Sitting on her dorm room’s beige carpet, freshman psychology major Maiya Garcia spends her mornings using her teal pliers and black wire cutters to hand-assemble earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings for her jewelry business, Maiya Makes Jewelry. To get more news about handmade jewelry designers near me, you can visit jewelryhunt.net official website.

Spread out around her are three plastic storage containers filled with silver lobster claw clasps, gold jump rings, enamel charms and more. As she crafts, her laptop plays a class lecture or a Marvel film, like “Avengers: Endgame.” Because the movie is so long, Garcia said, she can make her bold, statement jewelry for hours without needing to start a new film to play in the background. As someone who has always been a crafty person, Garcia said, her bedroom closet at home in Gas City, Indiana, is full of craft supplies from watercolor palettes to fabric for making scrunchies. One weekend in early March while she was cleaning out her supply closet, she found leftover fish hook earrings and jump rings from when she tried making clay earrings last year.

Manipulating small pieces of clay was difficult, Garcia said, and she didn’t have the gloss varnish to seal the clay after it baked, so she stopped making them. When Garcia found her supplies again in March, she brainstormed ways to put them to use, ultimately deciding upon a handmade jewelry business.

“With earrings and necklaces — that's something people notice a lot when they're looking at you,” Garcia said. “They’re looking at your face, so they can see right where your necklaces and earrings are, and they’re really good to catch people's eye.” Because she had just received her stimulus check, she purchased seed beads, earring cards, bracelet blanks and a metal stamping kit to grow her collection of jewelry supplies. After spending a week learning the basics of assembling jewelry from watching YouTube videos and TikToks, Garcia made her first batch of earrings and necklaces in late March.

The first pair of earrings she made were a silver-plated fork and spoon. After she completed this batch, Garcia began posting on her social media and to DeHority Complex’s GroupMe that she was selling her handmade jewelry. She sold all but one piece from her first drop.

Now, Garcia has made about $500 from selling nearly 50 pieces of jewelry to Ball State students and her friends and family.

“I’ve been making crafts for forever, but this is the first time I've really been making stuff that people have really been interested in,” Garcia said. “That's a really good feeling. Even more now, the feeling is stronger. I want to share my jewelry with other people and show people what I’ve made now that I know people like it.” Abigail Simpson, freshman English education major and Garcia’s roommate, has purchased four pairs of Garcia’s earrings: red mushrooms with white speckles, silver cats with hearts, hanging green succulents in an orange pot and rainbow hot air balloons. Simpson also bought a necklace — a teardrop-shaped pendant made of clear resin with small brown mushrooms inside.

Simpson chose these pieces because they spoke to a specific aesthetic she has always loved but never tried to achieve. Now that they’re becoming more conscious about their outfits and accessories, Simpson said, they wear Garcia’s jewelry nearly every day with a T-shirt and jeans or a button-down and joggers.

“Maiya is really understanding when it comes to making jewelry for others — she's been quick to point out items she has that I would enjoy or have a similar vibe to,” Simpson said. “That personal touch, combined with her willingness to work with others to ensure they get an item that is perfect for them personally, is wonderful. A couple of prime examples include making jewelry out of buttons or pins that a dorm friend of ours had brought by and getting the perfect charm for an online customer with specific requests.