We’ve already written a lot about Love Heals since we love just about everything they do. So we shouldn’t have been surprised when they sent us info on a new project they were launching called, The Design Studio.

The online design interface (the first of its kind) lets you become the designer choosing handcrafted charms, strands and pendants and manipulate them into stunning, personalized necklaces.

“For the past few years, Love Heals has been receiving daily requests for custom jewelry. In order to serve both our stores and our customers better, we wanted to develop an accessible design process that allows everyone to bring their creative instincts to the table,” says Love Heals President Gunnar Lovelace. “The stores and our customers know the quality of artisan work that we put into every piece of jewelry we design – and we want to share that experience, as well as our mission of giving back.”

How to start? All you have to do is simply drag and drop the various eye catching pieces onto the “stage” to see what looks good and keep going like the little raven you are or you can keep it minimal. It’s actually a lot of fun.

I designed a piece that when all was said and done went for $192, but it was absolutely perfect in every way. And thanks to Love Heals Jewelry love for EcoSalon readers, they’re allowing us to offer a 30 percent discount to you in celebration of their launch. Just enter DESIGN at the checkout.

After each “guest designer,” has chosen from the thousands of ethically sourced, handcrafted materials and which gets sent off to be assembled by the pros, they will receive their design within 7-15 business days.

And the best part of this post?

If you’ve read down this far, you’re invited to an EcoSalon/Love Heals design contest where if you have the winning design, you get it free!

Simply design your necklace and select “share” within The Design Studio’s interface by emailing it to us at editor@ecosalondotcom. We’ll pick the winner a week later and the winning design will be gifted once we make the decision.

So get designing!

Background on Love Heals: Sold in high-end stores across the country (Fred Segal, Free People, Calypso, Planet Blue), Ojai, California based Love Heals is renowned for their gorgeous jewelry and CSR initiatives which include planting 10 trees with Greener Ethiopia and protecting a child from blindness with Vitamin Angels for every piece they sell. (For each design you make, Love Heals will also plant 10 trees and give money to Vitamin Angels.) Not to mention, Oprah, Taylor Swift and Alicia Silverstone are die-hard Love Heals fans.

To date, the company has planted over 432,000 trees and protected over 5,000 children from blindness.

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Love Heals “Freedom Deliverance”

In a perfect world, every piece of our jewelry collections would help plant trees or save an at-risk child from blindness or slavery.

Sound far-fetched?

Not if it’s Love Heals jewelry.

Based out of Ojai, California, the jewelry itself (necklaces, cuffs, bracelets, earrings) is gorgeously crafted  on an organic farm in a geodesic dome.

Love it.

Incorporating the ” influence of the surrounding bohemian spirit,” says the press release, the pieces are created exclusively from ethically sourced materials and antiques collected from the designer’s travels around the globe.

One might envision these same pieces being protective amulets, others, layered glory.

Regardless, we say, strand us up Love Heals. We’re your new biggest fan. We recently chatted up Co-President and Head Designer, Adriana Lovelace, to learn more.

Amy: I read that you create exclusively from ethically sourced materials and antiques collected from the designer’s travels around the globe. What are some of your favorite collected pieces and why did they strike you as worthy of purchasing?

Adriana: Buddhas and different healing talismans I found in a flea market in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand are some of my favorite pieces.
I definitely love hunting for antique materials the most. It’s so great to find pieces with great craftsmanship and techniques that are now prohibitively expensive and incorporate them in our work. I just came across some great enameled pieces that I will add to our line.

The Mercado Dorrego in San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina, is one of my favorite haunts. I always find great pieces there. It might be some traditional, gaucho, hand-carved piece of horse paraphernalia or some colonial relic – it’s always interesting. I found some devotional pieces in Montevideo, Uruguay; Brazil is great for gemstones and talismans. Of course, Paris and its flea markets, such as Porte aux Vanves and Clignancourt, are up in my scale. London has such great hunting grounds, too – Portobello Road is still great. I used to sell my jewelry there 35 years ago. Wherever I go, whether it’s Europe, South America or Asia I am always hunting, looking for that elusive object that is beautifully-made and has charm.

Do you think creating in a geodesic dome helps with creativity?

Our dome has some great windows that look onto the sky, trees, garden and the profile of the hills in the background. Because it’s round, it reminds us that in the beginning is the end, it all flows seamlessly.

It’s a challenging place to work from organizationally.

We follow the contour of the walls as much as possible for shelving and some work spaces and have a rectangular island inside. When it rains, we cover the computers with tarps. When it’s cold, hot, wet or whatever, the computer system might be down. It’s a constant reminder of the frailty of the human conditions and our lack of ultimate control. I appreciate it from that point of view.

Love Heals seems so organic and raw in its aesthetic (even inherent) beauty. Do you think that’s what draws women to it?

Love Heals seems organic because it is organic. My design processes are spontaneous. I am happiest working when I stay connected to my heart that extends to the rest of my life. Joseph Campbell said “Follow your bliss,” and that is the intention.

I like things that have a human imprint, that are not too perfect, finely-crafted yes, but not too shiny or new or glossy. I consider how a piece feels against the body, where it touches, what weight it has, how it moves when I move. Leonard Cohen says the light comes in through the crack and our work follows that understanding.

I think women love that sense of inherent beauty without fuss. It’s such a relief.

How did you enter into your partnership with Goodlife?

We worked with Goodlife initially but then decided to work directly with their tree planting partner named GreenerEthiopia so that we could be closer to the actual tree-planting work. We are discussing with GreenEthiopia sending a photographer once a year starting in 2010 to document new and existing tree growth and progress as we have made such large contributions.

You also contribute a percentage of money made to child slavery and child blindness organizations. Why do you think it’s so important to give back?

Giving back works from the most selfish point of view: It gives us great pleasure. The heart wants to share. It’s actually a wonderful luxury to have the possibility of giving a portion of our profit. We have been gifted in our lives and it feels so good to share. I think everybody wants that at some level.

I would add that part of our mission is to contribute to the movement of socially-conscious businesses. Specifically, we have been tying each purchase to tangible actions that do good in the world. For example, we now have a series called Vision which protects four disadvantaged children from blindness for the first five years of their life (when they’re most at risk) through our work with VitaminAngels.

We have another collection called Freedom, which saves a child from slavery in Sudan through our work with AbolishSlavery. Just in the last month that we introduced these two new series of work, we have been able to finance protecting over 300 children from blindness, and rescue over 70 children from slavery in Sudan. It has been an honor to be part of these projects and have such a meaningful impact on so many lives.

We are only able to do this work because of the support from our customers.

Love Heals family: Gunnar Lovelace (Co-President, Designer), Elisa Lovelace (Designer), Adriana Lovelace (Co-President, Head Designer).

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