My Journey To Jewelry Making
How I started making jewelry
It all started with a trip to the store and a baby that would not take a nap. That Baby's nickname is sweetellabella. Now 16 years later my Sweetellabella still inspires me.
Welcome to Sweetellabella where I make jewelry, photography, and a blog about things that make my little heart happy.
I actually started making jewelry when I lived in Colorado Springs Colorado; my husband is active duty army and we were stationed at Fort Carson army base. My daughter was just a tiny little one at the time and I had a very hard time getting her to take naps during the day. I would put her in the car and transfer her to a stroller to go walk around stores while she slept. One afternoon back in 2008 I happened to be walking around Michaels and spent her whole 3 hour nap just looking at jewelry making supplies. I bought a few things that day to start beading with gemstones. Eventually soon after I opened an Etsy store and started to sell a few little things.
I soon started dabbling in photography and put my jewelry making on hold for a little while. I opened up a photography business by the same name of Sweetellabella, and specialized in lifestyle photography of children and animals. I moved my photography business from Colorado Springs to Florence Alabama where my husband worked at a recruiting station for the Army. Right before the Army sent us to Fort Stewart in Georgia, I closed down my photography business. The thought of starting over a service based business in a new location was going to be difficult, and I knew that I would need to spend more money on marketing myself again. I currently take nature and landscape pictures as well as pictures of animals for rescues and humane society so they can get seen on social media and find new homes. This is where I started back into making jewelry again. An online e-commerce store could follow me anywhere the Army sent us and I didn’t need to start all over again like a service based business.
I opened up my Etsy shop again in 2018 making simple gemstone necklaces, and slowly added other designs and techniques with new supplies and anything I could get my hands on. This time my jewelry making went hand and hand with the little things that made me happy with spirituality and nature.
We moved again to Fort Lee Virginia, and at the time I am writing this we currently live. I started branching out on another selling platform called Spouse-ly, which is a platform made up of military affiliated vendors. This leads us to the present that is currently June 2022 and I decided to take a leap and open my own website with a blog and I am excited for this new journey for Sweetellabella.
I enjoy making jewelry and learning about marketing and e-commerce. Sharing my jewelry and the meaning behind each piece gives me great joy and purpose. Owning my own business is where I want to be and I am excited to make it grow even more.
Thank you for stopping by!
-Nicole
