06/09/2026
Hi, I’m Kat. I realized that although some of you have followed Curious Oddities for years, I don’t know if we’ve ever properly met.
I grew up in a century-old log cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and I was one of those kids who was always bringing things home.
Rocks. Feathers. Interesting plants. Things dug out of abandoned Gold Rush-era dump sites. Occasionally an animal skull. Probably a few things better left outside.
I spent a lot of time with field guides, looking for mushrooms and identifying plants, watching tadpoles, building forts and sleeping outside under the stars. I had a pet duck who followed me around and a retired circus pony named Cookie for a best friend - which sounds like a storybook, but I promise is completely true.
I loved that everything held something more to discover. A rock wasn’t just a rock. What was it made of? What bird did that feather belong to? Who left that old bottle behind?
Everything had a story if you looked long enough.
Curious Oddities itself began, appropriately enough, over wine and a pile of broken jewelry.
A friend hosted “Franken-jewelry” nights. Everyone brought broken chains, orphaned earrings, charms and bits and bobs, and we’d make new things from the pieces.
I loved it.
It got me making jewelry again. I opened a little Etsy shop in 2008, and somehow that experiment grew into Curious Oddities.
Eighteen years later, I’ve been thinking about what I still love most about it.
It isn’t simply jewelry.
It’s finding something that makes me look twice. Learning the story behind an old symbol. Turning a stone over to see what happens in the light. Discovering how something was made. Hearing why someone chose a particular locket or talisman - and how an object can become part of a much bigger story.
So I’m going to share more of that here: things I’m researching and finding, nature, folklore, history, old craftsmanship, stories behind the jewelry and the occasional research rabbit hole that has absolutely nothing to do with jewelry.
If you’re also the sort of person who stops to look at the strange, wonderful little thing everyone else walked past, welcome. I think we’ve found each other. 🌿🔍
