We were lucky to catch up with Jewelia Britton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jewelia, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I have always loved butterflies and been drawn to them ever since I was a kid. Some of my first fond memories of butterflies would be my mom and grandma taking me to the amazing monarch sanctuary in Pismo Beach California during monarch migration season. Then my great grandmother had black night butterfly bushes all around her house and when she passed there were butterflies covering her entire house. But Enchanted Wings was born after I had my second daughter and was looking for a new creative outlet. My husband, daughter and I had to move to Colorado during the pandemic and I was playing around with stain glass at my husband’s parents house thinking maybe that was my next path but and every day this Papilio Glaucus butterfly (yellow swallowtail) would come and say hi. My dad had taken me vintage shopping almost every other weekend as a kid so I had a lot of framed butterflies and beetles in my room growing up and I had a vintage circle pendent necklace that I loved which had an encased butterfly wing in it so I knew encasing them would be possible. I knew most butterflies and moths don’t live longer than 2 weeks so I asked my husband to find me ethically sourced butterflies that are only collected after they pass naturally and I got to work. Learning how to use my stained glass skills and encase the wings without shredding them was super hard since butterflies are so fragile. My first pieces were absolutely horrendous but each week I got better and now, here we are.

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

My name is Jewelia Britton, I actually started my business as Jewelz By Jewelia making crystal crowns. When my husband and I got engaged I really wanted a crown made out of long quartz crystal and I couldn’t find what I had envisioned so I decided to make it myself. My dress designer loved it so much she asked if I wanted to sell some in her shop. I was blown away and felt so inspired that I started creating non stop. I was apart of the festival community and was introduced by a friend to the incredible Lux Muse (clothing designer) who I soon became inseparable with. Our creations looked stunning together so we would do photoshoots almost every week and on the weekends we would vend shows and festivals. Lux taught me everything she knew and was not only one of my best friends but my mentor. I had also been vending the Melrose Trading Post every weekend where I got to meet so many wonderful people and really learn a lot from the other vendors that had been there for 10 or more years. When I got pregnant with my first daughter it started getting really difficult to set my booth up every week and after having my daughter I only vended a few times before I decided to take a break and focus on motherhood. I almost immediately got pregnant with my second so my creative flow was put on the back burner a little longer. After having my second daughter the creative itch had really built up and Enchanted Wings was born!

How did you build your audience on social media?

I feel like building your audience is more so about finding your community. If you find your community the audience will follow. My community is and will always be my festival babes! The first festivals I vended were Desert Hearts & Lightning In A Bottle in California. Vending festivals helps you get in front of people and gives you an opportunity to truly connect one on one with your community which in time helps grow your social media. Doing fun raffles and/or discounts if they follow you will help you grow even faster! My favorite way to grow is to cross promote with other incredible artist. Doing bigger giveaways that have 3 or more artists creations in them is a huge way to gain followers fast. It’s all about supporting each other and helping each other grow. Last thing I would say is don’t be afraid to pay for instagram advertisements. Yes it’s going to take a little time to figure out which posts do best but once you do they will really help your sales. Also don’t just do $5 a day all month! It will take too long to see which ads are doing the best. I’ve found that $30 a day for 10 days gives me the best results and I can truly track how many website visits/orders I get.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Yes I hand make each piece all by myself from start to finish. It is a long process of dissecting, tracing, glass cutting, glass grinding, cleaning, wrapping, soldering, polishing and finally chaining each piece, lol, but super worth it! I had taken a class when I was younger for stain glass but honestly when I started Enchanted Wings I got on YouTube and just watched as many videos as I could and then perfected it by trial and error. I had to go through so many brands of glass grinders and soldering irons before I found what worked best for me. The only way to truly perfect your craft is to just do it and not be scared to mess up! Mess ups are the best part because it gets you closer perfection and even though nothing is truly perfect you can get pretty close! Sometimes those mistakes even end up being incredibly beautiful and if you don’t just go for it you will miss out on all those happy mistakes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.enchantedwings.co/
• Instagram: @enchantedwings.co
• TikTok: @enchantedwings.co