Today we’d like to introduce you to Dawn Wellspring.
Hi Dawn, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Shades Jewelry & Gifts has been an ongoing dream of mine born from a love of color, being creative, being around printing, and more! In July of 2003, I purchased a few beads, some stringing material and taught myself how to create some beaded jewelry. I began wearing a few of the pieces I’d created, and my mom and sisters were also wearing a lot of my creations daily. Friends and family started seeing some of my work and asked where they could purchase it. I joined Etsy in its very early stages and began selling/shipping my creations literally worldwide. With my handmade beaded jewelry, I was fortunate enough to be chosen to provide items for celebrity gift bags for the Emmy Awards, the Country Music Association awards, a Tyler Perry movie premier, and a few other cool things over the years. I did a few craft shows over the years as well, but quickly realized that wasn’t what I really wanted to do on my weekends off from my full-time work, so I just kept things online.
In 2010, I got married, and life changed in a good but different way. My husband and I had jobs, but my husband decided he wanted to start his own business. We took that leap of faith, and my husband opened his own tax service business in 2012 after several years of doing that work for someone else. I became his office manager/marketing director for about 4 months out of the year (January-May) in what are his busiest months. After that time frame, I return to work with my sister and brother-in-law who have their own business, to help them run it as their production/retail store manager. I still do my work with both of these businesses as well as my jewelry work now! 😉 Small business and hard work are just my lifeline.
Time for my jewelry work took a back seat and to be honest, I was kind of burned out on it. The jewelry market was starting to get saturated with the handmade push that came via the growth of Etsy. People were starting to settle for cheap jewelry that was being sold for pennies on the dollar. While I wasn’t selling my creations for much money (as it was just a hobby and not my main source of income), it just lost its appeal to me, and I took a break from designing and creating for the most part.
Fast forward to the Fall of 2022. I was familiar with dye sublimation printing because we use that technique in my work with my family’s business I manage. My Dad and my brother-in-law were both in the printing industry for over 30 years before each of them retired. However, my brother-in-law now has a business that involves printing every day, and that’s where I learned about dye sublimation printing and began exploring the jewelry side of it. I talked to my husband and said I’d missed my jewelry work and thought this might be a fun and new way to get back into creating again. He was all for my crazy idea and helped me get my new design space/equipment set up and running.
My graphic design work has grown over the years and now I use that part of my job in creating jewelry. I still use beads in a few pieces, but now I print out images and heat apply them to a substrate and turn that into mainly earrings. I also create necklaces and bracelets, as well as ornaments and other gift items that are printed with logos, graphics, photos, and more! Whether it be bold, whimsical, elegant, sports-minded, career-minded, supporting their cause…anything can be created!
I love that I’ve been able to combine my daily work with my jewelry world and get back into having my jewelry business again. I’ve had tremendous growth since last fall via my Etsy site and also with being on Faire and selling wholesale to several small retailers all across the United States. It’s crazy to thing that you could walk into some small retailers and see my branding and handmade jewelry work being sold.
Being creative has always been important and fun for me and something that I enjoy doing. I have a very patient side of being able to sit still and create (thanks to my father) and also have a heritage of craftsmanship that came via several aunts on my dad’s side who did ceramics and crocheting and more.
Where this jewelry journey will take me next, who knows, but for now, I’m happy to be back at it!
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Owning your own business is NEVER easy. I see it from a unique perspective because not only do I have this small jewelry business, my husband and I have a tax business together and my family (sister and bro-in-law) have a small business/retail store and so I’ve seen struggles for them over the years and my husband and I struggled in the beginning with getting our office off the ground.
You never leave your work. When you own the business, it follows you all the time. When you work for a company and have a 9-5 job let’s say you leave that job at 5 pm and go do your own life. As a business owner, you are eating, sleeping, and drinking that 24-7 because you have to. You are always trying to create new products, meet deadlines, take care of employees if you have them, pay bills, do bookkeeping, produce the orders, etc.
Having your own business takes time, patience, and knowing that you never get to shut it off. It follows you everywhere for the most part. While recently on vacation, I was still receiving orders, contacting each person to let them know I was away and that their order would ship on my return. My husband was still taking phone calls from clients and trying to assist them. All that while we were trying to enjoy some downtime and relaxation.
Some who own businesses might completely shut it off and walk away from time to time. We don’t. We go at it all the time for our clients, and we’ve built our reputation on working hard and giving them our best.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
My jewelry business name came from my hometown. I grew up in the tiny village of Shade, Ohio in the southeast corner of Ohio. Shade is just a few minutes outside of Athens, Ohio (home to Ohio University). So, as a nod to my tiny hometown and to the fact that I use all sorts of shades of color in my work, I chose Shades Jewelry for my business name.
My jewelry business is and has always been just me. I market, design, create, and ship it all. If you purchase a beaded design piece from my Etsy store, more than likely it will be a one-of-a-kind piece. A few beaded pieces I will do multiple designs of, but that’s rare!
My new technique I use, dye sublimation, allows me to create a design and repeat it over and over again. That’s why my being able to offer this jewelry work to retailers has seen my largest area of growth over the last 6 months. I love that I can sell small to small mom/pop retailers who appreciate my low minimum order and know they are getting quality, professional products that are handmade and that they can afford to carry in their store.
The cool part of my jewelry work/technique is the fact that I can take any image, whether it be a photo you’ve taken, a piece of artwork that your child/grandchild has created, your business logo, etc., and make that into a piece of jewelry. I can also create things like bookmarks, ornaments, key chains, and zippered pouches. My technique allows for custom creation of items that most can’t duplicate.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the COVID-19 crisis?
As a business owner during that time, we were forced to follow rules in order to open our doors. Maybe we agreed with those rules, maybe we didn’t. But in order to be open, at least in Ohio, we had rules we had to force and follow so we could run our businesses. Not having some customers understand this was tough. My jewelry business at that time wasn’t really up and running again, but my husband and I issues with our business as did my family with theirs during this crisis.
We also faced huge supply chain issues with my family’s business. Getting materials and goods changed drastically, and there was nothing we could do. We always did our best to try to get products and keep work flowing, but when you are at the mercy of a supplier, you can’t control that aspect of your business. That was hard for some clients/customers to understand. It was extremely stressful and frustrating in many ways. We all had to learn a new way to do our businesses and keep the doors open.
Pricing:
- I offer low minimums for retailers looking for wholesale buys
- Free shipping
- $15 and under
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.shadesjewelrygifts.etsy.com or https://faire.com/direct/shadesjewelrygifts (for retailers to purchase wholesale)
- Instagram: @shadesjewelrygifts
- Facebook: @shadesjewelrygifts
