We recently connected with Melinda King and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Melinda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

I haven’t always been a business owner, I have worked for “The Man” as well. I held jobs as a front desk receptionist for dental office, copier sales, education department for a big box hobby store and photographer for a retail portrait studio company. I never enjoyed working for someone else who dictated my time – off, when I would see my loved ones for the holidays and would control my earning potential.
Understandably, there are benefits to having a “traditional“ job when it comes to insurance and benefits.
The sick leave. Also, the fact that things are already established, and you can essentially come into a role that has been set up for you already. Very little front end work on your part.
There is a lot of work when it comes to creating a business, developing and growing that business and then making adjustments as you see needed down the line. You need to market yourself and, like most business owners, the switch is rarely turned off.
But, you are doing something you love, and just like the old adage, “Do something you love and you will never work a day and you will never work a day in your life.”.
I answer to no one but myself, I determine my own earning potential and I choose who I want to work with, and where I want to work.
It is crazy-busy, but I would not trade it for the world.

Melinda, 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?

I am in the business of handcrafted gemstone jewelry that has the added benefit of diffusing essential oils.
I have been set up as a “business” for going on 13 years, but I have been making jewelry for over 20 years. It started out as just remaking things I had at home that I wanted to make “new” and developed into purchasing tools and materials to make my own creations.
I was always fascinated by silversmithing, but was unable to attend a class due to life and other restrictions. The desire was very strong to display a beautiful stone, so my research began on how to do that without the knowledge of knowing how to work with silver and fire.
I found wire-wrapping and intensely studied how to encase a gemstone and then how to put my own spin and signature on it.
Once I learned this skill, I feel like my world really expanded. I then began purchasing gemstones and developed strong relationships with those vendors.
I then added the benefit of diffusing to my jewelry 10 years ago. It is an option that many people like to have and it sets my jewelry in more than just one category, is a piece of jewelry, but it is also holistic and serves a secondary purpose.
The diffusing aspect isn’t necessarily in-your-face obvious, but it is there for those who need it or want to use it.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The bigger, the better.

My jewelry sits in the category that 75% of my pieces are one-of-a-kind.
Nothing I do is mass manufactured and I don’t have employees. When you buy a piece of Texas Girl Treasures jewelry, the owner made it.
Period.
Due to this fact, there is only so large my business can grow because of my own limitations. It would change my whole business structure if I started hiring people to make my pieces for me, they would no longer be one-of-a-kind pieces.
I take the fact that you will not run into someone else with the very same necklace very seriously. I want each piece to be different and unique, just like everyone is different.
When you shop with me, you can find the piece that speaks to you.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

My business did start off as a side hustle. I always had an artistic streak and a love for research and creating. My degree was in Visual Arts Studies from the University of North Texas where I didn’t take one Jewelry class.
Everything I learned was through research after graduation, continuing education courses or the magic of books and YouTube.
The journey of course started off more simplistic with beading and stringing and developed into more complicated ventures like wire-wrapping and electroforming.
It is my goal to introduce something new and unique every year or two. I’m consistently learning new things and trying to grow and better what I’m already doing along with obtaining new knowledge along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.texasgirltreasures.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/TexasGirlTreasures/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/TexasGirlTreasures/