The Company

Handmade Jewelry Company was founded on the windward side of Oahu by Jim and Nina O'Donnell. Jim and Nina personally design and make all of the jewelry sold by Handmade Jewelry Company. They met in their high school drama department and have been married for 32 years. Always avid nature lovers, they fell in love with Hawaii and moved to Kailua in 1987. Inspired by the natural wonders of the islands they try to express a little of that beauty in each piece of jewelry.

Jim

Jim O'Donnell, a native of California, has always been fascinated by nature. This fascination has resulted in a lifetime of exploration. Backpacking, cross-country skiing, white-water rafting, bird watching and hot air ballooning are some of the activities that Jim enjoyed while living on the mainland. Six months after visiting hawaii for the first time, Jim and Nina relocated to the windward side of Oahu.

Jim's love of nature was reborn in hawaii resulting in new interests of surfing and scuba diving. His love of the tropical ocean and the animals who live there drew him to volunteer at a a small oceanarium where he soon began an 11 year career as a marine mammal trainer. He experienced a rich variety of involvement with dolphins, penguins, seals and sea lions during his career.

Jim has studied at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. He sees his involvement with jewelry as a natural evolution of his experiences in nature. He is working to capture in precious metals, the abstract essence of plants, animals and one of the most beautiful places on earth - Hawaii.

Nina

Nina has always been an avid reader, enthusiastic hiker/camper and nature lover. As a small child, Nina learned about the color spectrum alongside the alphabet from her artist mother. It was the performing arts, however that captured her attention during high school and college. Although she Graduated from college with a degree in Speech/Drama, her love of books dominated and she bought a small bookstore. This gave her the opportunity to experience the highs and lows of running her own business. She discovered from that experience that one of the things she loves most in life is connecting people with books. She returned to school and earned a Master's degree in Library Science. Today Nina is a children's librarian who puts her drama experience to good use in presenting story times to children at the library.

Nina Uses primarily natural gem stones in her jewelry designs because they are the colors of nature. The rich browns, muted greens and soft blues represent the earth, sea and sky.