Jewel Tones was founded in 2006 by Desiree Rager. Originally a brick-and-mortar storefront in Birmingham, AL selling beads, findings, and hosting classes; Jewel Tones is now an online-only store dedicated to creating custom jewelry and art.
In her 20-year career, Desiree has worked with professional photographers to bring costume jewelry to photo shoots, collaborated with brides-to-be to realize their personal visions for wedding adornments, and answered the calls of hundreds of clients to create novel jewelry and art. Her work can be found all across the world from Scotland to Australia to Japan.
Desiree has mastered many bead-weaving techniques, but her passion lies in crafting beautiful pieces of art from seed beads. Her natural insights for color coordination and proportion have been honed by years of practice, becoming the core of her signature style that permeates all of her art from jewelry and other body accessories to tapestries, both abstract and image, to self-supporting 3-D figures. Each piece is composed of quality glass, gemstone, pearl, or crystal.
Her love of dragons led to Jewel Tones’s specialty: several distinct lines of 3-D dragons made from seed beads. Each dragon is a unique member of its family, and over a hundred have been born over the years and sent to their caretakers all over the world.
Jewel Tones is on a mission to bring beauty to the world with beaded art and jewelry. Desiree understands that creativity is at the heart of a vision, and stands ready to work with you to make your own into a reality.