String for Pearls

Melissa Ross, owner and designer of String for Pearls, is a mom and a creative person. “I’ve always been a DIY kind of girl,” she says. “Like ‘Oh, I can make that myself.’” From sewing her own dresses, to making sensory baby toys, to creating jewellery, Melissa has always been crafty.

Fashion-forward and driven, once she became a mom, Melissa found herself looking for jewellery that was practical and baby friendly, while also stylish and attractive. Everywhere she looked, teething jewellery had a bright, chunky, babyish aesthetic, which didn’t suit her personality or needs at all. “I’m one of those people who gets an idea in my mind and I can’t shake it,” she says. “I’ll go looking for something, and if I can’t find it, I’ll make it.”

For herself and her son, she “started making wooden pieces that were just really simple, easy to keep clean, and still had a nice aesthetic,” she says. “No one would recognize that it was a teething necklace or mom jewellery because, essentially, it wasn’t.”