Why Trees Keep Finding Their Way Into My Jewelry

On nature, quiet moments, resilience and the inspiration I find just outside my studio.

I’ve always felt better around trees.

There’s something about walking beneath them that makes me slow down.

Maybe it’s the sound of the leaves moving in the breeze. The way sunlight finds its way through the branches. Or simply the feeling of being somewhere that isn't asking anything of me.

I notice more.

And I think a little less.

These days, nature is quite literally outside my door.

I live in the Okanagan, surrounded by trees, with the lake stretching out below our home. My studio sits here too, tucked into the landscape on a piece of our property that has its own story.

And perhaps it’s no surprise that, over the years, branches, leaves, flowers and gemstones in the colours of nature have continued to find their way into the jewelry I make.

Many of those ideas now live together in my Woodland Collection — pieces inspired by trees, earthy gemstones and the landscape around me.

But I don't think I've ever really stopped to ask myself why.

There’s Beauty in the Imperfect

Look closely at a tree branch and very little about it is perfectly symmetrical.

One side reaches farther than the other.

A branch changes direction.

A tiny shoot appears somewhere unexpected.

There are knots and textures and evidence of seasons that have come and gone.

And yet we don't look at a tree and wish it were more perfect.

We simply see it as beautiful.

I love that.

Because somewhere along the way, I think many of us started believing that beauty was supposed to mean perfection.

Nature reminds me otherwise.

It reminds me that there can be beauty in texture, change, age and the little irregularities that make something completely its own.

That idea has influenced the way I make jewelry more than I probably realized.

I don't want every mark of the maker erased.

I want a piece to feel considered and beautifully finished, but still have character.

Still have a little life in it.

Still feel as though someone made it.

Trees Have a Wonderful Way of Carrying On

There’s something else I find fascinating about trees.

They adapt.

A branch grows around an obstacle.

A tree leans toward the light.

Seasons change. Leaves appear, disappear and return.

And year after year, the tree keeps growing.

I used to think quite a lot about the symbolism of trees — growth, resilience, renewal and connection. Those ideas still resonate with me.

But today I think about them less as abstract symbols and more as things I've witnessed.

Life doesn't tend to follow a perfectly straight path either.

Mine certainly hasn't.

There have been different careers, different homes, difficult seasons, wonderful surprises and more than a few plans that changed completely along the way.

And yet somehow, we keep growing too.

Maybe that's why branches speak to me.

They're not perfectly straight.

Neither are our lives.

Sometimes You Just Need to Go Outside

I don't think every walk among the trees needs to become a lesson in personal growth.

Sometimes I just need to go outside.

To walk.

To look at the lake.

To notice what's blooming.

To listen to the wind moving through the trees.

To have Marley wandering along beside me.

And to stop thinking about whatever I've been thinking about for the last three hours. 😂

Those quiet moments have become increasingly important to me.

Not because I'm trying to accomplish anything.

Quite the opposite.

Nature gives me somewhere to simply be.

Every spring, there are certain little things I find myself waiting for.

One of them is the balsamroot.

Their yellow flowers begin appearing across the hillsides around us, and now some are even starting to find their way into our yard.

I look forward to them every year.

Maybe that's part of what I've come to love about paying attention to the seasons. There is always something returning, something changing or something new to notice.

And very often, that's when an idea appears.

A shape.

A texture.

A colour combination.

A branch against the sky.

A tiny flower I'd walked past a hundred times before.

Inspiration doesn't always arrive while I'm sitting at my jewelry bench trying to design something.

Sometimes it finds me when I'm not looking for it at all.

From Branches to Sterling Silver

That brings me to the jewelry.

One of the designs that grew from this connection to nature is my Peridot Tree Branch Necklace.

When I first created it, I thought about what branches can represent: growth and renewal, interconnectedness, strength, resilience and the freedom to keep reaching outward.

I still love those meanings.

But when I look at a branch now, what I notice first is its shape.

The organic line.

The little offshoots.

The texture.

The fact that no two are quite the same.

Those are wonderful things to translate into metal.

Sterling silver lets me take something fleeting from nature and turn it into something you can hold onto.

It's one of the reasons I continue to return to sterling silver jewelry in my work. Its quiet brightness works beautifully with organic shapes, texture and the colours I find in nature.

Not a perfect copy of a branch.

An interpretation of one.

A small reminder of the natural world that can travel through your everyday life with you.

And Then There Was Peridot

When I chose the tiny peridot gemstones for the branch design, there was something very specific I had in mind.

The first little buds of spring.

Every year, I watch for that fresh green beginning to appear on the trees — the tiny buds that tell you the branches are waking up and everything is about to open again.

That's what those little peridot gems remind me of.

I love that such a small detail can hold a memory of an entire season.

And honestly?

Sometimes a gemstone doesn't need to promise anything more profound than that.

It can simply remind you of something beautiful.

That's enough for me.

Carry a Little Piece of Nature With You

I think jewelry becomes most meaningful when we attach our own meaning to it.

One woman might look at a branch and think about strength.

Another might see family — different branches connected to the same roots.

Someone else might think about a new beginning.

Or a favourite trail.

A childhood home.

A tree outside a grandmother's house.

Or simply the feeling she gets when she walks through the woods and everything becomes quiet for a little while.

That's the lovely thing about symbolism.

I can tell you what inspired me when I made a piece.

But once you wear it, the meaning doesn't have to remain mine.

It gets to become yours.

Keep Growing

The older I get, the less interested I am in perfectly straight paths.

I've had enough unexpected turns in my own life to know they don't exist anyway.

Maybe trees have had it right all along.

Grow where you can.

Reach toward the light.

Adapt when you need to.

Stay rooted in what matters.

And don't worry too much if your branches aren't perfectly symmetrical.

There can be an extraordinary amount of beauty in a life that didn't grow exactly according to plan.

Maybe that's one of the reasons trees continue to find their way into my jewelry.

They remind me of where I live, the seasons changing around me and all those tiny details I might once have walked right past.

The texture of bark.

A branch against the sky.

The first green buds of spring.

Balsamroot appearing on the hillside again.

There is always something beautiful waiting to be noticed.

And sometimes, a small piece of jewelry lets us carry a little of that beauty with us.

Life is short. Notice the beauty along the way.

xo, Tammy
The Maker of Beautiful Things