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Meet Kelly Autry of Touch of Wonder Designs in Anthem

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Autry.

Kelly, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
A creative business was a dream I had since my early 30’s while I had the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom to my three kids. My husband loves to illustrate and creative expression has always been valued in our home. We raised our kids to know that “there are no mistakes in art.” As the physical demands of parenting lessoned I would think about the job I wanted to do when they grew up and visualized the type of life where I had the freedom to create.

I’m the kind of person who finds a sense of inner peace, a joy when I have a creative project I am working on. I see something beautiful at the store and instead of wanting to purchase it, I think “oh I can make that myself”. And that is what I do. I research and watch tutorials or read anything I can get my hands on to learn the way I need to go about making it. At the times in my life when I have been too busy to sit down and create, I realize that I get irritable or anxious. It takes a few days of this feeling before I think “get creative” and once I do I feel the weight of the world lift from my shoulders. This need for creative freedom is a huge part of my well-being.

I kept seeing the word “Handcrafted” in my mind & picturing myself walking into a studio with coffee in hand while I sifted through orders for the day. I didn’t know if this was a store, or what I would be handcrafting but it was a clear vision of business of my own. But then when my youngest went off to school, I went the route of working in the school district where my kids attended. I had various jobs before I found myself as a teacher aide for special needs children. I fell in love with these kids and the teachers who gave so much of themselves. However, It was a physically & emotionally demanding job and I would come home exhausted. I started to feel the need to get creative so that I could rejuvenate myself and that is when I got busy learning the art of metal hand stamping. I saw an advertisement for these beautiful silver stamped necklaces with initials. I knew I wanted one with all (3) of my kid’s names, so I decided to make one for myself. It took one trip to the craft store to purchase all the necessary tools to start and then I found myself at the kitchen table pounding a hammer into metal. It felt glorious! It took a lot of practice but eventually, I got good at lining up the letters and making jewelry out of it. I kept thinking “I could sell these”.

I started giving them out as gifts to all my friends. And then they asked me to make some for their friends & family members. Trusting my instincts I took pictures of each one before I gave them away. THEN my teen son broke the leather braided bracelet he wore every day that his grandma gave him as a gift from her trip overseas. He asked if I’d buy a similar one but when I started looking for them I found them to be quite expensive, so I figured that I would learn how to make them myself. A quick tutorial and I was ready to make bracelets for him and all his friends. Later that week, his best friend told me that his mom noticed the bracelet and wanted my website information to order some for all the employees in her department for holiday presents. Without thinking I said “give me one week” and I went to my husband to asked if he would help me set up an Etsy shop. With his help, I jumped right in and created my business “Touch of Wonder Designs”. I didn’t know what I was doing but I just knew it was time and trusted my gut. I got my first hand stamped jewelry order (10) minutes after I announced my business on Facebook in Sept 2017 and it has grown steadily from there. A whole new world opened up to me when I took an (8) week metal smithing class to learn how to set stones in Jan of 2018. I knew during that first class that this was my calling. My website was created a year later and I’ve expanded to offering over 70 personalized, hand crafted items.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Running a business is much more work than I had anticipated. It’s a constant “on-the-job-training”. The hours are long yet flexible which is important to me because I still have kids at home that I am raising. But when the studio is home-based it’s easy to just “run back in to finish something” and then end up working at the jewelry bench for hours into the night.

The biggest struggle I have is keeping up with social media platforms. As a creative entrepreneur, I need to keep myself knowledgeable about the various ways to drive traffic to my website. Being a one-woman show is hard sometimes. There are a lot of moving parts and it’s imperative to my business that I stay on top of it all. From designing, shopping, creating, researching, training, shipping, marketing, administrating & customer service it can be overwhelming sometimes, but I wouldn’t give it up and I truly love my job.

Please tell us about your business.
My Touch of Wonder Designs business tagline is “Personalized handcrafted items for you or someone you love”. Most of the items I sell are made to order. I offer unique, custom jewelry from hand stamped metal pieces to precious stone settings, leather bracelets, cuffs, earrings and beaded jewelry like mala necklaces and diffuser bracelets.

My strength lies in my ability to work one-on-one with my customers to bring their vision to life. From a meaningful quote that they want to wear, or a certain stone they love set into a one of a kind ring or a special piece that they want to wear in memory of a loved one. I love collaborating with people to create heirloom pieces that can be handed down to the next generation or simply making pieces that showcase their style.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
My success comes from my ability to create personal relationships with each customer. I want them to trust that I will use integrity while creating their piece(s) by using high quality, ethically sourced products.

I pride myself on offering superior customer service to each client. I intend to walk them through their piece(s) from beginning to end, letting them change or add to the design so that they have a part in the creation.

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Image Credit:
House of Loralei – Portraits

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