The things you need to know about what to put in a locket
You have just bought a locket, or maybe you are thinking about purchasing one soon. Maybe you were given a locket as a gift, or just received a cherished piece that has been in your family for generations. So, what do you put in your locket? That is the question.
A locket is like a blank canvas waiting for the artist to work his or her magic. The beautiful thing though is that whatever masterpiece one creates for their locket, they know that it does not have to be forever. With the right locket, from the right jewelry collection, whatever is in your locket can be changed as often as one likes. Unlike those centuries old masterpieces painted on a stretched blank canvas, the locket interior can be a living tableau, one that changes with your life, your journeys or even your moods or musings.
WHERE TO FIND THE LOCKET PICTURE
Traditionally, we think of lockets for women as a place for photos. After all, locket jewelry created to hold pictures and photos are a centuries old tradition. Let’s explore some ideas about what one should think about when choosing just the right photos for their locket. Based on our own experiences the very first words we would offer are “relax, this should be fun.” Choosing the right image for your locket should be about embracing an inspiring experience. Don't let the details of the process become your focus and overshadow the happy journey.
“Over the years,” says our own jewelry designer, Monica Rich Kosann, “I (and our team) have helped so many people choose the right pictures for their lockets. We always encourage clients to put aside the notion that this is hard or stressful. In today's world, the process is easier than ever as the greatest source of potential images is literally at our fingertips. Right there in our phone’s photo library. How many of us swipe through those photo libraries almost daily for the sheer joy of revisiting the stories we have captured…well now we can bring that same joy to finding the right locket photos.”
If one is thinking of using an image that is in a frame at home, stashed away in a box of old photos, or pasted into a bound photo album, the process can be just as simple. Take that photo, lay it on a flat surface and capture an image of it with the camera on your phone. Crop any non-image areas with your phone's normal editing tools, and that cherished paper photograph will now be a digital image that is easier to reproduce and manipulate.
WHAT LOCKET PICTURES SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?
Photographer and founder of The New Potato, Danielle Kosann, offered this thought about how to approach choosing the ideal photo for your locket, “The image you put in your locket doesn’t always need to be the perfect posed image. The best photographs are often the spontaneous ones that capture impromptu, silly, or messy moments! They immediately take you right back - and it’s even more special to open your locket and look at a photo that makes you laugh.”
Many of our clients have more than one locket. So oftentimes, they choose different photo themes for different styles that they own. Here are the themes we encounter most often as part of the locket experience.
THE FAMILY PHOTO
The family photo in your locket can take many directions. Let's start with the easy choices and work upwards to “bigger” families.
The easiest choices are when you are considering only one or two children, or other family members, in your locket. If it happens to just two children, then with a two image locket they can be the heroes. Find your favorite images of them - and we do mean the absolute favorite - even if they are standing alone in a field. Because therein lies the magic of the digital images on our phones. With a few pinches and swipes, any photo can be easily expanded or cropped to zero in on that perfect facial expression of the photo subject. Once properly cropped, everything else in the photos’ background falls away. A close up of that perfect smile, laugh or moment of excitement can then be what fills the entire space available in your locket.
When we asked Erica Domesak, founder of the do-it-yourself (DIY) lifestyle brand and site, P.S.- I made this, for tips about choosing the right locket picture, she emphasized, “Find a picture that focuses on the face is the key. Close-up smiles are best to capture for lockets and make it easier to view once it’s placed in the locket.”
If there are three, four or five children, one great approach is to crop boys on one side, girls on the other. Another is to group by age – in ascending order from one side to the other. Or just take a favorite horizontal group shot and crop and split it in just the right places so each side of the image gets half the locket. When the locket is opened it will give you the sense of that original horizontal image. While the images of each child in the group might start to get small, don't let that concern you. You have captured an image and a feeling that will be with you whenever you wear your locket. Knowing it is there is empowering and creates just the right emotional moment every time you think of it.
If you are trying to capture different family branches in your locket then take the same approach as above. Each branch can get its own section of the locket.
For larger families, we offer three, four and six image lockets so that different family groups can get their own place for their respective stories. These multi image lockets can also be a wonderful choice when used like little story books to create a family narrative. For example, if a locket is being given to an older parent or grandparent, the first picture can be a wedding photo from decades earlier that is then followed by other images of the couple or family’s lives as they developed over the ensuing years.
FURRY FAMILY MEMBERS
The next most popular photography theme we see clients choose for their lockets are the furry members of the family. In our experience, dogs and cats of course pre-dominate. In multi species households we like dogs on one side and cats on the other, but of course who can resist group shots where all our pets are “smiling” and living in harmony. All the rules we use for cropping our other family photos apply equally for our pets. After all, preparing them for their locket moment is just one more way we can pamper them.
FAMILY MOMENTS OF SHEER JOY
One favorite approach of ours for choosing locket pictures is to focus on extraordinary or special moments. A child's first ice cream cone, birthday party, sporting event or music recital will undoubtedly produce images that are just waiting to be carried with you.
Audrey Coyne, founder of the Charleston based style site Audrey A La Mode shared this similar thought. “When choosing the perfect photo for your locket, I recommend choosing something that represents one of your fondest memories. A picture from a moment that instantly brings a flutter to your heart is sure to bring you joy every time you look at it in your locket."
Marriage proposals, weddings, and honeymoons are also favorite choices for yielding any number of locket worthy stories. There are just so many joyful moments in our lives waiting to be captured and shared.
TRAVEL…. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
After family photographs, the pictures from your travels provide a wealth of material that you can choose. The places you have been together, and even the dream places you might plan to be visiting are worthy of locket consideration.
We think that those ultimate destination ideas allow anyone to make a locket a particularly thoughtful gift. What better way to reveal the surprise dream vacation to your significant other than to gift a locket holding a picture of that great destination you've booked. Add a personal note in the locket opposite the image and you will have created a tearfully thoughtful, but joyous gift.
In the course of our travels, the sheer joy factor we mentioned above is ever present. Whether it is reaching a mountain top, riding a horse, elephant or camel in an exciting locale, or even white water rafting; these are the kind of activities that belong in our lockets.
Pavia Rosati, the founder of popular travel site Fathom says, "What’s the travel image you keep coming back to when you dream of happy escapes? Is it the sunset seem from the mountain you hiked? The empty bottles of rose after that perfect beach picnic? That’s your happy place, and that’s what you should carry in your locket at all times to remind you how happy you feel when you hit the road."
FROM YOUR PHONE (TABLET OR DESKTOP) TO YOUR LOCKET
Now that you've chosen the locket pictures you want and saved the final cropped and edited versions in your phone's photo library it's time to get them printed.
There are a few ways to do that. We use THE LOCKET BAR (think of it as a free photo resizer), a software application we developed that allows you to upload photos from your phone, tablet or desktop and size them perfectly for the MRK Locket you choose. You can easily manipulate the image (even cropping it within the application), preview how it will look in your locket, and print the images in the exact size needed on any printer in your home or office. You then simply cut the photos on the dotted lines provided and insert them in your locket.
For other lockets you might own, you may have to spend a bit of time printing the photos you like in different sizes and then seeing which size allows you to cut out the best version of the photo for your locket. While this approach might take a bit more time, and involve some trial and error, it should still result in an experience you will enjoy.
ONE LAST THOUGHT ABOUT ALTERNATIVES TO PHOTOGRAPHS IN YOUR LOCKET
If you are unsure about whether you have the right picture for one of the places in your locket, remember this; lockets are not just for photos anymore. Writing a note, including a favorite quotation, taking a picture of a note written by a child, or capturing an image of a piece of inspiring art are just a few examples of different ideas for your locket.
In any case, keep in mind that your locket is the canvas. You are only limited by your imagination on what you find to be locket worthy!
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