Hi friends!!!!!!! I’ve gotten to know Michelle Harris, of Jewels of Luxury, over the past couple of months. She is highly motivated, enthusiastic, and full of great ideas when it comes to the craft, and craft-associated, businesses. Having grown up in a family of jewelers, she is very knowledgeable about the business and is quite generous in sharing this knowledge. Her wealth of ideas is evidenced by her Etsy shops. In this interview, we are focusing on Jewels of Luxury, a shop she opened last September to focus on vintage jewelry.
What types of items do you sell?
I create Antique Watch Part and Vintage Inspired Jewelry. I use unique antique and vintage finds, as well as vintage brass filigree and stampings revived from turn of the century victorian pieces. I also have a bead shop as well on etsy.com where I sell gemstone bead supplies, so I tend to throw some fine gemstone beads into my designs every once in a while.
How did you get into your craft?
I’ve been creating jewelry as long as I can remember. Both my parents are jewelers, and I spent most of my childhood running around the showroom or crawling under the jewelers benches searching for dropped diamonds. Of course, I specialized in paper clip necklaces way back at the beginning though
Where does your inspiration come from?
My inspiration clicks in when I come across the objects I want to use. When I find the perfect vintage piece in an antique shop or a flea market, an image just pops into my head. Sometimes the pieces are just so wonderful and detailed by themselves that I just like to highlight them by themselves. This happens quite often actually Since so many pieces are 50 to 150 years old, I like to show the craftsmanship that originally went into it. It’s all about bringing new life to an old object that has been forgotten.
How do you promote your shop?
I try and promote myself in a lot of different ways. I have my work in boutiques in Manhattan and Brooklyn NY, Melbourne (Australia), and Philadelphia PA. This summer, I’ve started lining up shows in my local Columbus, OH with my etsy team to sell our work. Finally, I also am having customized lip balms created to hand out to promote myself, as well as have bought an ad in the upcoming June edition of BUST magazine.
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