Strozzi Abacel Rosende greets us with a big smile and an exuberant greeting as we reached her home, which sits on top of a hill in Lilo-an. She has a cat trailing behind her—she tells us she has 12 more, some of which she’d “catnapped” from the streets. All things considered, it’s not surprising that close friends call her Meow and that cats figure prominently in the designs of her eponymous accessory line.

With a growing online following and various fashion spreads featuring creations, Strozzi’s pieces are just as packed with personality as she is—bracelet charms shaped like hot-air balloons, an octopus-shaped brooch, and a sizable necklace that looks almost like armor. It is a brand for those who want to stand out, while showing off their playful side. The collection is made from sterling silver or brass, with inlays of semi-precious stones.

Working with different materials have always been a passion for Strozzi—“Melted crayons run in my veins,” she laughs, referring to the many times she’s worked with what she could find to create something. Accessories, however, weren’t her first love.

“Honestly, I wanted to become a fashion designer, and to have my own line of garments,” she admits. But as she earned her degree in Interior Design at the University of San Carlos, she realized that her love was crafts. She took classes related to arts and crafts, going into sculpting and painting instead of fashion design and sewing.

In 2005, Strozzi’s parents encouraged her to enroll in a prototype-making metal workshop with the Cebu Fashion Accessories Manufacturers + Exporters. An intensive ten-month hands-on training period under German metal artist Ingrid Haufe proved that this was the right path for her.

From there, Strozzi took a job at a furniture company, and formed friendships with other accessories designers in the country. In fact, she was on the team for the erstwhile trade show Cebu NEXT, creating different art and furniture installments. “I also ventured into photography,” she adds.

But even then, she knew that accessories were her passion. In 2008, she launched her line on ETSY, an e-commerce platform that sells everything handmade, and wanted to reinforce the brand’s penchant for color, personality and animal figures.

“It’s about crafts-womanship,” Strozzi says with a smile. Having converted their family home into a factory of sorts, the designer is involved in all aspects of the process—from acquiring the materials and coming up with the designs, to cutting and polishing the stones and metal materials. She knows how to do everything herself, and the equipment used in manufacturing were custom-made by her father.

“It’s not just jewelry. It’s the art of telling a story through symbols. It’s creating a visual expression of a person’s uniqueness,” she answers when we ask why it was so important to keep everything handmade. And although she creates her own collections, a bulk of Strozzi’s time is dedicated to custom-made orders, such as personalized wedding giveaways. “It’s a very interesting experience, and I like to celebrate their style and appreciate their sense of creativity.”

It’s almost democratic the way Strozzi creates her line, but considering her inherent friendliness, it’s just what we expected. More than producing accessories, she is hoping to build a movement back to handmade, and the perfectly imperfect. Perhaps in a time when technology can produce flawless versions of the same thing over and over again, there is a certain luxury to having a piece created by hand especially for you.