be redundant!
