Caraway Beads Jewellery

Hello!

I’m Klára, a self-taught jewellery maker and the one-person heartbeat behind Caraway Beads. Which also makes me the accountant, photographer, graphic designer, social-media wrangler, and occasional floor-sweeper...

I was born in magical Prague. In my youth, I took an opportunity to live in the USA for a year. I was also fortunate to travel thousands of miles through stunningly vibrant Mexico twice, and even farther across Europe, but my current home is in Scotland, where I live with my English husband, our two sons, and a black cat.

And that's where I create my jewellery - in a small studio in our mossy garden, surrounded by flowers and birds, beautiful hills and very dramatic weather.

Moffat hills, Southern Uplands, Scotland

My professional background includes jobs that I still miss today: youth work (co-founder of ICM Praha, the Czech Republic’s first Youth Information Centre), pre-digital camera and photo retail, seafreight logistics operator, and a logistics software analyst & user coordinator (a job no one in the company wanted - that I ended up loving).

But it's photography and creating colourful, nature-inspired jewellery with beautiful beads and metals that bring me so much creative joy now, and I hope to keep making my jewellery and freezing time in photos for as long as my hands and eyes will let me.

Caraway Beads studio in the garden

I love working with COPPER, BRONZE, beautiful ARGENTIUM silver, hypoallergenic NIOBIUM and TITANIUM, stainless STEEL, and gold-filled wires. Please visit my Materials page for more information about each metal.

Creative chaos :)

When I'm creating my jewellery, I carefully shape and secure every link that connects the individual beads and parts.

I also make all the ear hooks and clasps - after I've cut and shaped the wire, I hammer it gently for extra strength and file all ends for comfort and safety.

Bare copper

I find inspiration in the wild parts of our garden and everywhere in nature. I spend hours completely immersed in the challenge of capturing the beauty I see around me - translating it into glass and wires, or freezing the time in photos.

Hammering strengthens the metal

If you enjoy close-up pictures of nature, please visit my photography account on Instagram

Dabdelion seed head after rain, droplets, macro photo drops

BACK

I am very proud of Czech glass and glassmakers. The history of glass production in my home country goes as far as the 13th century. Especially the northern part of the Czech Republic (Northern Bohemia) has always been - and still is - richly dotted with glass factories and workshops. And visiting at least some of them is always one of the best parts of travelling home.

Beautiful Czech glass

It's an honour to work with Czech glass beads, and I am very happy that, through my creations, I can share their uniqueness and beauty with you!