The Artist

Hi! I’m Jennifer Borek and I want to inspire you to Create Your Escape. I make luscious handmade beads and unique jewelry designed to help you break away from the every day. Whether it’s a small mental break during an intense period of focus, inspiration for your next amazing vacation, or maybe even a goal to make a break for it and live a more creative life, I want these sparkly little glass gems to serve as your daily reminder to escape, even for a moment. Designed to trigger memories of your last escape or your most inspiring vacation, I invite you to luxuriate in the calming colors and soothing textures of my artisan beads and handcrafted jewelry.

Engineering My Own Escape

Create Your Escape also summarizes my own journey with making jewelry and beads. This creative journey started out as a distraction and escaping the stress of a corporate day job. I started making jewelry as a hobby and would indulge my creative side when I got home in the evening. I sold many of my pieces right away. I also ran out of my most favorite beads right away.

To address the struggle of finding the perfect bead for the perfect design, I started making my own glass beads. After years of experimentation, creative distractions (indie magazine publishing, surface pattern design, painting, course creation, sewing, upholstery), moving 11 times in 10 years, I finally came back to my first love of making beads and jewelry. 

Seaside is my signature colorway inspired by my favorite escapes to Hawaii and a Caribbean cruise. Instead of making the finely decorated beads, I settled on a three-color swirl technique with supporting single color beads in a variety of organic shapes. It has taken me years to perfect the Seaside collection into a consistent colorway. When I string these little glass beauties up into jewelry it triggers fond memories of warm sand and mesmerizing waters.

The purpose of my bead collections is to support jewelry designers with dependable colors and shapes for their own designs. I remembered back to when it was difficult for me to find the beads I really love and intentionally developed designer focused collections. I have two foundational collections of Beach and Citrus that are available to designers at any time. They are also inspired by living in a state that could also be known as “vacationland” - Florida.

Currently I'm settled into a corporate job I enjoy along with other volunteer activities. All of my creative outlets are still an escape from routine and at the moment (end of 2020) coronavirus home quarantining boredom. I love how my creative escapes allows me to connect with others who escaping into their own creativity. 

The Studio Supervisor

I’m a fan of the Maltese dog breed. My current mischief maker, Trixie, is my “Studio Supervisor.” I named her after the Trixie Belden mystery series from the 1980’s because she was always getting into scrapes. That’s my Trixie Daisy - always getting into mischief.