Dazzling Braille
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- Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 08:43:16 -0400
2TheAdvocate.com, Louisiana USA
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Dazzling Braille
By KAREN MARTIN
Christmas gift turns into jewelry business
Published: Oct 3, 2007 - Page: 1E
Last year, as the holidays approached, Julie Rimes was trying to come up with a
Christmas gift for her niece.
Not an easy task. Rimes' niece, Sophie Trist of Mandeville, who is almost 10,
was born with Fraser's syndrome, a rare congenital condition that left her
blind.
In an "aha moment," Rimes decided to "bedazzle" T-shirts, embellishing them
with dots to form words in Braille.
"I wanted something she could feel," said Rimes, noting Sophie, daughter of
Rimes' sister Allison and her husband, Will, is an excellent Braille reader and
writer. For the past two summers Sophie has represented the state in the
National Braille Challenge in Los Angeles, where only a dozen students in each
age division - 60 students in all - compete.
Next, Rimes decided to make her niece a necklace, also using Braille to spell
out words, such as Sophie's name, and "faith" and "smile."
"Sophie liked those better," Rimes said, laughing. "She's pretty picky about
her Braille. She's wants something she can read."
Sophie's mother and grandmother and cousins and aunts all wanted the jewelry
and Ts.
The more they wore them, the more people asked where they got them.
Before long, Rimes had an Internet business going, custom making Braille
necklaces, bracelets and T-shirts. She calls it BRAILLE'iant,
http://www.brailleboutique.com
and donates a percentage of the net proceeds to such entities as the Louisiana
School for the Visually Impaired.
In one of those meant-to-be moments, Rimes recalled how when contracting to get
her Web site up and running, the man doing it noted that another of his clients
was blind, so he would format the site so the visually impaired could use it.
"I didn't even ask. He just did it," said Rimes, 31, who is wife to Robert and
stay-at-home mom to Thomas, 5, and Lucy, almost 2.
Now the jewelry and shirts have caught on - and not only with those who have
vision problems or their families.
"A lot of people just think it's cool looking and want to wear it," she said.
At an LSU football game last fall, Rimes had on one of her BRAILLE'iant shirts.
"At least 10 people recognized it as Braille. But, while everyone knows about
it, no one sees their name in Braille, so it's something that make it special
for them," said Rimes, a St. Joseph Academy grad with a degree in special
education from Southeastern Louisiana University.
The necklaces and bracelets are fashioned from rectangular bars of fine silver,
supplied by Rimes' friend, Rachael Bordelon, who does her own line of jewelry
called Opulent Metals.
The jewelry comes in silver, or one of about 20 colors, which Rimes creates by
mixing a resin with a hardener. After it cures, she affixes the dots, which
also come in about 20 colors, with a super-duper adhesive. She puts a clear
coat over the top for shine.
Rimes said she can put up to six letters on the jewelry. Most people get their
names, or, if that's too long, their initials. Others opt for words such as
"family" or "smile" or "friend" or "faith" or perhaps "LSU" in purple and gold.
The jewelry is in the $30 price range, plus shipping and handling.
The T-shirts come in white or black with Braille dots in names or phrases. They
sell for $16 to $20 plus shipping and handling.
Rimes said that since officially starting her business last spring, she's
probably made about 80 pieces of jewelry, with necklaces being the most popular.
"I'd say of the people buying them, about 40 percent have a connection with
someone who's blind," Rimes said. "But then there's a lot of people who buy
them because they like how they look, and they want to see their name in
Braille."
http://www.2theadvocate.com/features/People/10195836.html
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