Jewelry For an Older Generation

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I signed up to be a craft seller at a craft show that’s held in a retirement community that’s near my home. This retirement community has a lot of older residents who use this craft show to not only buy custom bead jewelry for themselves, but to also buy jewelry as Christmas gifts. I hadn’t thought about this much before, but when you are making jewelry for elderly people you need to take into account a lot of things you may take for granted when you’re making jewelry for a general population.

Clasps and Hooks

I was looking over a lot of my bracelets and necklaces and I realized that I many of my pieces have clasps that may be difficult for older people to use. Many of the lobster clasps and even some of the toggle clasps are simply too difficult for older people to easily manipulate. The idea is to make sure that the clasps are large enough and easy enough to be manipulated by hands that could be affected by arthritis. The size of the hooks matter as well, because if the clasping mechanism is too small then it won’t be able to be seen very clearly.

Types of Jewelry

I’m now looking over my pieces and thinking about what would suit older people best. I’m making some larger bead jewelry necklaces that have no clasps at all and I’m making plenty of custom beaded eyeglass holders as well. I want to meet my clients’ needs and give them jewelry that is both functional and beautiful to wear.

This is all very important because with the upcoming retirement boom there are going to be many more older people with more disposable income being seen at craft shows and practically everywhere else in the future. I’ve already noticed that my clients have shifted from the younger generation in which I used to identify to a slightly older generation. I’m going to need to begin to take my clients’ needs in consideration as I make my jewelry in the future.

I’m also making some of my signs in larger fonts and using larger price tags just for this show. It’s the little things like that that are often make the difference between a happy customer and a simply satisfied customer.