Inside the Ring: Jewelry Designer Anna Dillard

Major: Psychology, Pre-dental track Minor: Chemisty Year: Class of 2011 Hometown: Boerne, Texas Freshman year, deacon dollars seemed to evaporate out of my account. Need me to support your philanthropy and buy a raffle ticket? Sure why not. Buy your t-shirt? I’ll get two. But the day this imaginary money really disappeared was when a woman sat outside the pit selling rings, earrings and pendants at skyrocket prices. I wanted it all and I didn’t care how much it cost. This kind of money never ran out, right? Wrong. I blew all my deacon dollars on jewelry and had to eat at the pit for the rest of the semester. Thank goodness junior Anna Dillard started her own business selling cute beaded rings at reasonable prices, so now I can afford to decorate my fingers and still have an occasional lunch date at Shorty’s. I sat down with the beading babe to get the scoop on her new business.How did you get started making jewelry? “I started making jewelry when I was 10 with my mom, but after a while she stopped. I kept playing around with it for fun, but I never finished anything … [My friend] came up to me last year some time when they were selling jewelry in Benson and showed me a ring she had bought for like fifty dollars, and I just said ‘that’s ridiculous, I could make that exact same thing and just give it to you’—it would cost two dollars to make. Other people started asking me about the rings I was making. Then my boyfriend showed me Etsy so that’s how my website got started, and it just kind of turned into a business.” What do you think of Etsy? “I like it, but I wish it separated out the quality stuff. There are so many listings, it’s almost hard to find exactly what you’re looking for—you can’t just search for something without a million hits coming up. It’s good enough for now.” How long would it take you to make a ring? What is the process like? “Honestly, (she points to one ring) this would probably take five minutes to make; it’s the easiest. Others are more complicated because you have to think more about how to make the ring look how you want without it falling apart, but it’s really not that hard—anyone could do it.” Have you had success so far? “Yeah, I mean I started out and didn’t really care all that much—I didn’t really try that hard to get business, it was more just a hobby, but then my family sent it out to all their friends and their friends sent it out to all their friends so now I’ve had orders from California and Kentucky and other random places so that’s exciting.” Do you think Wake is a good market for your business? Yeah, you see people selling the same sort of things outside of Benson. It’s so silly people here will pay so much money for such silly little things. Something like this (gestures to a ring) should never ever cost more than ten dollars. Hearing [my friend] say that she paid fifty dollars for her ring actually made me very upset. I wanted to go up to the table and flat out ask ‘why do you think you can charge this much?’ I guess it’s because people will still buy it. Plus people here love pearls and things like that so people tend to like what I make” What do you think of typical Wake style in general? Is it something you like? “Yeah, um kind of. I don’t really do the whole Lilly thing. I didn’t even know what that was before I came here—I didn’t know what Vineyard Vines was. I follow the style here sort of, but not that much. It’s very east coast—sometimes I feel like everyone looks the same. What jewelry designers do you really like? “I’m not sure. I know people like David Yurman stuff, but I always get my jewelry from antique stores or make it all. I like to be a bit more unique, but to be honest I don’t wear tons of jewelry.” Do you see yourself expanding your business to include earrings or necklaces? “Everyone always asks me that—it would be easy to, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I start earrings and just make one or make it halfway through a necklace. I would rather someone give me a picture of something they want and do a custom order because I don’t know people’s taste. I know what I like, but that might not sell, and I can’t wear all of these (gesturing to the rings) at the same time.” Do you have aspirations to make jewelry after college? “I always joke that if I don’t get into dental school next year, I’ll just become a housewife and do this – be some sort of gypsy selling jewelry out of my house. But maybe…I guess we’ll see.” Anna currently sells her rings through the online craft community Etsy. Access her website here. She’s offering all Wake students a discount. All rings are just $10, regardless of the price listed on Etsy. Just shoot an email to dillam7@wfu.edu and you’ll be rockin’ bling on your fingers before you know it.