Last year, Sandi Molen launched her Etsy shop, Stories Retold Charms, a business in which she turns vintage treasures into charms and pendants. Photo courtesy of Sandi Molen.

Sandi Molen's new artistic passion, Stories Retold Charms, can be traced to a porcelain and fabric pincushion doll she sought out as a child exploring her great-grandmother’s classic adobe house in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California. The doll was where her
great-grandmother stuck her hat pins and brooches.

“It goes back to when I was a little girl, and I had this thing about being nosey,” Sandi says. “I was fascinated with going through the jewelry boxes of my great-grandmother’s, my grandmother’s, my mom’s and my aunts’. It was so much fun to just dig through their stuff.”

That early curiosity inspired Sandi’s love of vintage jewelry, which in turn led to a new hobby, and then a business following her retirement a year ago. Sandi searches out vintage treasures on her travels or while visiting antique stores and perusing online auctions. She then transforms these pins, brooches and earrings into charms and pendants – giving them new life and a new story.

“It’s just the joy of finding a piece and taking it home and seeing what I can do with it,” Sandi says.

Her first find was a Zuni ceremonial necklace decorated with beautifully carved animals – a turquoise bear, little foxes and fish. “I bought it and brought it home, then took it apart and turned the animals into charms by wire wrapping each one and adding a clasp,” Sandi says.

She sources 14-carat gold-filled clasps and locking jump rings, and attaches them to her charms so people don’t have to go to a jeweler to get their charm added to a bracelet. She also recently expanded her inventory to include vintage chains so people can purchase a bracelet or necklace to go with their charms.

Sandi hesitates to call herself an artist because she said she does not create the original pieces of jewelry that she turns into charms. Instead, it’s the vintage embellishments she adds and the beautifully crafted descriptions of each of her charms that tell a different story.

She describes a “Three Blind Mice” sterling silver charm that she found at a vintage store in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee, as “a tiny treasure with a whole lot of personality. Each mini mouse has its own quirky stance, dancing together as a sterling trio ... Let these tiny troublemakers sneak their way into your collection.”

Her wordsmithing draws upon her background as a reporter, researcher and librarian, and each story behind the charm reads like a mini masterpiece.

Each piece of repurposed jewelry can take her an hour or two to create, and the compelling stories behind the glittering charms require research and imagination. In all, Sandi estimates she spends about 10 to 12 hours a week on her new side hustle, which also includes photography and video to showcase each charm.

Since launching Stories Retold Charms on Etsy in early 2025, Sandi has earned star-seller status – a coveted badge that indicates excellent customer service and top-quality products – and she’s sold close to 100 of her vintage creations that now adorn people’s charm bracelets, purses or necklaces. She has sent charms to people as far away as Germany, Australia and London.

Looking ahead, Sandi says she is considering creating custom pieces for Steamboat locals who bring her their own treasures. Maybe it’s an earring that’s lost its mate or a family heirloom that needs new life.

“I would love to do this for people,” Sandi says. “I love that these pieces have already lived part of their lives, and I’m giving them new life.”

For now, Sandi’s charms can be found in her Stories Retold Charms shop on Etsy and in the Steamboat Creates gift shop at the Depot Art Center.