We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley Bebley Adesiyan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

ItsAllCulture was an idea as I was pregnant with my first child. Really as a hobby, I wanted to monetize it but I didn’t really see a future in it deep down.

I was always a dreamer and quite spontaneous. I went on an early maternity leave and told the supervisor, I didn’t intend on returning because I was going to be a stay at home jewelry artist. Mind you I have not made a cent at this point and again I knew deep down it probably wasn’t going to manifest as a business.

And because of my own doubt this did not manifest into anything for that first year. I did however stay home with my now 3 year old.

I didn’t stop making jewelry, even though I was frustrated that I was really making any sales really, I kept growing my IG following and was paid in full by their encouragement and engagement whenever I got a new design idea that didn’t end up in a sale haha.
All fans without customers.

I quit a couple times for like 3 weeks or so. But something kept calling me back. I probably made 600 bucks btw that first year from pop up shops and a couple of online orders. It was March 2020 i released a new collection unlike anything that I have ever created and non like I have seen any other polymer clay artist I followed on IG. And from that release date after building anticipation on line, I woke up to over 1000 dollars in sales , and btw the end of the day over 2000 dollars. And I have been busy ever since. Formed my LLC in 2021 .

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ashley Bebley Adesiyan ,currently live in Chicago, was born and raised in Gary,In.

It’sallculture Jewelry is a statement jewelry company that creates unique hand made pieces of jewelry that look to enhance and bring forth confidence to people who want to make a clear message to the world, that they are bold and beautiful.

In a world of fast fashion it’s their time to stand out and style beyond the noise.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Yes actually the end of last year 2022 , I went back to a retail company I left back in 2016. Because honestly I wasn’t managing my finances appropriately and I am currently the head of household, so I needed to make sure I also need to keep growing my business as I was literally living off of it. It was very brief, I’m back in the studio full time. But yeah that was a real moment of I need to get my ish together and prioritize and stop over spending.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Honestly getting started in jewelry making with my material, polymer clay is pretty inexpensive. I purchased some clay from a local hobby craft story for as little as 20 dollars with jewelry findings and all , post some pics put them online and wait for orders, doing preorders is the best step so you can see the demand and use that money to acquire the needed materials to fulfill the orders.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://itsallculturejewelry.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/itsallculture_statementjewelry?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Image Credits
https://instagram.com/tembotones?igshid=Zjc2ZTc4Nzk= for the head shot image of myself https://instagram.com/chollette?igshid=Zjc2ZTc4Nzk= 4 additional images