At Wear the Wonder, the art goes with you — on your wrist

As a child, Autumn Hassett tagged along with her mother, Terree, to photography assignments, picking up skills herself as she grew older.

“Every single event in my life has been fully documented,” she said with amusement, gesturing at the walls of her South Grafton home where family photos are intermixed with nature photography.

Her mother’s passion for photography wasn’t limited to the photo assignments that took her around the world or family snapshots. Hassett remembers her mother stopping the car for the perfect nature shot and her stash of random photos grew — first as negatives and prints, later as images stored on a computer.

The photos can now be found on bracelets, earrings, pendants, key chains through the pair’s business, Wear the Wonder. With her mother based in Philadelphia and Hassett working from Grafton, the two of them together collaborate on developing new products for their ever-growing business.

These are not ordinary photo products. Hassett hand-makes them, transferring her mother’s photos onto the lightweight metal bracelets or flat mother-of-pearl pieces destined for other pieces of jewelry.

“I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Hassett said of the initial pieces her mother created. “Putting nature on something you can wear on your body.”

While her mother at first marketed the jewelry and home goods only in Pennsylvania, Hassett, who previously worked in sales for General Mills, decided to expand the business. They now have a website, Wearthewonder.com, and Hassett can frequently be found at crafter events, the Grafton Farmers Market, Crompton Collective, and even breweries.

“It just exploded in the last year,” Hassett said. “The holidays were crazy. I basically took over the whole house with products. And I’m already committed to events this year and developing Valentine’s products.”

The bracelets are among the most popular, with quotes etched inside the band. There is a cardinal perched on a branch in snow, a sunrise behind the Easter Island idols, cheerful flowers. Hassett and her mother are constantly brainstorming new products and images.

“This is something just a bit extra,” she said. “Nobody’s doing anything like this.”