Meshu: turn your travels into beautiful jewellery

Have you ever heard of Meshu? If you love travel, jewellery and unique momentos then it’s about time you did. Returning from travels is bound to leave you feeling a bit blue. The memories will last forever, but what happens if you want to have a visible (and pretty) reminder? Fancy wearing your travels on your sleeve? Or perhaps you would prefer to have it around your neck or dangling on your ear lobes?

Well, fresh back from a long trip, I wanted some way of commemorating the adventures so I got on my thinking cap.

Maps on the wall? Done.

Photographs printed off and framed? Done.

Collection of shells from around the world on every possible surface? Done.

Twine bracelets picked up from various beach hotspots still tangled on my wrists and ankles? Errrrrr, yep.

But these are getting pretty ratty, grey and bothersome under my boots while I pace the streets job hunting. It got me searching for something alternative, something pretty, something unique…. And that’s when the powers of the internet got me stumbling upon Meshu.

Stylish geometric shapes that vary in width, length, complexity and material look pretty slick, but what have they got to do with traveling? Where do your adventures come into these designs? Well, fellow Travelettes, Meshu’s slogan puts it into a nutshell: “Meshu turns your places into beautiful objects”. You design these shapes with the locations of all your previous traveling destinations. The first step of designing your Meshu is by entering all your destinations. The spots are pinpointed on a map which creates a unique geometric Meshu that can be slightly warped to your taste before it is transformed into a necklace, earrings or cufflinks.

Here’s my Meshu in the making:

 You can choose between ‘Facet’ that resembles a diamond, or ‘Radial’ which holds the map of your travels in a pure circle. Different materials include bamboo, acrylic and nylon. Foursquare can also be used to pinpoint everywhere you’ve been in your city or state. So simple. So special. How could two Meshu’s ever be the same??

Meshu: from map to fashion

 My personal taste lies in the diamond spider web and to see my travels mapped over the Meshu map is really awe-inspiring and grand. Following the lines of my very own map, it’s highlighted how far I’ve gone in the past few years; beginning way back in 2009 when Travelettes was a freshly born travel blog, and it’s all led back to home in 2013 where I belong (…for now). One chapter of my life commemorated in a piece of jewellery. Plus Meshu will send you the pieces own map postcard.

Mooching around the website also led me to avidly reading the travel quotes that pop up from past customers. Pretty inspiring:

• “A commemoration of all you learned in Europe. A reminder to keep getting out there.”
• “Beauty, happiness and pleasure are all around; waiting for us. Remember to slow down enough to see them.”
• “All the places I’ve lived all over the world, the cities I loved and the friends I left behind.”
• “Life’s greatest adventures are never mapped out ahead of time. Here’s to many more adventures with you.”
• “For where we’ve been, and where we’re going.”

Sophie Saint was one of the original travelettes, from 2009 – 2017. After fleeing the UK with ink barely dry on her graduation certificate, she traversed the world with a backpack and spent a few years living in Melbourne – one of her favourite cities in the world.

She finally returned to the UK after a few years where she now whiles time away zipping off for European escapes, crocheting and daydreaming of owning her own hostel somewhere hot to live out eternal summers. See what she’s up to over on her blog saintsonaplane.com and instagram: @saintsonaplane