Welcome to Rustic Elegance! My name is Marcella and I’m the founder of Rustic Elegance, a handmade business that creates inspirational gifts and beautiful décor for your home. Here at Rustic Elegance, it is my heart’s desire to provide you with unique products you won’t find anywhere else.
My journey began in 2012 as a part time endeavor. Gorgeous floral centerpieces, gift baskets and wooden display cases were my entry into this handmade business. I quickly learned that it wasn’t very practical due to shipping constraints and difficulty in handling for large events. My customers loved what I was doing, but I wanted to do something bigger (no pun intended).
One day I was searching for a wooden prayer box to collect prayer requests and could not find what I was looking for. A décor piece with functionality that could be personalized just wasn’t available. This is what led me to create our first Prayer Boxes.
Simple
The idea of simplifying my product lines to reach more people made the Prayer Boxes the perfect place to start. After many iterations and variations of size, verses, engravings, embellishments and function, the first collection was created. In time, after lots of customer input, our box collections grew into Keepsake, Memorial, Wedding and even pet memorials. Many things can be stored in them, including our prayer request cards, souvenirs, jewelry, pet ashes, keepsake coins, photos, mementos from military service, special treasures from weddings or anything that you cherish. These high-quality boxes are handmade to store your most cherished keepsakes and to become treasured heirlooms for many generations. It warms our hearts that everyone who uses our Keepsake & Prayer Boxes knows they are getting something unique and worthy of the things they cherish most.
The most natural accessory item for our Prayer Boxes was a cross. In keeping with my love of wood and its beautiful grain, I chose Olive Wood. It is spectacularly beautiful and found I could supply it from Israel, making it even more special. We now have all our crosses handmade just for us in Bethlehem.
The cross collection began with the colorful designs in the ornament size. From there, key chains and charms were designed and as customers cleared out my inventories, they asked for larger crosses too. One day I was working on a cross and decided to let the grain be my guide in the design. The “Freestyle” design was born and from then, has now become the most popular cross style. The collection of sizes has grown and an annual limited edition has also been created.
Beautiful
The Crosses have been such a huge success, that a complete Olive Wood collection of products was created. The “Freestyle” designs lend themselves perfectly to the hearts as well as the necklaces. Customers of our Olive Wood Collection of products nearly all come back again and again when they need a special gift, making these our most popular products.
Inspired
The blessings I have received by the outpouring of love from my customers is amazing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had customers in tears at an event over reading the messages on my boxes. And behind every one of those tears is a story. There’s something very special in each of these stories I hear from so many. When I am designing a custom box for someone, I put my heart and soul into it and I will take whatever time is necessary to make things just the way my customer wants. My heart is filled when I receive a note or letter from a customer telling me how special their box is or that they hung a cross over the door of every room in their home. I have customers with huge cross walls that contain more than 20 of my designs.
This is my purpose…this is why I do what I do.
Rustic Elegance is a handmade business that creates heirloom-quality, inspirational gifts and beautiful décor for your home. Our products are unique and often one-of-a-kind or customized…and always treasured by their recipients. If you’d like to be inspired by some of our custom projects, check out our Inspiration Page. I’m so happy you’re here. Enjoy your time browsing and please, if you have any questions, contact us.