10 Years of Love, Creativity
and Finding My Way

Originally written in 2015 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Colleen Mauer Designs. Eleven years later, CMD is celebrating 21 years of jewelry making, and so much of what I wrote then still feels true.

The other night, after a 10+ hour work day, I went home and sifted through a box of jewelry created shortly after I launched Colleen Mauer Designs in 2005. I came across delicately strung beads and the beginning stages of what would eventually become some of my signature wire-wrapped designs. They felt like beautiful little relics of both my personal and professional growth.

Looking Back at 10 Years of Colleen Mauer Designs

Each year that passes, whether it be on a birthday, holiday or anniversary, brings some amount of reflection. It's impossible to hit a milestone and not think about the memories attached to that date, both literally, like where you physically were, and figuratively, like how much your mind and your life have shifted since then.

That being said, spending an entire decade crafting something, in my case honing in on my true passion of designing jewelry, makes the monumental landmark of 10 years feel particularly surreal. Roughly 3,652 days of designing, making, learning, changing my mind, figuring things out and slowly building a jewelry business that I couldn't have fully imagined when I started.

How I Found the CMD Design Aesthetic

The early pieces I found that night were created before I had a clear vision of what CMD would become. In the beginning, I was overflowing with ideas, and my collection was a mishmash of all of them. Truthfully, it wasn't particularly cohesive. I was experimenting, and I hadn't yet figured out which ideas felt the most like me.

I vividly remember an "AHA!" experience during one of my first shows in Cole Valley, San Francisco, around 2006. I was proudly displaying all of my colorful pieces, but it was my simple hammered silver hoops, of which I had only made about ten pairs, that sold out almost immediately. At first, I was scratching my head. Then something clicked.

The Jewelry Women Wanted to Wear Every Day

This was what women wanted. They wanted everyday jewelry they could toss on without having to coordinate it with their clothes. They wanted pieces that could transition from the office to a night out to the grocery store the next morning. Jewelry that felt special, but never so precious that it spent most of its life sitting in a box.

Slowly, I began phasing out the wildly designed, brightly pigmented beads and started creating simpler, more structured jewelry using metal as my primary material. Once I made that shift, everything began to click. The collection became more cohesive, the jewelry began to sell, and more importantly, I started recognizing my own design language.

To this day, when a client tells me, "I wear my CMD piece every day," I know I've done exactly what I set out to do. My true vision, even though I didn't know how to design toward it at first, was to create jewelry someone loves and connects with so much that it becomes a staple. The kind of piece you reach for without thinking about it because you don't quite feel like yourself without it.

10 Years In and Still Just Beginning

So now, as I reflect on these 10 years of glory, pain, joy, tears, laughter, friendships and oh-so much more, I feel an enormous amount of gratitude and nostalgia. I'm overflowing with happiness and pride, and though I am just a speck in the universe of creators, I live for this passion. Truly, creativity keeps me sane.

As I celebrate 10 years of designing jewelry, I somehow still feel as though I'm just beginning. I can't wait to see what the years ahead bring, and if they're even a fraction as fulfilling as the first ten have been, I'll consider myself incredibly lucky.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your endless love and support.

And Now, 21 Years of CMD

A little note from 2026: I wrote those words eleven years ago, when reaching ten years in business felt almost impossible to wrap my head around. Now, somehow, Colleen Mauer Designs is 21 years old.

So much has changed since I first wrote this. The business has evolved, my work has evolved, and I've evolved right along with it. But reading this again, I'm struck by how much hasn't changed. I still want to make jewelry you live in. I still get ridiculously happy when someone tells me they've worn the same CMD piece for years. And after 21 years, I still feel like there are new things to make, new directions to explore and plenty left for me to learn.

Maybe that's the best part.

With 21 years of gratitude,
Colleen

© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.

Published: September 24, 2015
Updated: August 13, 2026