Variegated String of Hearts Dangle Earrings

Somewhere in your home right now there is probably a shelf or a windowsill where something trails. A vine that started as three leaves and is now making its way quietly toward the floor, putting out new growth in that unhurried way that houseplants have, adding one small heart at a time. You water it when you remember. It forgives you when you forget. It just keeps going, longer and longer and longer, asking almost nothing and giving back everything.

The String of Hearts

Ceropegia woodii is native to the rocky ledges and dry forests of southern Africa, where its thin wiry vines trail down cliff faces and scramble through other vegetation, its small heart-shaped leaves appearing at regular intervals along stems that can reach twelve feet long in the wild. The genus name Ceropegia comes from the Greek words for wax and fountain, a reference to the unusual tubular flowers that bloom along the stems, pale magenta with deep purple tips, shaped like tiny lanterns. The species name woodii honors John Medley Wood, the botanist who first collected and documented the plant in 1881 after a career at sea that had nothing to do with botany, which is a lovely detail about how people find the things they are meant to love.

The leaves are dark green marbled with silver on the upper surface and flushed purple underneath, a combination that makes the variegated forms particularly beautiful in certain light, all those silver markings shifting as the vine moves. Small tubers form along the stems between the leaves, aerial storage organs that can root themselves wherever they touch soil, which is how the plant spreads quietly and persistently in its native landscape. It is a plant that knows how to take care of itself. It also knows how to make itself completely at home wherever it lands.

It has been known by many names over the years. String of hearts. Chain of hearts. Rosary vine. Hearts entangled. Sweetheart vine. All of them earned.

The Piece

Three heart-shaped leaves cascade down from each ear wire, each one smaller than the last, linked by simple rings of sterling silver the way the real plant links its leaves along those impossibly thin stems. The largest leaf at the top, a medium one in the middle, and the smallest at the bottom, the whole earring swaying gently the way a real trailing vine sways when the air moves through a room. Every leaf was hand carved from sterling silver, the surface texture of each one pressed in to suggest the marbled veining of the real leaves, all of it deepened with oxidation so the detail reads clearly.

They move when you move and catch the light when you turn your head and are light enough to wear all day without noticing them, which is exactly the kind of earring a string of hearts plant deserves to become.

The Craftsmanship

• Earrings: approximately 2.75 inches long from ear wire
• Material: sterling silver throughout, oxidized
• Style: French wire dangle earrings, three cascading heart leaves
• Edition: made to order, each pair unique

A Note from Tamara

String of hearts is one of those plants that I think attracts a very specific kind of person, someone who loves the delicate things, who notices the small details, who finds joy in watching something grow slowly and quietly over a long period of time. I made these earrings for that person. The way the leaves get smaller as they trail down felt exactly right to me, the same way the real plant looks when it is doing what it does best, just going, one small heart at a time, unbothered and lovely and completely itself.

Shipping

Your string of hearts earrings will be made to order just for you in my little studio in the New Hampshire woods. Please allow one to two weeks for them to be created. You will receive a tracking number by email so you can follow them on their journey to their new home.