Cooperstown resident Heather Grace Sharpe creates customized jewelry to commemorate life’s biggest moments or events, whether happy or sad.
Her business, Luna & Grace Keepsakes, has been in operation for a little more than a year. In that time, Sharpe has created about 87 pieces of customized jewelry.
She meets with clients in her rented studio at the Community Arts Network of Oneonta at 11 Ford Ave., but meeting in person is not required. She also works with clients over the phone, by email and can ship the finished product.
A keepsake is a small item that holds significant sentimental value. Through a special process and plenty of care and attention to detail, Sharpe will take a memento, preserve it and create a stone around it that fills a metal rim, called a bezel, in the chosen piece of jewelry.
Sharpe offers rings, necklaces, pendants, bracelets and earrings made of sterling silver, gold vermeil, 14-karat gold-filled, 10-karat gold or 14-karat gold. The prices on the website include all the labor that goes into the finished product. Prices range from $50 to $300.
“I’d like to think I am crafty and artistic, so I dabbled in making jewelry before,” she said, though she has become a jeweler in earnest during the past year-and-a-half.
There are many examples of jewelry on Luna & Grace Keepsakes’ website. Every keepsake Sharpe makes is a custom order. If a customer has something different in mind than what is listed on the website, Sharpe is open to creating a one-of-a-kind keepsake.
The first piece of jewelry she created was a ring she made for herself, she said. The unique turquoise colored stone is made with the inclusions of clothing her two sons wore at birth.
It has been 17 years since her first baby died of a genetic birth defect called anencephaly. Tragically, a second baby died from the same cause three years later. Sharpe is now the mother of four children and has been busy raising them for 18 years.
Her grief inspired her to start the business to help others preserve their memories. Referring to the ring she wears daily, she said, “Having them with me every single day was very comforting.”
The reason she named her business Luna & Grace Keepsakes has special significance.
Luna is a word that means moon. “When my kids were little and didn’t quite understand death, I would tell them Allen and Angelo were on the moon, tucking us in at night and watching over us to keep us all safe,” Sharpe said.
Grace is Sharpe’s middle name. “It represents the strength I didn’t know I had, the softness I’ve learned to hold, and the grace it takes to continue forward while carrying profound loss,” she said.
Sharpe refers to her business as Luna for short.
“Luna has given me a sense of peace,” she said. “Seeing the comfort these pieces bring to my customers reassures me that I am fulfilling my purpose. Helping memories transcend time and remain close, tangible and everlasting.”
Before she crated the ring, she said, all their baby items including clothing were sitting in a box. In addition to baby keepsakes, Sharpe has created wedding, anniversary and memorial keepsakes.
Some of the mementos she has included in her unique stone creations are dried wedding flowers, dirt from the first house a couple bought together and even dried, preserved breast milk.
“My pop-pop passed away in December 2023, and I created a necklace for my mother soon after,” Sharpe said.
Sharpe’s mother chose glass in all his favorite colors to honor his memory. The stone inside her necklace is a blend of all those colors of crushed glass.
Sharpe does not work with any local jewelers yet, but would like to in the future, she said. She also plans to start offering custom engraving.
A software program she plans to purchase will match a loved one’s calligraphy and transfer it onto an object the client chooses as a keepsake, she said.
For more information visit www.lunagracekeepsakes.com.