Student launches sustainable jewelry business using repurposed materials
Third-year design and media arts student Lauren Leung Cramer creates beaded jewelry from fish lures and found materials, focuses on trinkets that are secondhand.
One of Leung Cramer’s bead and fishing lure necklaces. (Courtesy of Lauren Leung Cramer) "With bright colors and repurposed elements, Lauren Cramer is meshing materials to make Bead Salad.
Founded at the end of last year, Cramer’s small jewelry business Bead Salad operates through an Instagram shop as well as a self-designed website. The shop sells a variety of jewelry products, mostly focused on necklaces and keychains in the recent releases. Despite a background in illustration, the third-year design and media arts student said she lost touch with drawing temporarily, which led her to explore new creative outlets, like beading.
“I feel like I’m starting something very different, like a new era of my own creative work, where I’m shifting my focus toward creating new things out of preexisting things,” Cramer said.
After creating an Instagram where she could post her jewelry, she said she was surprised by the amount of intrigue and decided to focus on Bead Salad as a business where she could sell her designs. Cramer said she still tries to frame her venture as a hobby and keep the focus on her love for art and artistic exploration. Drawing inspiration from designer fashion – where Cramer said creative limits are nearly nonexistent and commercial success is almost guaranteed – Cramer said she hopes to embody this unrestricted originality in her work while maintaining reasonable price points." — Emily Sweet, Jun. 6, 2021
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Daily Bruin website.
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