Healing Through Handcrafted Jewelry

Jaccolin Franchina, founder of Jewelry by Jaccolin

With a love for fashion and the metaphysical, Jaccolin Franchina found a unique way to channel both by launching a wired art jewelry line featuring natural crystals and gemstones.

“I have been making wire are jewelry since 1995. A spiritualist minister, clairvoyant medium, and vibrational healer, I initially became interested in crystals and stones for their energetic properties in my spiritual healing work,” Franchina explains. “The jewelry business grew out of a desire to incorporate the stones into beautiful art that is meant to be worn.”

Having retired in 2001 from her day job, Franchina is now pursuing her career as a fifth-generation spiritualist, an ordained minister, a past life regressionist, a vibrational healer trained in healing touch, reiki and crystal healing and sole artist for Jewelry by Jaccolin.

“I have always been interested in a number of things. I began my jewelry making journey with beading then went to wire art and became instantly fascinated,” she says. “When I had a chance to take a class or two on making wired art I was hooked.”

Once Franchina began to search and find beautiful, rare crystals and gemstones she decided to offer classes for those who wanted to enter the world of wire art jewelry making. The class is made up of two parts, the first part being pendant, wire technique and tools education and the second part being the actual making of the jewelry. Each part is offered on two different days and all together lasts about five hours. The class itself costs $85 and the materials and stones cost an additional amount according to what stones you use.

After she saw success from the classes, she began to sell her jewelry at local events, fundraisers and directly from her home. “I use 14-carat gold-filled and sterling silver wire to create stunning, one-of-a-kind pendants, rings, earrings, and bracelets featuring natural crystals and gemstones,” she explains. “Each piece is unique and carefully crafted by hand.”

The value of the stone, wire and design determines the cost of the piece of jewelry itself, but typically rings are $50 to $120, stones are $65 to several hundred dollars depending on the rarity of the stone and earrings are $50 to $70. Franchina also offers opportunities to customize jewelry, many times using materials given to her by a client and incorporating them into a unique piece of jewelry for them.

“For custom work, the client and I together select a particular stone, wire, and style to create a piece uniquely suits the client,” she says, “The stone tells me what it wants to be and I then precisely sketch the design, that’s the beauty of using stones and crystals. I like to share both the beauty and the quality of the stone with the client because the client can decide for themselves whether they are drawn to the stone or not.”

Since the launch of her jewelry line, Franchina says she now offers home wired art jewelry parties and hopes to eventually get the word out about her jewelry through social media sponsoring.

“I have a lot of stock, nearly 24 trays of unset stones. I would love to be able to focus on the making of the jewelry while someone else could help out with the social media and marketing aspect of it,” Franchina explains. “Everyone has been pleased by the works of art I create and they never complain about the price because of the rarity and beauty of the jewelry, which is why it would be nice to give more people the opportunity to experience my jewelry.”

Jewelry by Jaccolin will be featured at an event in April at the Sharonville Convention Center and she will be offering a wired art jewelry class in April. More information about that event will soon be up on her website, www.jaccolin.com.