I’m Alison Headley, and I’ve been making jewelry for the past ten years. I’ve started my own business called Alt Jewelry, offering unique, handmade jewelry made with sustainable materials, and I’m asking for your support via Kickstarter in launching my first line.
What I Make
I make jewelry for people who want to buy with their conscience — for people who want to both love and feel good about the things they own. I use as much recycled and sustainable material as I can in my jewelry — sterling silver, gold fill, copper, stainless steel, wood, brass, thread, concrete, recycled leather, and glass.
Why I Make It
When looking into what type of jewelry I wanted to make for Alt, I found out that a lot of materials used to make jewelry are not very friendly to the earth or to the people that mine or process them.
- Silver mining and processing is terribly harmful to the environment.
- Semi-precious gemstone beads are made in countries with unfair labor practices, and the gemstone dust produced when making these beads damage workers’ respiratory systems.
- Additional types of beads are made of coral, bone, exotic wood, and other non-renewable resources.
I decided to use sustainable materials in my jewelry. I source as much recycled metal as I can, and try to find other recycled materials such as recycled leather, glass, and vintage components. For each piece of jewelry, I provide information as to which materials are recycled or sustainably produced.
Many jewelry merchants use plastic bags, plastic tape, and plastic bubble mailers to package and ship their jewelry. I use recycled or recyclable packaging for my gift wrapping and shipping.
All of my jewelry is handmade by me in my studio, and any employees I hire in the future will be paid a fair, livable wage.
What I’ll Do With The Kickstarter Funds
If I reach my funding goal, I plan to make my jewelry available to wholesale customers. It’s not very difficult to service retail customers: make a necklace, photograph it, put it in your shop, and when someone buys it, it’s no longer available. Wholesale customers like to buy things in multiples: 10 of this necklace, 5 pairs of these earrings, etc. For wholesale customers, I’ll need enough supplies to make multiples of each item in my line.
More specifically, this is what I’ll do with my funding:
- Incorporate! I want to be an LLC.
- Register my business with the city and state.
- Purchase enough jewelry supplies to be able to make multiple copies of my designs for wholesale use.
- Acquire a representative to help me sell my jewelry to retailers.
- Purchase a few much-needed tools: a flex shaft, a disc cutter, a tumbler, etc.
- Purchase enough packaging and shipping supplies to use for wholesale orders.
- Acquire some display items for craft and trade show booths.
I hope you’ll support my Kickstarter project. Thank you!
