This didn’t start as a brand or a business idea. It started as something to hold onto.
I was sitting beside my four-year-old daughter’s hospital bed at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, watching her fight for her life just trying to find something we could do together. No plan, no vision, just survival.
For four months, Sammi was critically unwell but stable on the ward. We were living in the unknown, managing what we could and taking things one day at a time. In that time, we started making friendship bracelets. It was something small we could do side by side when everything else felt out of our control. We would sit together, choosing colours, adding little details, creating something that felt like it belonged to her. We began making them for her nurses and doctors, not as a “thing”, just as a way to say thank you and a way for Sammi to connect with the people caring for her. Slowly though, it became something more. It became how she built trust. How she brought light into a place that could have felt heavy. Soon, everyone knew if you had one of Sammi’s bracelets, you were her friend and part of her circle. And people wanted to be, because Sammi has this way about her, even in the hardest moments, she brings warmth, connection, joy and her bracelets carried that.
While we didn't think things could get much worse, everything changed again. Sammi had emergency surgery and was moved into ICU and placed on a ventilator. She stayed on the vent for six incredibly long and torturous weeks. We were told she wasn’t going to survive. That there was no cure. No pathway forward. No real chance she would recover from her disease. And then, at the very last moment, we were granted access to a drug on compassionate grounds. It was a long shot, but it worked and she stared to improve. After 188 days in hospital and being as close to not making it as you can get, Sammi was able to come home. She takes her medication every day and it’s still working, literally saving her life on a daily basis.
After we came home, I couldn’t ignore what what we had all been through.
Not a business idea. Something real.
Starting Embers & Maple was my way of taking something I never would have chosen for our beautiful daughter and our little family and turning it into something that could hold meaning. A way of processing trauma and finding light in the darkness. Not just for me, but for all of the women who need something to hold on to, who have survived, grown and had experiences that have shaped them and changed them.
The name of this label comes from Sammi and our family of five. Embers is a light that doesn’t go out, even when everything around it feels like it has. The light we held onto when all hope seemed lost. Maple is Sammi. Her full name, Samara, is the winged seed of the maple tree. A symbol of resilience, strength and everything she is.
This was never just about jewellery. It’s about what you carry. What you’ve walked through. What’s shaped you. Because those things matter.
When you wear Embers & Maple, I want it to feel like a reminder of that. That your story is worth holding, always.
With love,
Alex
1 comment
This is so beautiful thank you for sharing your story so wholeheartedly!