Jewelry

business flowers from Women’s

By LINDA M. LINONIS

linonis@vindy.com

CANFIELD

The friendship between Deanna Guerrieri and Sarah Moynihan flowered into the creative venture of My Beverly Jewelry.

The best friends and business partners founded the jewelry-making enterprise as a tribute to an influential woman in their lives – the late Beverly Parry, Guerrieri’s grandmother by family ties, and Moynihan’s in her heart.

“We think of her as our grandmother. She’s a big part of who we are,” Guerrieri said. “We carry a bit of her with us.”

The My Beverly Jewelry brochure also credits Parry as the inspiration for the jewelry because of her “remarkable soul, loving ways and passion for God.”

Guerrieri and Moynihan have been best friends since ninth-grade English class.

“We’re like sisters,” Moynihan said.

“Our friendship is super important to us,” Guerrieri said.

Since their 2005 graduation from Austintown Fitch High School, the young women have had numerous jobs. Guerrieri

has worked as a manager at various stores. Moynihan said she must have had 20 jobs and works part-time for a property-management company. “We’re working on this full time and overtime,” Guerrieri said of the innovative project in which they use real flowers to make unique jewelry.

“This is so rewarding,” Moynihan said of the results of their efforts. “We always liked doing crafts and got together once a week for that.”

The two researched jewelry, making a bit, but admitted there was more experimenting. “It was trial and error,” Guerrieri said. “We tried different methods,” Moynihan added. Their process retains the color and beauty of the flowers.

They use a resin as a top coating; it starts out as a liquid, then hardens. They’ve experimented with different colored backgrounds for the jewelry pieces that include bracelets, necklaces, rings, earrings, hair clips, pins, cuff links and tie tacks. “This is creative ... it’s always evolving,” Moynihan said.

The entrepreneurs said they grow the flowers used in their jewelry and enlist family members with gardens as well. They get most of the flowers from those gardens. “But sometimes we pick some along the side of the road,” Guerrieri said.

The blooms they use most often are daisy, Queen Anne’s Lace, lily of the valley, violas, baby’s breath, coreopsis and hydrangea. Guerrieri said they came across a weed, oxalispes caprae, that works well in their designs. They also like wildflowers and buttercups.

Moynihan said the jewelry involves a series of steps including selecting the flower, jewelry piece and drying the flowers by pressing them in many books. Moynihan said she likes to use a tweezer to place the flowers; Guerrieri prefers a dental pick. They learned to avoid handling the dried flowers because of the natural oils on fingers.

“Daisies are probably the easiest flower to work with,” Moynihan said. Greenery in the arrangement, Guerrieri added, is created by using grass seeds.

The two work together and separately on jewelry pieces and always have multiple projects in progress. “We want to get it just right,” Moynihan said.

“We dream about this,” Guerrieri said. “We’re blessed to be able to do this together and have so much fun.”

Success enjoyed by My Beverly Jewelry is rooted in repeat customers, who wear the pieces and plant seeds of interest in others. “This is creative. ... It’s always evolving and helps keep people interested,” Moynihan said.

Custom-order pieces include jewelry for bridal parties. Another special order is using flowers from a funeral spray to create pieces that hold a special memory of a loved one for family members.