Community Highlights: Meet Ashley Bostwick of Wander and Lust Jewelry

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Bostwick.

Hi Ashley, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started Wander and Lust Jewelry as a “side hustle” at first. I was working at the University of Central Florida at the time, and I knew the career path I was in was not exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I had always loved business, marketing, and design, so I decided to create a little side business of my own. I was engaged to my now-husband and was scrolling through Etsy for bridesmaid gifts for my friends. While browsing the site, I realized all these items were all handmade by makers from around the world. I thought to myself – maybe I could make jewelry and sell it online? I had never made a piece of jewelry in my life, but I had always loved jewelry and always gravitated towards it.

A few months go by, and I was ready to get started on my new “side hustle.” I bought supplies, and after weeks of research, YouTube videos and practice, I made my first collection of jewelry. I had my friend model the jewelry, borrowed a camera, and shot my first photoshoot. Looking back, it wasn’t my best work, but you have to start somewhere.

Those first six months I believe I made about $20,000 and I knew I had something special. This really motivated me even more. I saw a light at the end of the tunnel where I knew that my goal of quitting my day job to be a jewelry entrepreneur was possible. After about a year and a half of working my day job and doing jewelry at night and on the weekends, I was able to quit my 9-5 and working solely on my jewelry business. It was a scary decision to make, leaving behind a steady paycheck, health insurance and a 401(k), but I knew this is what I needed to launch my business to a be big success.

Over the last seven years, I have grown to my business exponentially while raising two kids. We are now a team of three women who hand make and pack all orders going out to customers and boutiques around the world. It’s a pretty amazing feeling to think starting from just a little idea in my head of “why can’t I do this?”, to a goal of just wanting to be able to quit my day job, to now a success story where I employ two women who love what they do. Wander and Lust Jewelry is a reminder to myself that anything is possible if you just set the goal. It’s the first step to success.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
With any path to success, of course there will be challenges. They always say, “if it was easy, everyone would do it.” This reigns true to creating a successful jewelry brand. As an entrepreneur, especially in the beginning years, you do everything yourself. Whether that be bookkeeping, photography, social media, coding, e-mail marketing, branding, graphic design, customer service, and the list literally goes on and on. You don’t want anything cutting into your profits. Learning how to do all these tasks while juggling them all at once, plus living your life, is a huge learning curve.

Up until the last few years, I have learned to outsource tasks that I don’t enjoy or I don’t do well with. This has freed up time for tasks I do enjoy doing, and it has really helped my business in return. I also don’t try to reinvent the wheel. I look to others for help when I am struggling with certain tasks, as I know my time is limited, and getting help or inspiration from more experienced business owners is a key time saver.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Wander and Lust Jewelry specializes in hand made high-quality dainty jewelry. We make our jewelry in-house, custom-made to order here in Lake Nona. We use quality, long-lasting materials in our designs, such as 14k gold-fill, sterling silver, gold vermeil, and genuine semi-precious gemstones and pearls. Since we sell mostly direct to customers, we don’t have a huge mark-up for this type of high-quality jewelry like you would see in a store. We pride ourselves on our quality materials and unique yet on-trend designs. We are known for our dainty design style – which is classic, modern and a twist of bohemian. You can wear our pieces with everyday looks or layer them up for more of a glam style. We offer our jewelry online on our website at www.WanderandLustJewelry.com or on our Etsy site www.Etsy.com/shop/WanderandLustJewelry.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
COVID-19 has affected everyone this past year and small businesses as well. Being an online business, our sales picked up while everyone was staying at home (which was amazing), however, that meant no employees or help in the office as well. I learned to rely on family during this time as I was about 6-8 months pregnant, making and fulfilling all orders while caring for a 3-year-old. It was difficult at times, but I learned to pivot my business plan and outsource what I couldn’t do on my own. Also, many of the suppliers were not able to produce the materials I needed to make some of the designs, and even material prices were skyrocketing. We also had many issues with getting packages delivered on time for customers due to less planes going out and less delivery workers on hand. It has been quite a struggle finding solutions for these issues, but we continue to problem solve and take one day at a time. I would say I truly relied on my customer service skills and my vendor relationships this past year as we all are just trying to do our best.

Contact Info:

• Email: ashley@wanderandlustjewelry.com
• Website: https://www.wanderandlustjewelry.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderandlustjewelry/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanderandlustjewelry/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/wljewelry

Image Credits
Dani Nichol Photography (for two photos of models)