Two bracelets can look similar in a photo. One was made in thousands of identical copies, while the other was handcrafted over several hours.
And that is where the difference begins.
The term handmade jewelry is used very often today, but we don’t always stop to think about what it really means. For us, handmade doesn’t just mean assembling a few ready-made elements. At BOMY, the process starts much earlier—with a piece of polymer clay, from which we handcraft our raspberries, blueberries, lemons, and other small elements.
That is why we want to show how handmade jewelry truly differs from mass-produced jewelry.
Handmade begins before the jewelry is even made
Before a BOMY raspberry becomes part of a necklace, bracelet, or earrings, it first has to be created.
We don’t buy a ready-made box of identical raspberries that just need a chain attached.
We handcraft each one from polymer clay.
We prepare the material, shape it, and create the small elements that gradually form the entire fruit. Only then can it be properly hardened and used to create finished jewelry.
One raspberry can take us about 30–40 minutes to make.
And one raspberry is just the beginning.
If we are creating a bracelet or necklace made of many fruits, the entire process can take several hours.
That is why, with handmade jewelry, it is worth looking not only at the finished product but also at everything that happened before it appeared in a photo in the shop.
Mass production looks completely different
Mass production is primarily designed to create a large number of identical products in as little time as possible.
Each piece should look virtually identical. The same shape, the same size, the same details.
With handmade jewelry, it is the opposite.
Even if we create ten raspberries using the same design, each one passes through our hands separately.
One may be slightly larger. Another will have its details arranged slightly differently. Only by looking very closely will you notice these differences—but that is precisely what makes them some of the best evidence that a piece was truly handmade.
Does handmade jewelry have to be perfect?
Yes. Only the word “perfect” means something a little different here.
Handcrafting is not about creating a hundred elements that cannot be distinguished from one another. It is about perfecting each one individually.
That is why two hand-sculpted raspberries do not have to be identical down to the millimeter to be properly made.
On the contrary—small differences are a natural part of handmade jewelry.
And I think that is what we love most about it.
When you buy a particular necklace or bracelet, you receive a piece that no one else will have in an absolutely identical version.
How much work is really involved in handmade jewelry?
We look at finished jewelry in a few seconds.
You see a necklace full of raspberries and think: raspberries, pearls, chain—done.
But each of those raspberries represents several dozen minutes of work.
That is why the production time for handmade jewelry does not begin when the pendant is attached to the chain.
It starts much earlier.
With preparing the materials. With the first piece of clay. With sculpting each subsequent element. With refining the details, hardening, assembling, and only at the very end, creating the finished jewelry.
For more time-consuming projects, we spend several hours on a single piece.
After three hours of sculpting raspberries, do we sometimes wonder why we didn’t come up with jewelry made of one large ball?
Maybe.
But there would be far fewer BOMY pieces.
Why does handmade jewelry cost more?
This is one of the most obvious questions—and completely normal.
In mass production, the labor cost for a single piece can be minimized thanks to economies of scale. If hundreds or thousands of identical elements are made at the same time, the cost of a single piece is completely different.
With handmade jewelry, you cannot increase the scale in the same way.
If creating one raspberry takes a certain amount of time, ten raspberries require ten times as much work. We cannot press an “x100” button and return five minutes later for a finished collection.
Unfortunately. We really did try to find that button.
That is why the price of handmade jewelry includes not only the materials themselves. It also includes the time needed to create each element, the handcrafting of the entire piece, and the work involved in perfecting it.
Handmade jewelry also means having the freedom to create something different
There is one more thing that handcrafting gives us: freedom.
We do not have to limit ourselves to ready-made elements available from manufacturers.
If we want to create jewelry with raspberries—we sculpt raspberries.
If the next one is a blueberry—we create a blueberry.
If one day we decide that we absolutely need a miniature fruit that no sane person would think of putting on a necklace… well, we will probably try to make it.
That is why polymer clay jewelry gives us so many possibilities.
We can create our own shapes, experiment with colors, and design accessories without having to search a catalog of ready-made pendants.
Handmade at BOMY
For us, the word “handmade” is not just a nice addition to a product name.
It is how this jewelry is truly made.
From a small piece of polymer clay, through hand-sculpted fruits, to finished necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.
We want to create colorful, original jewelry that does not need to be viewed through a magnifying glass to be noticed.
Jewelry that is a little playful, a little unexpected, and definitely not produced in a way that makes every piece look like an identical copy.
Because it is precisely in these small differences that you can see that someone truly made it by hand for you.
And that is why we are team handmade.