We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nia Bellona a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nia, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

The short answer is that I think the timing was just right for me to begin pursuing this specific creative career. I previously had another artistic career and while that was enjoyable for a time, it felt right to move on from that and into a new one.

When I started Honey Hearted, I originally had a full time job in the medical field, a part time job as a server and was selling curated vintage online – that was actually what my Instagram page was initially started for! Like many people, the COVID pandemic changed my life drastically and quickly; I lost my serving job and had slightly reduced hours at my full time medical job. I wanted to revisit working with polymer clay, one of my favorite mediums as a child, and wanted to make earrings because I love earrings. I began sharing my work on my personal Instagram for fun and had inquiries about selling my prototypes, so I decided to dive into becoming more involved in creating and selling jewelry.

The truth is that I was becoming disillusioned with the path I had been on to go further in the medical field. I have severe, chronic migraines and this meant I could never have perfect attendance at any job. I thought I wanted to go to graduate school but as the pandemic progressed, I realized that wasn’t really my dream anymore and while it felt scary to even consider having my creative side be the way to support myself, that was what I really had wanted my entire life.

This business came to be at the perfect time; had I not tried out working full time and long term in the medical field, I would always have wondered what I walked away from or worse, I would have never taken it seriously because I would have just considered it something to do until graduate school. Had I tried doing it later on, I may have already been tied into a degree with an end goal that I no longer wanted and would have had to face guilt and worry about walking away when I did.

Having my business become successful while having a full time job was ideal timing as it made me realize I actually could support myself doing what I love and working around my chronic illness. I would have never truly had the time to dedicate to it had the series of events not occurred when they did.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have always loved to work with my hands and do art projects; I have probably tried almost every (kid friendly) medium because my parents were seriously amazing and would encourage me to try whatever I was interested in that week. The one medium I went back to again and again as a child was polymer clay – my mom and I would religiously check the Michael’s weekly ads to see when the clay I used would be half off so I could stock up. My parents are still some of my biggest supporters and they actually display some of my original polymer works from when I was a child in their home today.

Eventually when I got to middle school, I was able to take art classes as electives and as a result, I didn’t play with clay so much at home anymore but that was okay – I got to try out and learn about so many mediums during that time in my life and it was wonderful. I was really into painting in high school, but stopped when I hit college because painting supplies are expensive! That was okay though, because I moved into modeling quite a bit. I really enjoyed styling, doing makeup and coming up with creative concepts for photos as well as using myself and my expressions to create a different kind of art. I met a lot of amazing people through that field that I am still friends with to this day and a number of them have actually purchased art from me which is so deeply meaningful.

I got back into polymer clay because I lost my second job during the pandemic and had more time on my hands than I had in a long time. I had so much love and support from friends even at the start of this when I was just figuring out what I was doing that I kept going and growing. Over the last (nearly) 3 years, I have made wearables out of polymer clay, resin and most recently, acrylic. Polymer clay was a medium that I had experience in from childhood and that was very accessible when on a tight budget. Resin was added to my mediums to learn because there was a period of time where I preferred to coat my polymer clay earrings with a layer; I now sometimes utilize molds to create jewelry with resin. Working with acrylic was my biggest challenge yet as I had to learn how to draw digital files and work a laser cutter; it was a huge learning curve but so worth it as it allowed me to expand the types of art I could make.

Primarily, I make earrings but I also make pendants, necklaces, keychains, wall hangings, magnets and brooches. I think what sets me apart is how I choose to design and interpret my work as well as the attention to detail; sometimes I will workshop a design for literal months until I consider it good enough or to have what I was going for. I am so proud of just learning how to create items that can be worn in the first place but also all of the techniques and mediums I have put my time and hard work into getting down.

I want to create things that make people feel happy in one way or another; my body of work is made up of things that I love and that bring me joy. I only make things that I personally would wear/display/use myself because I think feeling passionate about what I make is the key to creating something special. I love the connection that I have with people who wear my work because it means we have a shared love of something. While I think my brand could be more cohesive, that feels too limiting. I see my brand as as me rather than an extension of me and I love many different and varying things. I truly hope people realize that my work is a part of me, regardless of how silly or serious it is at times and that I am grateful that they want to share in that.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Before quitting my full time job, I was trying to get a slightly higher position that paid just a little bit more and had room for growth. I had one interview, but when they contacted me for the follow up interview, the email went to a separate email address and I did not see it until too late. As a result, I didn’t get the job but it made me realize that I really just wanted to make art for a living. The only problem with this was that my business was still small and definitely not doing enough in terms of sales to support me.

When I realized I would not be moving up at that time, I decided to put my nose down and do everything I could to make my business grow and take off so I could just do that. It felt kind of like a pipe dream but I still felt I had so much I could learn to do and so much growth I could work on. I was looking at memes one day and saw one of a melted Spongebob popsicle. I thought it would be really funny to make that into an earring somehow, and I had already been working on learning a technique called polymer canes anyway, so I started making goofy popsicle earrings using that technique. They were an instant hit and honestly are the reason my business really found its footing. Who knew pivoting to a meme could change your life?

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A few months after I quit my full time job and went into art full time, I tore my lateral meniscus and my knee locked for 24 hours straight. I had to have urgent repair surgery and this was pretty terrifying as I did not have a day job to give me paid time off (though I did have health insurance that I pay for). I was terrified about what this would mean for my business as I knew recovery was going to be difficult and make it harder to work.

It was a pretty grueling recovery (I was in a full leg brace for 6 weeks and had physical therapy twice a week for four months; I basically had to relearn how to walk normally) but I kept up with my business during that time by working around my needs and not letting myself panic so much that I couldn’t keep going. If I’m being honest, it was actually probably a better recovery because I could be flexible working with the pain and attend all of my physical therapy sessions.

While it was hard at times because I couldn’t really take much time off to just recover, I made it work and more importantly, my friends, family and customers stood by me and were very supportive.

Contact Info:

• Website: shophoneyhearted.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/shophoneyhearted
• Facebook: Facebook.com/shophoneyhearted
• Twitter: twitter.com/honeyyyyhearted
• Other: Tiktok – tiktok.com/@honeyyyyhearted