We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kari Dern. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kari below.

Alright, Kari thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

This is an interesting question! My whole life until I founded this business I felt like a creator trapped in someone else’s life. As I was growing up I was always drawn to art, drawing, sculpting, crafts of any kind imaginable. At the same time I was determined to be independent from the moment I left college and I knew I had to pay the bills so I first worked at an insurance agency, then later had a career in sales in the beverage industry. All the while I woke up every day feeling like this wasn’t my life. When I finally was able to define what a creative career looked like and had some success, I felt like I wished I had taken the leap of faith many years prior, however if I look back on my ability to self manage or have any sort of self-imposed discipline just out of college, I know I could not have done then what I was able to do in 2017. The experiences of the roles I had worked up until that point helped me to grow this business quickly and with a tenacity and fire that I would not have had previously. So I wish I was able to start my creative career sooner but I realize that it happened just at the perfect time!

Kari , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Growing up I was always drawn to art and natural elements such as crystals and fossils. Drawing, painting, sculpting, crafting of all sorts imaginable and unimaginable were all a big part of my life. I took a ton of art classes growing up, both in and out of school and in college and as much as I loved it and felt it was a part of my soul, I didn’t see how I would be able to turn this creative fire into a career at the time. There was no way I felt I could connect creating with supporting myself at the time or vision for what that would look like. I was afraid to be ‘the starving artist’ and decided to take the stable path of finding employment.

I had a few jobs out of college and eventually landed an amazing role in the beer industry that I saw as an incredible opportunity. I was able to meet so many interesting people and attend countless unforgettable events in cities I never would have seen otherwise throughout the country, ultimately finding myself managing half of Manhattan’s bar and restaurant scene. Despite how wonderful it all was, every morning when I woke up I would have this persistent thought sequence pop into my mind: “What are you doing still in this role? This isn’t your life-you are an artist! You need to be creating something!” Every morning I would push these thoughts down and go on with my day.

Living in Manhattan presents a person with incredible opportunities all the time though, and luckily for me, I fell in with a group of creative and inspirational women who encouraged me to experiment with art and new mediums. I began making these necklaces with huge crystals and when I would walk around the city wearing them I would often get stopped and asked where they could be purchased. A few times I sold the piece right off my neck to a woman on the street and it began to dawn on me that I had been shown a way to create for a living. This fledgling thought got wings in 2017 when I found out that my then fiancé and I were moving back to Baltimore for his job, and I knew it was the right timing to take the leap.

Never looking back, I created Spellbound LLC, aka ‘Become Spellbound’ and got to work. All of my hopes and dreams and passions came together and were put into the business. I am most proud of how far it has come since then. My goal here was to really push the boundaries of art and adornment and I hope that it continues to resonate with those who support me and this business. It’s been such an honor and a privilege.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When I first created the instagram account for my creative endeavor I really was still just toying with the idea of making it into a business. I named it Kariscrystals and at first it was just meant to be a place to put photos of the pieces I was making so that I didn’t turn my whole personal Instagram account into a photo dump for my creations. I didn’t have a long term vision for it at that point.

I was fortunate enough that when I did begin my social media journey that I was quickly taken under the wing of some other creatives who were getting their start on Instagram as well and we started a little ‘boost group’ as I have heard them called to support each other by engaging with one another’s posts. This proved to be not only helpful back in 2017 when the algorithm was perhaps friendlier to creative types but I also made lifelong friends on there and learned that supporting other artists can be beneficial as well as incredibly rewarding. I now have probably about 1500 artist friends on there and we all support and lift one other up!

Shortly after creating the account I was also approached by a creative coach who lived out in Vegas and offered to help me brand my business and create a more cohesive vision. Her name is Rashelle Roberts and she has been so instrumental in helping me to create the business that I have today. She connected me with a designer named Susan Fireside who walked me through the vision of what I was trying to achieve and she helped me with logo design and we named it Spellbound. Through researching domain names and available Instagram names it ‘became’ Become Spellbound. I wanted to evoke wonder of the natural world, a feeling of awe that I often experience when I am handling the crystals and fossils I often work with.

From there the social media is just about putting in the work, creating the content, keeping a cohesive vision and being consistent. I try to post every or every other day and now it’s all about making reels. I try not to get sucked into the trends but just to let the jewelry speak for itself. I believe the people who will appreciate my creations will eventually find their way to me!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I find it all to be so incredibly rewarding! I love feeling like the pieces that I create are able to bring positive energy to those who wear them. It’s amazing to see the photos from customers wearing them and hear how they felt when seeing the piece for the first time or touching it. Crystals and fossils have energy and while some people are more or less sensitive to that energy, they still have an impact on the wearer and its so rewarding to feel like I was able to be a conduit to create a piece that someone can connect to in this way and benefit from on multiple levels.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.becomespellbound.com
• Instagram: @become_spellbound
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/becomespellbound