Turn your memories into a silver keepsake thanks to our Find of the Week: Little Prints!
Kids grow up fast, and when you’ve got a teenager in the house refusing to get out of bed, it’s hard to remember that once upon a time you were battling them to go to sleep in the first place. In the blink of an eye that adorable little newborn is a busy toddler, an opinionated preschooler, an awkward tween and then – bam – an obstreperous teen. Our advice? Hang on to the memories any way you can whether it’s through pretty canvas pictures, fun memory books or drawers full of early art masterpieces. But there’s also another way you can immortalise those tiny hand or footprints thanks to our Find of the Week: Little Prints! We’ve been talking to creator and mum-of-two, Diane Hall, about what inspired her to design unique silver jewellery using your loved one’s prints…
Hi Diane! Tell us a little bit about you (we’re nosy like that)…
Well, although originally from the UK, I’ve lived in Asia for 20 years now and in that time I’ve called Bangkok, Taiwan and Singapore (twice!) home. I’ve been in Singapore this time around for 15 years , and I really do think it is the best place for bringing up a family. I am the mummy of two beautiful adopted children (one boy, one girl) and they definitely keep me on my toes! But besides being a mother and a wife, creativity is my other passion in life.
And how did Little Prints come to be?
My kids and hubby are the most important things in my life, but I also wanted to explore my creative side, while still keeping a happy balance between home and work life. Prior to Little Prints, I ran a one-woman business for handcrafted, themed celebration cakes and cupcakes. For nine years I was whipping up bespoke cakes for loyal customers all over the island. It was such a personally rewarding experience, but baking and decorating cakes is unbelievably time consuming, and I was spending far too many hours in the kitchen and away from my family. Eventually I decided to explore other creative business ideas.
Swapping my oven for a kiln and fondant for silver clay was a fun and natural move for me, and so in early 2018 I became the founder and designer of Little Prints: the only silver print company in Singapore.
Tell us more!
I really wanted to create something meaningful and unique with Little Prints: to capture precious moments using silver printing. Each design is my own, and I use only 999 pure silver (the purest kind there is) to produce a personal memory in silver form.
The range includes bangles, necklaces, key chains and my own personal fave, a chunky candy style bracelet, but I am always happy to work with a customer to come up with something new and exciting. Once the jewellery design is decided upon, I then transfer fingerprints or handprints into jewellery form. Whether it is a gift for grandparents from a grandchild, a keepsake for a new mum from a tiny baby, or even a paw print taken from the fur kid in the family, creating something so special makes me incredibly happy.
I also feel hugely honoured to have been asked to work with the Children’s Cancer Foundation. I help create lasting memorial keepsakes for those facing the heartbreaking possibility of losing a loved one. I recently designed a pair of memorial cufflinks for a son who had lost his mother: the cufflinks had his mum’s handprints on them, and he wore them on his wedding day.
How do you take the prints?
It’s easy to capture the prints! I send out an inkless kit via mail so that a hand, foot, finger or paw print can be taken, and it’s a completely mess free process. It is then transferred by me into silver clay and then handcrafted by myself into the end product.
I can also scale down drawings or sketches to print into silver. I love new challenges, and working with customers to come up with something unique for each and every piece is so rewarding.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us for fun moments on HoneyKids Instagram!