About Lux Rêve

Sometimes the scariest decisions are the ones that change everything.

For me, it was September 2019, the day I bought a vintage Westfalia camper van I didn't know how to drive. I was working part-time as a physical therapist, scared to go full-time with Lux Rêve, but I knew if I could live out of a van and do markets every weekend, I could keep my overhead low. The day I bought Luxy was the moment I stopped waiting for permission to build the life I wanted.

But here's the thing: Lux Rêve didn't start with Luxy.

The seeds were planted 14 years earlier, the summer I came home from college to find my favorite jewelry store in downtown Bend had disappeared. That disappointment led me to a local bead store where I signed up for my first wire hammering class. From that day forward, I was hooked.

What started as a hobby became a business when a customer at the restaurant where I worked loved my earrings so much she bought them right off my ears. That's when I realized: people don't just want jewelry. They want the story behind it, the connection to something real.

By 2010, I was a broke grad student studying to become a physical therapist when I decided to try selling my jewelry in boutiques. After going door to door and facing countless rejections, I finally landed in a chic boutique in Park City, UT.

After graduating in 2013, I took one last summer of freedom. I traveled the Pacific Northwest in my Toyota 4Runner, camping, making jewelry, and playing in the sun. That's when I finally named the brand Lux Rêve. Lux is Latin for light and Rêve is French for dream, inspired by what the business meant to me: giving light to my dreams and passion for jewelry, travel, and fashion.

For 8 years, I worked as a physical therapist while growing Lux Rêve on the side. At this point, I'd only taken one hammering class. Everything else, bending, shaping, wire wrapping gold-filled and sterling silver, I taught myself.

In 2023, I faced my biggest challenge: learning metalsmithing while running a business. Between the time in class and the time outside of classes practicing new techniques, I quickly found that I had no time to work on my business. It was very hard to balance finding time to learn while still keeping up with sales. I lost wholesale accounts. I started questioning everything. I almost threw in the towel.

That's when I created the Intentionally Sourced Collection, an ethically curated collection of pieces I hand-picked from makers and other small businesses I discovered through my travels. It wasn't a pivot away from making. It was an evolution of what I'd always done: connecting people to jewelry that tells a story.

Today, Lux Rêve is a hybrid: part handmade, part curated, all intentional. I split my time between Bend, Oregon (where I grew up) in the summers and Santa Barbara in the winters. This lifestyle gives me consistent revenue and a balance of ocean and mountain time, both so special in their own ways. The energy from the ocean drives my motivation to create new things, while the mountains ground me and remind me of where I started.

I'm still learning and growing my metalsmithing skills one piece at a time. I'm creating more one-of-a-kind pieces and limited mini collections. I'm proud of the hybrid model I've built: part maker, part curator, all heart.

Lux Rêve is for the woman who's also still becoming. Who values experiences over things, but when she does buy something, she wants it to last, to layer effortlessly with what she already owns, and to remind her of the life she's building.

Because you deserve to feel effortlessly elegant without sacrificing your budget or your personal style.

If thats you, I would love to create something for you. 

With love & Light, 

XOXO Kristin