Amber Allena was born in sunny Florida and grew up on the Indialantic beaches. As a child she was always very creative, but it was in high school that she discovered her true talent as an artist. The summer of her high school graduation she started her college training as a Graphic Artist. After briefly living in Boston she moved back to Florida to attend the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. Graduating in 2002 with a B.S. in Graphic Design she decided that she needed to move to 'the big city' so she could exceed in her career.
While working in NYC, Amber has solely worked as a Digital Imaging Specialist (Retoucher) for many well known magazines and companies. She is truly talented in the field as she describes retouching as 'painting on the computer all day', and it is also fantastic because you are required to have an extreme amount of patience.
In the summer of 2007, Amber was inspired to take a 'hobby' class and thought silversmithing would be fascinating, especially considering you are making an everlasting piece of artwork that can be worn on a daily basis, also she loved that people buy jewelry for themselves or others as a token of appreciation, love, and/or just to simply make them feel good about themselves... plus the thought of working with a torch sounded amazing!!!
Amber Allena has described Jewelry Design as having to use more of her Graphic Design skills in this industry than anywhere else. As a lover of many different types of fashion, music, and time periods... she likes to show off these different elements in her design. Also being a very positive and spiritual person she likes to show off her love of naturally formed crystals and spotlight them in her modern designs... and of course keeping their healing properties in mind while creating each piece.
Amber Allena's jewelry is not only unique in design, but also each stone/crystal used is of a very high quality, and is made with pure and loving intentions for the future wearer. Amber intends to use eco-friendly packaging and also will use sage leaves to pad each piece from not only from damage in transit, but also so when you get home you will be able to 'cleanse' each piece with the sage.
Allena is actually Amber's middle name that was given to her by her mother in honor of her grandfather (last name Allen) and his Cherokee heritage. At the age of 14 he left his reservation in order to find a better life for himself, which he succeeded in creating. Amber is very much in touch with this Native American side of herself and honors this through her spiritual quest.
Currently Amber Allena is slowly setting up her business and would like to be selling on etsy.com & at local art/craft fairs soon ( AmberAllena.etsy.com ), so please keep checking that link to see when she is selling, or you can email her at AmberAllena@gmail.com to get on the subscription list.
