So, you've just bought a stunning pair of handmade sterling silver earrings, and you want to make sure they stay looking shiny and new. Good news! With a little bit of TLC, your sterling silver jewellery can last a lifetime. Here are some tips to keep your sterling silver looking its best: Store your jewellery properly: Your sterling silver jewellery is sensitive to its environment, so keep it in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. We send all Arias Design Co earrings out to you in a cotton blend jewellery pouch, which is ideal to protect your favourite NZ jewellery fro ..read more

So, you've decided you want to gift your person some unique, handmade earrings that they won't be able to get anywhere else. Excellent choice. The next question is: which pair of earrings do you think they would like the best? There's plenty to choose from at Arias Design Co, so we've put together four tips to help you get your person a gift they'll absolutely adore for years to come! Which style of earrings do they usually wear? A great starting point is the style - does your person usually stick to minimalist stud earrings? Or will you often find them adorned with a gorgeous pair of statemen ..read more

Since arriving in New Zealand back in 2019, I've been over the moon to be based in Auckland. It's a city unlike any other, with incredibly kind and hospitable people, beautiful nature reserves and a uniquely Kiwi shopping and social scene. When I arrived I never thought I'd be weaving my own jewellery designs into the fabric of Auckland's shopping scene, but here we are! I'm beyond thrilled to announce we are now stocking our polymer clay earrings at Masala Bazaar! Making it's home in Parnell, Masala Bazaar is unapologetically carving out room in New Zealands gift and retail space fo ..read more

Arias Design Co has always been about using our handmade jewellery for good. If you've been following along since the early days, you'll know of our annual Kaleydo Fundrasier collection. A beachy, boho collection of handmade polymer clay earrings that all began with a chance encounter in the breathtaking island of Gili Trawangan, Indonesia around six years ago. This collection tells a story of young man, who's passion for learning and love for his newborn daughter led to a an initiative to empower education from thousands of miles away. Life is a funny old thing at the best of times, and somet ..read more

The Original Crystal Clay Earrings Back in May 2021, one of the first styles of clay earrings to to hit Arias Design Co was a mini collection of faux rose quartz drop earrings. There were just three styles in that first collection - it's crazy to reminisce! Since then we’ve had a lot of fun refining and polishing up (no pun intended) our rose quartz designs, getting ever closer to that perfectly organic finish. It didn't take long until we added a couple of new 'stones' to the line up - howlite and obsidian - and our Faux Stone range was born. Adding Resin To Polymer Clay Earrin ..read more

As a NZ small business it's important to me that Arias Design Co doesn't leave a huge dent on the environment when making polymer clay earrings. I'm transparent with you about how polymer clay is a plastic and so while it can't be said to be an eco friendly material itself, there are aspects of our Auckland made earrings that are much more environmentally friendly than their fast fashion equivalent.  I do feel that I have a responsibility as a business owner to make sure that Arias Design Co operates as sustainably as possible as a whole. I want to bring you beautiful earrings that ..read more

Nobody makes it through life unscathed. For those inevitable bumps, scratches and bruises, it's a fairly common practice for people to have a first aid kit handy. They're mandated in most workplaces and most homes will have a first aid box, drawer, or repurposed biscuit tub that does the job. They're one of those things that you can go forever without needing, but when you do, you do! So why can't we have a first aid kit for our mental health too? For those that regularly experience mental distress, medical attention isn't required a lot of the time, but it can be a struggle to give ourse ..read more

Social media has firmly inserted itself into our lives and it isn’t going anywhere. It's a powerful tool, used by most in our modern world. Since founding Arias Design Co, I've noticed I'm spending a lot more time on social media, and not entirely by choice. When I was a pre-teen, social media pretty much meant one of two things: Myspace or MSN messenger. We’d finish up at school for the day, run straight to the ‘computer room’ (if you know, you know) and chat away to our friends, updating our personal messages with Fall Out Boy song lyrics and the initials of our most recently declared BFF. T ..read more

Since we've recently added 925 sterling silver hooks and stud as an option on some of our existing earrings - and will continue to include them in future releases too - we figured it makes sense to break down some of the differences between them and the stainless steel earring findings we usually use. Neither sterling silver nor stainless steel is better than the other - each metal has it's own pros and cons when it comes to jewellery design, so ultimately the choice is down to personal preference! Among the reasons we decided to use stainless steel hooks and posts for our earrings originally ..read more

As awareness and general knowledge surrounding mental health and mental illness grows, it’s important to be able to understand the differences between what we call ‘mental health’ and what we call ‘mental illness’. Sometimes, people can unknowingly use the two terms interchangeably, or understand them to mean the same thing, when this isn’t the case. I think that in order for us to have meaningful conversations surrounding mental health, and be able to support those struggling with mental illness, we need to be sure that we are all 'speaking the same language' and communicating clearly.&n ..read more