Hello,
This is Stella Marcy, I am the Founder and Head of ResJewels. I created this small buisness selling earrings that I handmade. Since then I’ve hired my sister, opened an Etsy, and created multiple social media accounts on many different platforms. Below I will share with you the story of how I started my business!
It all started in 2019 when I was watching TikTok, I saw someone pouring resin and they were making resin pyramids. I looked into resin a little more and quickly found out I could create jewelry with it. I thought that was so cool as I have always been into creating things-especially accessories like jewelry. I went on Amazon and bought a very cheap resin kit. This included molds to pour the resin into, a silicone cup to mix the resin in, eye droppers, and popsicle sticks to mix the resin. Aside from that I also bought some very cheap resin and resin dye.
I was more then excited when I received the package in the mail. In fact, I remember opening it in a TikTok video. I went to the garage and set up everything on a pop up table. I started by putting the the resin in the silicone cup, I tried my best to fill it up to the 1/2 cup line. Then I tried to add an equal amount of the resin hardener. This is how all resin works, you get a Part A and a Part B and have to mix them together with a 1-1 ratio. It is also very important that you mix it for 3 minutes or more (it depends on the brand and type of resin). So I mix to unequal parts for a solid 15 maybe 30 seconds. I poured it into many different molds. I thought that after the 24 hour curing time I would have beautiful rings, a pyramid, a sphere, coasters, and a bracelet. So the next night when I went to unmold my creations, I came to find the resin hadn’t dried. I tried three more times, 2 of which failed, and 1 was just disastrous but did cure.
But that Christmas, my mom got me high quality resin, molds, dye, and just all the things I needed to pour resin. She also got me all the things I needed to make the resin charms into earrings, necklaces, keychains, anything along those lines!
I poured resin very often and got good at it! My business selling my drawings of flowers wasn’t doing so well, which isn’t surprising because I just posted them on Instagram, I didn’t have other social media platforms or a website. Just a price and Instagram. So I decided to delete all the post on my Instagram business and started to post my earrings, but not everyday. I also started a TikTok account for the earrings, but wasn’t ready to build a website. I decided to call my business ResJewls101. Res for resin, jewls (spelt wrong) for jewelry, and I thought the 101 spiced it up and made it stand out.
I was not getting orders outside of friends and family, and it was almost Thanksgiving so I just toke a break. Which me@nt that I was loosing the interest of the people who were following me. So, last month, January rolled around and I was ready to get back into it. But it really would be like starting from scratch.
I was ready for the challenge and promised myself not to take a break for so long again, and not to give up. Because I knew it would be hard to get sales and grow a following. I consistently posted on my TikTok, but not so much Instagram. It is very hard to get views, likes, comments, and lots of followers on Instagram. And plus, the photos I toke were not the best. But I still used them for the website I had recently opened. I will not share the name of the platform I used to open this website, as I only used it month. I was still trying to engage people in what I did, so I wasn’t getting sales. My business couldn’t afford to keep it open another month, so I did what I had to and closed it.
A week later I found out I would get the opportunity to sell my earrings in person. Not as a permanent thing but just at 3 very small events. So I worked super hard to make a desired amount of earrings leading up to the events. I made sales at 2 of the events but ended up not being able to go to the 3rd. I was very pleased with the few sales I made and it gave me motivation to open an Etsy. But of course I needed to up my social media and photography. And that’s when I hired my sister, she uses a professional camera to take photos, and posts on TikTok and Instagram daily. Sometimes she helps me assemble the earrings as well. So I officially named her role digital marketing and assistant.
This also led me to rename the business ResJewels. Which was two changes, first I toke the 101 away, because it made it look confusing when I was designing a logo. And two, I spelt jewels correctly. Otherwise my Etsy is linked above (just click on where it says Etsy) along with our Instagram and TikTok.
Thank you for reading today’s blog post! Wednesday’s will be all about opening an Etsy and what goes into it!
Sincerely,
Stella Marcy, Founder and Head of ResJewels.
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