Personalised Photo Locket Necklaces

Heart, Oval, Cross or Angel Wings: Picking a Shape

The shape sets the tone. Heart lockets read as romantic, the usual pick for partners, mums and grandmothers. Oval and round cases feel classic and vintage, suiting heirloom-style gifts and the engraved floral fronts here. Angel-wing and guardian-angel designs carry a remembrance feel. Beyond those: a paw-print locket for a pet, a camera locket, an envelope locket that opens like a letter and a tree-of-life design.

Size matters: a larger face shows a photo more clearly, a smaller one vanishes under a collar, so compare pendant dimensions and chain length on each product page before you compare prices. One heart design is a bangle-style locket bracelet if the photo should sit on a wrist. For picture-in-pendant styles that never open, the wider personalised photo necklaces range covers printed and hidden-image designs.

You Upload the Photo — We Fit It Before It Ships

This is the part most locket pages get wrong, so it is worth stating plainly: you do not print, trim or insert anything yourself. On the product page you upload your picture into the photo field, then zoom, rotate and crop it in the on-page editor so the face sits where you want it. The preview shows the crop we will work from. Our team then checks it by hand, sizes it to the inner frame of your case and fits it behind the rim. The locket reaches you closed, with the photograph already inside.

What still depends on you is the picture. Choose a bright, close-up shot where the face fills most of the frame — a locket window is a couple of centimetres across, so anything below the shoulders is wasted. Group photos rarely survive that crop; pick one person and crop in tight. Filtered images and screenshots lose detail at locket size, so use the original file.

Already have an empty or heirloom locket at home? Our free locket photo maker crops a picture to its heart, oval or round frame and prints it at true size, ready to cut out.

Locket or Projection Pendant: What Each One Gives Up

Most photo-necklace shoppers choose between these two, and they fail in opposite directions. A locket is honest about being a locket: the photograph is a real print behind a rim, visible the moment it opens and readable by anyone you hand it to. The cost is bulk: closed, nobody sees the picture. A projection pendant makes the opposite trade: it reads as a plain engraved pendant, and the image is compressed into a lens a few millimetres wide, so you must hold it to a bright light and look through it at close range. Discreet, but also why some find it flat.

Neither wins outright: choose a locket when the photo should be shareable and openable, and photo projection necklaces when it should stay hidden.

Engraving and Birthstone Touches

Engraving is not standard here. Selected designs carry a text field for a name, date or short message, usually cut into the back of the case; the rest are photo-only. Type the wording exactly as you want it cut. There is no on-screen rendering of the lettering, so read it back before adding to cart — engraved items are made to order and final sale, so a misspelling cannot be swapped.

Several heart lockets also take a birthstone for the wearer's birth month, which names the person without cutting a word into metal. If the birth month matters more than the picture, compare the personalised birthstone necklaces range.

What These Lockets Are Actually Made Of

A locket case has to hold a hinge, so the metals favour strength over softness. A few designs here state 925 sterling silver outright; others state stainless steel, copper, an alloy or brass, and some pages name more than one metal. The exact metal for each design is listed on its product page.

Finish words describe a surface, not a substance: rose-gold, gold and silver-tone are plating over a base metal, and plating wears at the rim and hinge first. Stainless steel is the most forgiving of daily wear and water; plated brass and copper cases are the ones to keep dry.

Occasions Where a Locket Lands Perfectly

Lockets suit gifts with a story attached rather than a season: anniversaries, Mother's Day, a graduation, a first grandchild, a farewell before someone moves overseas. They are also one of the few pieces a grieving person will wear, because the photograph stays private until they open it. For sympathy and remembrance, compare the remembrance necklaces collection.

Caring for a Locket That Opens

A locket has a hinge and a clasp, the two parts that fail first on jewellery. Open it from the lip rather than levering the halves apart at the hinge, wipe it with a soft cloth after wear, and store it flat and closed in its box. Keep perfume, hairspray and seawater off a plated finish; those strip the colour from a rim. A sterling case can be brought back with a polishing cloth when it dulls, while plated and steel cases should only be wiped, never polished hard: that takes off the coating, not the tarnish.

The case does open, so you can look at the picture whenever you like; the print is fitted to stay in place, so choose a photo you will want to keep rather than one you plan to change later.

Photo Locket Questions

How does my photo get inside the locket?

We put it there. You upload the picture on the product page and crop it in the on-page editor; our team checks it by hand, sizes it to the inner frame of your case and fits it before dispatch. The locket arrives closed with the photograph in place — no printing or trimming at your end.

Are these lockets sterling silver?

Some are, most are not. A few designs state 925 sterling silver; others state stainless steel, copper, an alloy or brass, and some pages name more than one. Rose-gold, gold and silver-tone are plated finishes over a base metal, and the exact metal for each design is listed on its product page.

Can a typo in the engraving be fixed afterwards?

No. The case is cut to your wording and made to order, so personalised lockets are final sale — check the spelling on the product page before you order.

How long does delivery take, and what if something arrives wrong?

Standard delivery within New Zealand is 7–12 business days, tracked from dispatch, at NZ$14.90 or free on orders over NZ$179. Eligible non-personalised items can be returned within 60 days of receipt for 80% of the item price or exchanged with no deduction (personalised pieces are final sale), and if the fault is ours (wrong, damaged in transit or not as described) we remake or refund in full and pay return postage. Nothing here limits your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993. IfShe is not registered for New Zealand GST, so none is added at checkout. Full terms are on our returns and delivery pages.