The Story Behind D’s Delights

Hey 👋🏾.

In our last blog post, I briefly touched on 2020 being the beginning of my journey with making jewelry and establishing D's Delights. However, I didn't give the full story behind the creation of D's Delights. 

It’s been weighing on me (for months actually) that I haven’t done a great job explaining/sharing/telling the story of how and why I started D’s Delights 🤦🏽‍♀️. I want people to understand the brand, what motivates the designs, and who it’s for. I’m constantly wondering how and when I should give more background/insight. Honestly, most of the time, I wonder if anyone would even care enough to read or listen to my story. Side note - my anxious mind leads me to overthink and spiral down a path of talking myself out of things 😫. 

I've decided that the time to share the full D's Delights brand/origin story is now. This post will obviously be longer than the others I've written in the past, so bear with me. 

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During the "Covid-times," I was working full-time in Nursing Informatics (Monday - Friday) and on Friday and Saturday nights I was working as a Labor & Delivery nurse. During the worst times of Covid, on Sunday mornings, before I would go home, I would brave the everlasting supermarket lines to bring home fresh groceries for my husband, two children, and mother. It was such a stressful time, I don't know how I made it through each day. There were days when I was so tired I literally fell asleep on my kitchen floor while trying to prepare meals. That's what makes the creation of D's Delights bizarre to me. 

The idea to start making jewelry came to me at around 2am one night when I was at work. To be honest, it was such a hectic time that I don't even know the exact start date. I just remember sitting at the nurses' station and thinking, "I wonder what it would take to make bead bracelets." I did some Google-ing, looked at a few websites, browsed some YouTube videos, and started ordering supplies from Amazon. I took that random idea and ran with it. I would make bracelets on my bedroom floor in whatever little spare time I had. 

I had no so little knowledge when I started. I had no idea what semiprecious gemstones were. I had never heard of African recycled glass beads. I just felt compelled to create.

So much was going on in my life. My grandfather had died on March 13th, 2020. We couldn't go to Jamaica to lay him to rest. My mother couldn't handle it - I ended up having to make his funeral arrangements via email while I was at work. My mother slid into a deep depression, compounding her prior health issues, which eventually led to her passing in October of 2020.

You could feel the sickness in the air. I was worried every day. I was working so hard. So many people were getting sick. So many people were dying. I would pass by the freezer trailers every day. The windows at one of my jobs were covered in paper so we wouldn't see the trailers parked outside. I would hear people complaining about being bored at home and I was so annoyed. The majority of people will never understand what healthcare workers went through.

I would see news reports of people cheering for healthcare workers and making signs in support, but they never knew how it felt to be on the other side. We were being seen but not really being seen. They didn't know that some hospital administrators did not want to uphold the recommended safety requirements for staff. They didn't know that we had to reuse single-use supplies for at least a week at a time. They didn't know that we couldn't get new masks unless the one we were using had visible blood on it and/or was torn. They didn't know that we were being denied Covid testing at work. They didn't know that we were being forced to come to work sick. They didn't know that crisis pay-rates had to be fought for. They just didn't know.

When I got the idea to make jewelry, I knew that my fellow healthcare workers were my priority. I wanted to make bracelets for them, to acknowledge and recognize them for their sacrifices. I wanted them to feel seen and to feel special during this hellish time. While I have expanded the audience/customer base, that continues to be the D's Delights ethos - creating jewelry for you to be seen and feel seen. 

You may or may not have noticed that I frequently offer words of encouragement. I do this on D's Delights social media as well as in our emails and blog posts. I'm not just doing it for the sake of doing it. This is definitely inspired by all that I have experienced since 2020.

A lot shifted for me and I became even more aware of what is important to me. After the passing of my mother, I made the decision to step away from my career. I enrolled in therapy, I made more time for my family, and I made more time for exploring this creative avenue of jewelry-making. I learned that many of the unexplainable feelings I'd pushed aside and habits I'd developed over the years were signs that I was suffering from anxiety. It turns out that making jewelry was a healthy release for me.

Throughout the healing and self-discovery work that I've done, I have also learned that I have a deep desire for people to understand that there is more than meets the eye. None of us are one-dimensional beings. It bothers me that more people don't try to understand the complexities of their fellow man. Our cultural background, upbringing, and lived experiences make us unique individuals. I create the jewelry for D's Delights with that in mind.

As I say, we are not cookie-cutter or basic and our jewelry shouldn't be either. We are in no way generic, check-out line material. There are layers to us, we express ourselves in different ways, and we are unique! I purposely source materials that capture that complexity through color, texture, and pattern. I then combine the different materials in interesting ways to further capture our amazing complexities 😊. The nature of my process means that the pieces I create take more time and are available in smaller quantities, thus making them even more special. 

A lot has changed since I started D's Delights. The world has returned to "normal," I have learned more about my creative voice, and I have gone back to bedside nursing. I don't have as much time to create as I once did but I am also making more time to share words of encouragement and inspiration to others to remind them of how special they are and what is important in life. I look forward to continuing to create beautiful jewelry to share with the world. I look forward to continuing to connect and develop a deeper relationship with my supporters. I also look forward to having my creations reach more people around the world. 

Thank you for taking the time to read/learn more about the story behind D's Delights and what drives us. 

✨💜✨ Take every day as another opportunity to learn and grow.✨💜✨