Jen E
Designer | Online Design Specialist
GIA Diamond Graduate & AJP
My love of jewelry started long before I knew it could be a career. As a kid, I was always looking down, searching my grandparents’ land in Texas, hiking trails in the Pacific Northwest, dried-up riverbeds, and beaches, hoping to find a unique rock, fossil, shell, gemstone, or anything interesting hidden in the ground. I still do it today, so jewelry feels like a natural extension of something I’ve always loved: noticing small, beautiful things and imagining what they could become.
That same curiosity carried me into jewelry. I’ve always been drawn to the arts and making things by hand, and what started with friendship bracelets and beaded jewelry eventually grew into a deeper love for creating wearable pieces with meaning. I studied hand fabrication, stone setting, wax carving, casting, CAD, and jewelry design at Austin Community College, then deepened my knowledge through GIA, where I earned my Applied Jewelry Professional certificate and later my Graduate Diamonds diploma.
Before joining Green Lake, I ran my own small jewelry business, creating one-of-a-kind pieces directly with clients. Later, I joined Korman Fine Jewelry in Austin, where I worked as a goldsmith and CAD designer before moving into a client-facing design and advisory role. Those experiences shaped the way I approach design. I love the creative side of jewelry most, but I also care deeply about who it’s being made for, and how it will be worn and loved over time.
My designs often begin with the stones themselves. Colored gemstones especially have so much personality, and I love letting their color, shape, and natural character guide the direction of a piece. I’m also drawn to vintage jewelry, organic shapes, textiles, and the details I pick up just moving through the world. I love pieces that feel personal and a little unexpected, the kind that couldn’t belong to anyone but the person wearing them.
Some of my favorite projects start with a client saying, “I know this might sound weird, but…” Those are usually the best ones. I love taking something imaginative, sentimental, or hard to fully explain at first and helping turn it into something real and wearable. Jewelry gets to hold so much: a story, a memory, a milestone, sometimes even a little bit of someone’s personality. That is the part of this work that means the most to me.
When I’m not designing, I’m usually in the middle of several creative projects at once. I often joke that collecting hobbies is one of my hobbies. I love crocheting, knitting, sewing, beadwork, cross-stitch, needlepoint, and pretty much anything that lets me make something with my hands. I also love cooking, traveling, and reading, though my to-be-read list keeps growing faster than I can make a dent in it.
I grew up in Texas and still live here today, but the Pacific Northwest has always felt like a second home. I spent every summer and holiday there as a kid, and I still travel back several times a year. So even though I work remotely from Austin, joining a Seattle-based team felt like the most natural thing in the world.