Introduction
My name is Kate Ray. I was born in Connecticut, lived in Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, New York City, and I currently reside in Florida. I have always had a passion for jewelry since I was young. I started making these bracelets and giving them to my friends and coworkers and they told me to sell them. I laughed. It was a hobby of mine and I liked spreading the love with my friends. But here I am… trying to make a website and start a business. I wanted to create inexpensive, catchy-styled bracelet collections to be used for fun, fashion, and love & friendship.
I started with friendship bracelets (knotted colored stringed). Then I found vintage jewelry at thrift shops or hand-me-downs from my Grandma and my mother. I never passed up a piece of jewelry that could have potential for something I would like to wear. I made most of my own jewelry that I wore. I collected anything from thrift shops, including old necklaces, broken pieces, charms, beads, and because of all that collecting I decided to experiment with making some of my own “up-cycled” jewelry. I began creating jewelry at a very young age with tools and pieces of jewelry including simple beads, hemp rope, stretch string, wire-working, chain bracelets with charms, gymp plastic camp bracelets, and hanging pendants. I experimented with mixed materials as I got older.
My jewelry takes on a very “bohemian” style or a “hippie” vibe. It’s affordable and fun jewelry made to share with friends and have good times. These bracelets are not high-end or made of expensive material. My jewelry style is just for fun and colorful looks. It’s about spreading love and friendship with bracelets filled with happy colors. I based my initial collection of bracelets off of “Love Beads.” Love Beads were a 60’s trend that the hippie era embodied. That is how I began making bracelets. Now I have multiple collections and different styles.
Read more about me and my full story on the ABOUT page of my website.
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“LOVE BEADS” WRAP BRACELETS HISTORY
SHOP “LOVE BEADS” WRAP BRACELETS ON ETSY
These bracelets, long wrap chains, called “Love Beads” are my debut piece into the jewelry market and represent my main style of art.
“Love beads” were a jewelry trend that started in the 1960s inspired by the hippie movement and their festival lifestyle. They would make long chains of a random collection of small beads, seed beads, peace signs, and special center piece beads, strung together with multiple colors and sizes. No bead was left behind. Every strand of beads was unique and the people stringing them made them with love and were shared with others in order to spread the altruistic ideals of brotherhood, peace, and love.
Every strand of love beads is unique and one-of-a-kind. I used a lot of different types of beads, with the main background being 6/0-sized seed beads as well as other materials, however I am always making adjustments and additions to the collection and creating new mixes of random beads. You never know what you’re going to get when you order a string of love beads. That is because there are no rules to making and creating love bead chains. Any and all beads are welcomed and used. “No bead left behind.”
Read more about the history of love beads on my website at this page: KATEBYKATERAY.COM/LOVE-BEADS.