Once upon a time, the Spike Girls
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March, 2024
The first rays of Spring’s sun illuminate the world, leaving behind the cold Winter nights. Two young artisans from center Spain spend their days thinking of new ways of making art, as they've almost tried everything.
Surrounded by woodcrafts, soft crochet plushies, a big camera, nineteen notebooks filled with original fantasy stories and maybe three million different drawings, Minerva scrolls down through the infinite Wonderland hole of TikTok when suddenly this amazing technique appears in the screen of her phone:
“What’s she doing?” asks her partner in crime, Marina.
“Jewelry it seems” says Minerva, with a tiny light sparkling in her look.
Marina knows the meaning of that light, as she can feel it sparkling too. And so, the seed of curiosity is planted.
Some days pass by, till they get all the tools and now, sitting in front of a rudimentary display of soft soldering materials, they feel shy to try. The soldering iron reaches a dragon’s breathing temperature, when Marina takes the very first pendant that’s ready to born, a small black ceramic, that’s soon covered in the lead free tin, copper and silver alloy that caracterize this technique. With the trembling pulse of inexperience, Marina starts sculpting twisted spikes out of the ceramic, which is now black and silver. Wisps of smoke decorate the room and Minerva is the next one to try, this time, a turquoise ceramic. Later that afternoon, they share another sparkling look: soft soldering feels amazing to try.
April 2024
Our Spike Girls, originally illustrators, are travelling through Spain highways coming back home, after a long weekend working at a comic convention across the country. They’re cheering, laughing and singing, as they start discussing about their spikey jewelry project:
“So how should we name it? It definitely needs a name!” says Marina smiling.
“Yes, but it needs to sound powerful and hard! A branding name you won’t forget!” responds Minerva with dreamy eyes.
“Should it be in English or Spanish? I prefer Spanish, but thinking international, it would be better in English, to reach more people, at the same time i wanna keep our origin essence… i don’t know” asks Marina while overtaking a car.
“Maybe a name that would be easy to pronounce in both Spanish and English? I also wanna keep the essence, but i totally agree with you” adds Minerva.
“..and i don’t want it to sound basic, it needs personality, but also be easy to remember, but obviously, it’s hard to think about something that keeps all the characteristics we’re searching for in both languages, my god, this is actually difficult, i’m not sure if..” Marina has eyes wide open, possibilities running through her head.
“STOP!” Minerva has got enough.
“The VAN??” Marina is actually scared.
“No girl, not the van, the chatter” asserts Minerva.
“Oh sorry I got too many questions at the same time” Marina gets relaxed again.
“It’s fine, nothing to worry about. What do you think if we..?”
After several attemps to decide the name of the jewelry brand, failed translations, phonetic agreements and barely seventy three kilometers, they finally find it:
“So the electricity is basically controled fire turned into energy, isn’t it? And just as life, it needs a spark to begin… and the solder gets actually hot enough to start a fire with it!” says Minerva laughing.
“For sure… and it’s hypnotic how the smoke dances when the alloy covers the pieces… it makes me imagine that we’re in a misty forest, with all the faeries watching hidden in the woods and the haze...” now Minerva can’t tell what faeries her partner in crime’s referring to.
“You’re such a poet” laughs Minerva.
“STOP!” Marina’s skin has turned bright red “I’M ONLY TIRED OF DRIVING AND MY MIND WANDERS AROUND, YOU KNOW IT” the idea of the faeries thinking it was a corny statement has her embarrassed.
“Hahaha it’s okay, it’s okay. So… SparkHaze, huh?” says Minerva, raising an eyebrow.
“SparkHaze… the Spark and the Haze…” Marina’s feeling the sound of the words.
“The Spark that’s needed to begin…” starts Minerva.
“…the Haze that surrounds us while soldering, the Haze in which those faeries live… i like it, no i’m loving it!” ends Marina.
“It compacts pretty well the concept we’re searching for, i love it as well!”
And so, SparkHaze is born.
January 2025
Spring mornings, Summer afternoons, Autumn evenings have passed by and the cold Winter nights are back, but from the dephts of our artisan hearts, we’d like to thank all of the amazing people that’s part of our journey, SparkHaze wouldn’t be what it is today without any of you. Creating such intrincate jewelry designs, soft soldering cybersigilism forms, worldbuilding fantasy backstories for our spikey pendants… there’s not enough words to describe how it feels to vindicate the power of craftsmanship with such a beautiful community that loves and supports handcrafted fashion as much as we do. So because all of that, we’d like to thank you and give you a warm welcome to our new jewelry blog! In which you’ll find tips for keeping your handmade jewelry bright, interesting facts about our collections, short stories of SparkHaze’s jewels, latest fashion news or even more warmful memories, as the one you just read.
Thank you all, we’ll see you on the net!
M&M, the Spike Girls
Web: www.sparkhaze.com
Instagram: @sparkhazebusiness
TikTok: @sparkhazebusiness