Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kelly-Jayne Portillo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Kelly-Jayne, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
The fight that I always seem to be fighting in one way or another is proving to the world that the intangible and impractical things have just as much place and value as the tangible and pragmatic. Yes, the world needs bridges and roads and science and logic. But what would life be without beauty, without art, without love, without emotions?
This probably all stems from not getting much emotional validation as a kid because my family was always in survival mode. And although that comes with its own textures of grief, I truly believe that God used those circumstances to cause me to double down on my convictions. These ineffable things give our lives meaning. No, I cannot fix your car. But I can lead you to discover why the smell of rain always makes your heart sick.
But when I was in college, I ran my body and soul into the ground, because that’s what everything I was currently exposed to told me to do. Earn your worth through good grades; evangelize on the streets; sacrifice yourself for others; your needs don’t matter when there are souls to be saved. So when God, in his sense of humor and big big grace, let my system of thinking caused my body to literally stop functioning, it was an opportunity to learn how my worth comes from just *being*.
And I realized that is how beauty gets its worth in this world, too.
Baewolf Earrings celebrates beauty for beauty’s sake. Western culture forces productivity and pragmatism, but there’s so much healing in allowing yourself to just be—to be still, to be captivated by beauty. Beautiful things don’t have to earn their worth, they just are, and I love to shout from the rooftops that we don’t have to earn our worth either.
And when you open your heart to beauty, to wholeness, to softness, to gentleness, you realize that you have the choice whether or not to see it in everything, all around you.
Re: not getting validated much as a child, I have been actively in therapy for 7+ years. And one of the biggest ways God has held me hand through it is this: Anything can heal if we choose to let go of the bad and hold onto the good. Practicing the art of paying attention to the good and beautiful things around you is enthrallingly transformative, and my earrings always give someone that opportunity and reminder to focus on something calming, interesting, and lovely.
Wearing my earrings are a reminder of your innate worth—and also the innate worth of the women around you. Baewolf Earrings orients itself around sisterhood, gratitude, and never, ever having to earn your rest. This company is the most natural and authentic way for me to share my heart with you.
Kelly-Jayne, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Kelly-Jayne Portillo, and I am the creator of Baewolf Earrings. As the name suggests, I am an earrings artist–primarily polymer clay and resin. But I truly believe that my business is more than the earrings themselves, but is about the healing that happens when we focus on good, beautiful, soft and gentle things.
It’s so funny how I started my business because I would 100% give younger me the side eye for how it began, but the truth is I was one of those people who saw a pair of handmade earrings at a boutique and said to myself “Ugh, they’re charging way too much. I could make this.”
In retrospect, they were not charging nearly enough in my humble opinion, because nothing can prepare an artist for how much more there is to a creative business besides the creativity part. But that’s how Baewolf began. I bought some clay, sat down with my sister over Thanksgiving break of 2019, and made and made and made. And never stopped.
My first pairs of earrings are cringeworthy. It’s physically painful for me to look at my work when I was just starting out. But you know what? They sold. Granted, for $5 on my own personal Instagram, but they sold.
I began with just selling pairs for $5-10 to my friends. But their feedback was so surprisingly and outrageously positive that I essentially said “Okay, what the heck, I’m an earrings artists now. And apparently a small business owner. And worse than that–a content creator. But here we go.”
Because from the beginning, I knew that Baewolf was my *thing.* It caused my heart to pound whenever I was thinking of new designs. I felt my body physically get calmer the more that I used my hands and worked the clay. The creation of my earrings is a therapy in itself for me. And everyone I knew started telling me how proud of me they were, because it was clear that through this creative project–I was thriving. And all I want is to help others heal and thrive in the same way.
I still have a full time job to support myself and this endeavor. I’ve never “successfully” made Baewolf my full time income, but I am perfectly alright with that, because the impact I have been able to have on my community is beyond what I could have asked for.
The message that I continually send through my art is that you matter. That healing is possible. That there is beauty and goodness in this world if we only look. That God, I used to know as scary and unapproachable and controlling, is actually a big softie. He’s kind and he’s gentle and he celebrates us with his whole heart. He’s an artist himself! And through my business, I share how this new view of God affects my everyday life and brings me more simple joy than I ever thought possible.
I’ve had so many people message me tell me how my vulnerability about my healing journey has helped them. I’ve gotten stopped at stores near where I live, at weddings, at parties, just to tell me that I appreciate what I share. It’s like they see the best part of me through my work, and therefore the best part of themselves–and that means more to me than anything in my bank account.
I have actually sold my work, too, of course. I’ve sold over 1,000 gorgeous, lightweight, unique pairs. I sell my earrings through my website–baewolfearrings.com, and through my Instagram, @baewolf.earrings. If you’re lucky enough to live in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, you can catch me at craft shows during Christmas, too.
The truth is, I’m not a typical creator account. This business is completely from my heart, which means it can be messy and inconsistent. But it also means my work is always authentic. And if I may say so myself, it’s always stunning.
When you hold my earrings you know that you’re holding a part of someone’s journey and a celebration of one’s worth. They encourage you to see your worth too, to heal too, to see the beauty in yourself and others, too. They’re well-made because my conscience wouldn’t allow me to sell them otherwise. And they’re going to look so, so beautiful on you.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Did you know that in the first Creation story in the Bible, there lies a keyword in the Hebrew literary form known as a chiasm? And this single word, meaning Sabbath, unlocks the whole point of the Creation story, teaching ancient Jews that they were created to enjoy life, that resting is their birthright, and their whole lives should reflect their trust in God so wholeheartedly that it was like their life was one long day off?
Even if you’re not religious, you have to admit that sounds pretty sweet. A lifelong vacation. Someone taking care of your every need so much that you don’t even have to think about striving or working to survive.
Now, I’m not insinuating that the Hebrew people was taught to be lazy or to never have a job. But their weekly Sabbath, their day of rest, was meant to remind them that they weren’t doing this life thing alone. That God was ultimately in charge of making sure that they were fed, housed, and safe.
And that THAT was the point of their story of the Creation of the World.
I certainly did not know this bit of information prior to starting my business in 2019, and my life sure as heck did not look or feel like a lifelong vacation. I was striving, working myself to the bone, running my body into the ground.
It’s just what I thought I was supposed to do. I thought that’s what made me a “good Christian.” I pulled all nighters so that I could get my homework done and still be active in my campus ministry. I evangelized when my body cried out for sleep. I believed that doing anything just for fun was selfish and sinful. I was operating on the belief that taking care of myself was a waste of time because so many other people had needs, and it was my job to meet them.
But eventually, God said “stop.” He lovingly forced my body to rest, in the form of a bad case of mono that lasted for months, making it so my body was so weak that I couldn’t leave my house, let alone work.
If you don’t know what mono is, its main symptom is essentially that it makes you dead tired. So all of the sudden, my sources of worth were gone. I couldn’t work hard or take care of anyone else or do “good” religious things. And so for months and moths, it was just me and God in my bedroom–me, rethinking everything; him, inviting me to rest in him for the first time.
And so, as counterintuitive as it is, it is this invitation to rest that informs my current work with my business.
I wish I could say that I haven’t tried to earn my worth through Baewolf a single time or that I’ve always stayed calm and collected, no matter how behind I was on orders or how much money I wasn’t making. But…um, yeah. That’s not true. I have run around like a chicken with my head cut off many a time for my beloved little business.
But it is the lesson that I always, always come back to. I make sure that above all else, my business is FUN for me. If it’s not refreshing, then I take a break. Because otherwise what’s the point?
What holding God’s rest at the center of my work looks like is this:
-Seeing creative work as play and not taking it too seriously
-Being really stinking proud of myself whenever I make something beautiful
-Repeating the mantra “I can only do what I can do,” especially when a big collection drop is a few days away
-Trusting God to make this my full time job if he wants, but being grateful for what I DO have the capacity to do part time
-And letting my creative process be a time of reflective healing rather than worrying about how much money it will make
I’ll be honest, I wish I could share how even though I primarily see this work as rest, how it has made me so much money and that I could quit my full time job. Unfortunately, I’m not that expert. But I can encourage you to do what lights your soul on fire and to trust that if it feels good, then do it in whatever capacity you can. And let your finances worry about themselves.
Because you are worth it! Your soul is worth tending to by creative work if that’s what does it for you. And the more in line you are with your true self, the more you are reflecting the divine. And you can’t put a price tag on that.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
As of writing this, I only have 1,255 followers on Instagram. So, as far as scope goes, I don’t have the widest reach. But when I look at my statistics, I am floored by my customers’ collective loyalty.
Of all the orders on my website that I launched last year, 55% of my customers are repeat customers, making up 79% of my order total. And this doesn’t even include the loyalty to my Etsy shop that I ran for 2+ years before my own website.
When I see these numbers, I am filled with gratitude and true appreciation for every individual customer–and I think that’s part of my reason for success. These orders are going to real people, real souls. They’re not just numbers to me. And I can say with confidence that my customer base feels that.
I believe this manifests in two main ways: My vulnerability and personality on social media, and through what I include in my packaging.
Some businesses may describe their personality on social media as trendy or professional or affluent. My word might seem strange, but if I was to summarize my personality on my Instagram, it would be vulnerable.
I share my real, day to day, thoughts and feelings about my life and about God and about the creative process. Anything and everything that I’m learning related to therapy, healing, creativity, worth, church culture, religion, spiritual abuse, and art is shared through my stories, captions, and posts. I show my face, I show my habits, I show my favorite spaces and moments.
And it really resonates with people.
I echo their humanity every time I share mine through my social media marketing. And although its very possible that I would make more individual sales if I focused more on sleek process videos of me making my earrings or on cute outfits you can wear with them, I think the reason so many of my customers come back is that they feel the sacredness of buying art from someone–not just some business.
My innermost thoughts resonate with them and start real conversations. I am careful to reply to my DMs and make the person on the other end of the screen feel like they’re my friend, not just my follower. And when it’s time for me to launch a new earring campaign and actually sell some earrings, I believe the positive feelings they associate with my brand is what causes them to buy again and again–along with the fact that my earrings are just absolutely stunning. *casual shrug.*
And when their Baewolf Earrings package finally arrives, it is absolutely full of personal touches and heart.
Every earring collection has some sort of theme or message with it, so I always include a postcard with a model from the collection and a little letter about what this collection meant to me, how it was made, and what I hope it does for each person who wears them. At the very least, I write their name on the note and sign it, always including a heart. At most, when I have the capacity, every customer gets an individualized note on a vintage postcard.
Additionally, I include a sticker with a handmade drawing that has to do with my brand or the collection somehow: a tiny vase of flowers, an empowered-looking woman, a storybook, etc.
Everything is wrapped up in beautiful tissue paper so that when they open it, it feels like a present, and they know it’s going to be something special, just for them.
At the end of the day, that’s what we all want, is to feel special and seen. We buy products that make us feel that way. And I believe my personal touches, both through my social media presence and my packaging, does just that. And when people feel loved, they always come back. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.baewolfearrings.com
- Instagram: @baewolf.earrings
- Facebook: www.Facebook.com/baewolf.earrings
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@kelly-jayneportillo7569
Image Credits
Kelly-Jayne Portillo