Katharine McPhee's New Jewelry Line Includes a Nod to Her Role in 'The House Bunny': 'An Ode to My Beginning'

Natalie Kogan

Katharine McPhee is making her childhood dreams a reality.

While the American Idol alum, 38, is known for her powerhouse voice, for years she has held onto a "secret passion:" Jewelry.

"It's been something that has lived in my brain for a long time," McPhee told PEOPLE ahead of the launch of her jewelry brand KMF Jewelry. "I've been an avid fan of jewelry and jewelry buyer and gift-giver of jewelry since I was really a kid."

Though jewelry was something she loved for years, she never thought of it as something she would pursue beyond a hobby until she was connected with Ray Manzella through her good friend and businessman Greg Renker. Renker's company, Guthy-Renker, is behind Jennifer Lopez's JLO Beauty and Cindy Crawford's Meaningful Beauty.

"I had never had a conversation with anybody, other than my own brain, about having a jewelry line," she recalled. "I just always thought, 'Oh, this would be so fun. I'd love to do something like this, but I'll just stick to going to jewelry stores and living out my jewelry dreams that way.'"

Natalie Kogan

She calls the circumstances that led up the launch of the brand a result, in part, of manifestation.

"I really believe that it's really important to write down things that you want to achieve or even in your own brain, like I was doing, saying things that you would love and desire for your life, because that's honestly how this came about," she said.

The SMASH alum said she was also approached about the venture at just the right moment as she had newfound time to devote to the project.

"I think the fact that I had just had my son and we were still kind of in the throes of COVID, I think that it was a good time for me to be able to be at home a lot," she said.

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"I really had time to think about things and send pictures back and forth with the designer and design stuff myself — even though I'm not a very good drawer," she continued. "So I think that it all coincided with the fact that I was a new mom and that even though I was busy and invested as a new mom and spending time at home, it gave me the luxury to be more available in terms of emails and phone calls and just overall conversations. It's a lot harder when you're in different time zones and airplanes and it makes things more complicated."

McPhee said that watching all the pieces now come together has been "so thrilling."

"It's just kind of wild when you can look back at the beginning and kind of see where you are and then where you want to go," she said.

KMF Jewelry has been designed in partnership with Imperial Jewelry who is manufacturing the pieces. The brand will feature rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets starting at a price point of $249. The pieces come in a variety of materials including some that are set in 14K gold, accented with diamonds, precious and semi-precious stones, as well as a collection of micro-pavé and 18K vermeil sterling silver jewelry.

Some of the lines, McPhee explained, were inspired by her favorite places in the world including Los Angeles, Italy and the Gramercy neighborhood of Manhattan.

"Gramercy is based off of literally my favorite city, which is New York City," she said.  "And Gramercy — I picked an area of New York City that I love to spend time in. They've got cool restaurants, cool streets, fashion — when I lived there for two years doing SMASH, I really fell in love with fashion."

Another line, Harmony, McPhee says has a special place in her heart as well.

"I used to have a cat named Harmony that was named after my first leading role in a movie, which was The House Bunny," she said. "And so I always like to remember things that gave me a start. So that's kind of an ode to my beginning."

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The singer's new business venture comes nearly two years after she and husband David Foster welcomed their first child together, Rennie (Along with Rennie, Foster also has daughters Allison, 52, Amy, 49, Sara, 41, Erin, 40, and Jordan, 36, from previous relationships.) McPhee said that while she is "open to really anything" career wise, since becoming a mom she has become "a lot more selective" about how long she wants to be away from home for work as family comes "completely and a hundred percent first."

McPhee, who starred in Waitress on Broadway and London's West End says she'd love to return to the stage but it would have to be the "right one" in order to justify moving her family.

"I really want to go for things that I love the most and bring me the most joy," she said.  "And if this [jewelry brand] ends up really — so far, it's been great — if it continues to, if it does well and it's fun and I'm enjoying the process then maybe it'll end up being a full time job I don't know. I'm really open to anything, but I just do know that family is first. And so whatever those choices I make, I have to make in consideration to my husband and my little son."

She and Foster, 73, who tied the knot in June 2019, have been on the road touring for the past few months and will continue to do so into the new year. She said they "pick and choose" which trips to bring their son on, as traveling with a little one can be unpredictable.

"But the thing is, it can be really, really hard but my attitude is always, it's so much more fun to have him on the road when we do have him with us," she said.  "So it's such a short period of time too. They're only little for so long, so we're just kind of soaking it up."