Dogs may not care how cool their bling is, but a Somerset County jewelry maker has literally made it her business to make sure they rock a dog tag with style.
It didn’t start out that way for Karen Dhuy — for almost a full decade she built up her jewelry business, MetalRoots, without a dog tag in sight. But when she decided to make her own dog, Daisy, a custom tag, she threw up a listing on her Etsy site and it exploded into a beast all it’s own. Her jewelry business soon became so flooded with dog tag orders that she spun it off into its own side business, MetalHounds.
“Dogs need jewelry too, right?” she joked, shaking her head while thinking back to when her day-to-day business orders flipped from rings, necklaces and earrings to dog tags, dog tags, dog tags and maybe a cat tag here or there. “I still can’t really believe it.”
Karen said it was really Instagram that introduced her to “a whole new world” of jewelry making opportunities. One of her first customers was a German Shepherd named Norm who boasts a healthy 60,000+ follower base, and wasn’t shy about how much he liked his new tag. After a bit more research into #dogsofinstagram, she realized she’d stumbled into a really amazing business opportunity. Her own instagram account now has almost 2,000 active followers, with more orders steadily flowing in from the social media site every day.
An anvil inscribed with an inside joke between Karen and her 3-year-old daughter.
Karen has also enjoyed great success in the human jewelry side of things — with help from The Artisan Group she has had jewelry featured in an Emmy gift lounge, a pair of earrings worn in an episode of Quantico, and a bracelet in an episode of the Fosters. Her dog tags can also be seen on TV on the dogs of Chicago PD — that one was all her.
Every tag is made to order. Custom designs, custom names, custom everything. And if Karen doesn’t know how to make it, she’ll figure it out if you give her enough time. She’s completely self-taught, making new skills just a youtube video away.
Karen Dhuy
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MetalHounds
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MetalRoots
mymetalroots@yahoo.com
Somerset County, ME