We were lucky to catch up with Kimberly Toma recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kimberly, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

I always get asked the question, “who’s east & who’s ray?”

The meaning of East & Ray embodies the beginning, middle, and current state of my jewelry journey.

It started out on Ray ave in the house that I grew up in my entire life up until college. It was there that I found my love for jewelry, and all things creative. Instead of having lemonade stands, I remember selling friendship bracelets and knitted goods at my families garage sales.

Fast forward to my adult life, I moved out to Easton, PA with my now husband and step son.

It took me a long time to come up with a name for my business, and I was thinking about it years before I actually launched my business.

I still work full time in New Jersey and commute back to PA every day. On my way home from work one day it just clicked – East to represent my new home and Ray to represent my childhood home.

It was in Easton, during a global pandemic that I finally took the plunge and started this business so it was only fitting to include both places.

And furthermore, the sun ray symbol in my logo represents the first metal stamp I bought when I was first learning how to make jewelry. To this day I still use that exact stamp as my “makers mark” on every piece of jewelry I make.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Kimberly, the maker behind East & Ray Jewelry. I have been making jewelry for as long as I can remember and I took my first formal jewelry class in 2010 while working towards a Bachelors of Fine Arts. I ended up focusing my college studies on metals & jewelry. After graduation I had various jobs in the jewelry field and worked my way up to being a full time bench jeweler. I have been a practicing bench jeweler for 6 years now, working on repairing customers jewelry, setting diamonds and precious stones into engagement rings and heirloom jewelry, etc. During Covid, our company had to shut its doors for a few months and it was during that time that East & Ray came to fruition. I have always made jewelry as gifts for friends and family, but never had the time to create enough inventory to sell to others. During lockdown I was able to create a small home studio space and have creative freedom to spend my days making all the jewelry I could. I dove straight into my stone collection and was drawn toward the bright colors of turquoise. Since then I have been creating small, unique batches of high quality sterling silver jewelry featuring brightly colored, natural, American-mined turquoise stones. Since returning back to my full time work as a bench jeweler, East & Ray has become my creative outlet to make jewelry on nights and weekends that I truly love!. I strive to create well made jewelry that is meant to last for years to come and bring customers joy through brightly colored turquoise stones.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

My favorite part of connecting with customers has been participating in local makers markets and local community pop up shops. It brings me so much joy to connect with people in person who resonate with my jewelry and enjoy wearing it as much as I do. It has also been a great opportunity to build connections with other local business owners and creatives. These events are a great way to get the name and image of my business out there and recognizable to clients and are the start of future connections.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I am an introvert, so sharing on social media was very intimidating at the beginning but once I decided on a business name my next step was creating an Instagram. Over time I have found that consistency is the key to social media, as long as you are authentic and present people with resonate with you as a person and your business beliefs. In a fast paced world of manufacturing it is refreshing and unique to see a person making slow crafted handmade jewelry. Instagram has been a place to share videos and photos of behind the scenes in the jewelry making process and I think customers really enjoy that as aspect and appreciate the time and amount of work that go into each piece more because they are able to see the full process.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.eastandray.com
• Instagram: East.and.ray

Image Credits
Daniellemariephotographypa