If you’ve ever visited Running With Scissors Gallery and walked through the front door, taken a sharp left, wound your way around a few studio spaces and gone up some wooden stairs in a back corner, you’d be sure to find Jennifer Nielsen. But if that seems a bit daunting, you can always visit her site, Jennifer Nielsen Handcrafted Jewelry.

When you walk into Jen’s small yet supremely organized studio, you’ll see rows and rows of sand stones and found pebbles from Portland beaches, many from right near her home by Willard Beach. Her found rocks and minerals are not treated or even tumbled. She looks for stones “with a flat bottom so there’s a natural seat” and prefers to use them in their found state - smooth from being tossed in the ocean. 

Jen has always been a jeweler. As a former MECA student, she took metalsmithing classes and began to apprentice with jewelers and picked up techniques along the way. By chance, she made herself a bracelet from stones she found at the beach. That’s all it took. Everybody wanted one.

Jen accepts visitors to her studio by appointment. She oozes an appreciation for Maine’s natural landscapes - from the driftwood stool that holds her tools to her thousands of rows of near perfectly matched rocks. She leaves you inspired to keep your head to the ground, on a constant quest for something unique.

She creates everything from pendants to bracelets and engagement rings. She also creates custom pieces for people that are fellow “rock picker uppers”. Shop her pieces online here and if anyone is headed to the Common Grounds Fair this weekend - look for her booth!