The concept of photo jewelry is not unique nor is it new. I first became interested in the idea of photo jewelry after having my own children and remembering how much I had loved the photo pieces my own mother had when I was a child. Unfortunately those pieces had yellowed and faded, so I set out to find a way to create heirloom photo jewelry that would never fade or yellow. Years of experimenting and practice have lead us to where our line is now. Fun and trendy photo jewelry printed on archival paper that will not fade and a coating that will never yellow. Need proof? Check out our video here comparing our jewelry to our competitors.

Kotori began as a retail company, doing quite well selling to the general public as well as photographers. But all that changed after sponsoring a photographer workshop with Kimberly Wylie & Laura Novak. I went and listened, really listened, to what photographers were telling me about the business and about how they wanted to use photo jewelry to market themselves. I heard horror stories of bad customer service and that they were tired of using vendors who sold retail. And I was inspired.

I left the conference and changed the whole direction of my company. No more retail. We started focusing solely on photographers. We listened. We made policy changes, we created new and exciting products based off photographer input. And before we knew it, the great word of mouth about our products and customer service had caused our company to grow tenfold.

My husband, John, began working with Kotori full time in the fall of 2010, so we are now truly a family business. Getting to spend time with my favorite person in the world just makes creating our jewelry even more fun. We are both artists with not only the jewelry, but also graphic design, painting, sketching and so much more. We push each other creatively. I never knew I could have so much fun or laugh so much while working. We are proud to be a company that puts family first for ourselves and our employees.

We'd love to have you join our Kotori family,