Culturas Corner highlights individuals who make their community a better place through their work, business, volunteering or activism. Today we hear from Taylor and Janelle Williamson, a mother-daughter duo who started the hand-crafted Uncommonly Jeweled.
Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to tell us about Uncommonly Jeweled. Can you first tell us about yourselves?
My name is Taylor Williamson, I am twenty-five years old, a new mommy to a beautiful five-month-old little girl and I just recently got engaged to the love of my life, Speiser! Being a new mom and soon-to-be new wife…my life is a bit hectic, but I feel so blessed to be able to have the opportunity to start and grow a business with my mom! My focus in life is simple: God first, family second and then the rest will come as it may.
My name is Janelle Williamson, I am forty-nine years old, a mother of three, grandmother of one and I have been in the escrow industry for twenty-one years, but my true passion is to make things beautiful!!! I love to take simple things, like a glass bottle or a plain wreath or even a simple watering can, and add just a bit of this and a little dash of that and turn it into something extravagant!!
How did you come up with Uncommonly Jeweled— what makes your products special?
We came up with Uncommonly Jeweled simply because I wanted the world to see my mom’s handmade, one-of-a-kind pieces! She didn’t believe in her work, let alone believe that someone would want to buy her pieces, but I did, thus we created Uncommonly Jeweled!! My mom’s true passion is art and design, thus she is the main designer. Thankfully, we even each other out! I love the business side, anything related to social media, web design, marketing, and advertising, that’s where I step in!
Our products are special because each piece is made with love!! My mom takes the time every single day to perfect every aspect of each individual piece that she creates. She wants to make sure that every sparkle, every bow, every sprag, everything has to be in the right place before it is fully complete. Her main goal is perfection, which in turn ensures her pieces are unique and one-of-a-kind!
Your motto on Instagram says “Building a business while running a family.” Can you elaborate on that and also dive into what it’s like creating a business as a mother and daughter?
Creating a business as a mother and daughter duo has honestly been so much fun! I genuinely believe that our relationship is the reason why our business is going to become successful in the near future. We just get one another, if that makes sense. I mean, there’s no one in the world that I trust more than my mom. She has my best interest at heart and as I have hers! We have set clear boundaries and we know that we’re not going to cross them. For example, she is the main designer. I am not going to be giving her clearcut design advice on what she should be making the products like. Don’t get me wrong, I do give my two cents here and there, but for the most part I just let her do the designing, as she lets me do all of the marketing and descriptions for each and every piece that we do have on our website. Being that our business is so small now, it is nice to work out all of the corks and ins and outs of the basis of what we want our business to be like before it turns into something bigger.
Our motto is so important to us both because we ARE working mothers and we ARE running a household while trying to build a new brand/business. No matter what, our main focus is ensuring the wellbeing of our family! Family is everything to us!! So if our business does not incorporate our family, then our business can no longer exist. All in all, working together and learning how to build a brand, a business and a future legacy with my mom has been the best experience! We hope our pieces bring our consumers joy and love!
What are your hopes and goals for the future of Uncommonly Jeweled?
Our hopes and goals for the future of Uncommonly Jeweled is to potentially turn it into a booming business! My goal as my mother’s daughter is to turn her dream into a reality! Growing up, my mom wanted to go to design school and become a designer of some sort. She never got the opportunity to go like she wanted to, but for some reason I believe that God gave her these natural talents to create beauty and grace in each individual piece she creates. She has the ability to see something simple and turn it into something beautiful! My goal as her daughter is to work my butt off to create something for her to be proud of, to help her live her dream while also aiding in one of my goals in life, which is to be a multi-business owner. All in all, our hopes and dreams would be to have our business get in the right hands and turn this small business into something BIG, like I (Taylor) know it can be!
What is your favorite cultural memory?
JANELLE: My favorite cultural memory is having mixed (Black and white) kids and raising them as a single mother. Back in the ‘90s, it wasn’t the “norm” to have a mixed child, let alone be with a black man, so it opened up my eyes to a lot of cultural differences I never knew before. I had to be aware of a lot of different aspects of life being that my children are mixed. I didn’t necessarily raise them differently because I didn’t want them to feel like they were different from their peers, but I had to just be aware of what their reality/day-to-day lives would be like.
TAYLOR: My favorite cultural memory was/ is being a mixed (Black and white) girl and being raised by a single white mom. I didn’t really notice my color until I got a little older, and then I realized that, to the world, my mom and I were not viewed in the same manner simply because I am considered to be a “Black woman” based off of my skin tone! Personally, I like to identify as a mixed Black woman. I like to add Black in my identification because that’s simply how the world perceived me, but I feel as though I need to incorporate the word “mixed” in order to honor my white mother, as I am just as much her child as I am my Black father’s child.
Answers have been edited for length and clarity. Know someone who should be featured on Culturas Corner? Nominate them here.
