Hi, I'm Sugar Gay Isper, and this is the podcast Jewelry as your side hustle.
I love talking about jewelry, and I love that it's my side hustle.
Pretty much my side hustle, but really I consider it my full-time job, but I haven't
had a job.
But it is a full-time part of my life.
I really, I dream about it, I think about it, I work on it every day to try to get better.
And that's what I want to share with you.
I want to share with you my dreams, your dreams, and then bring in all the community
that also makes jewelry or supports businesses with their knowledge or help, you know, consultants.
It's going to be fun.
I wanted to show you a couple things that I like to make an usual jewelry.
These are raccoon penis bones.
I think you need those because they're a conversation starter.
And that's really why I make really great big jewelry or interesting jewelry or jewelry
that has a conversation because that's what it starts.
I make interesting jewelry for interesting people.
This is not the little dot jewelry.
If it's not for you, that's okay.
It's just about making friends.
When you go out into the workplace, you can wear the same outfit like every day and nobody
would notice.
They don't even care.
But you wear a piece of jewelry.
It's the red pear syndrome.
Are you bringing some other thing that they can at least have something to say to you?
A conversation starts in the elevator.
Oh, what a nice necklace.
Thank you very much.
Always say thank you.
Don't ever like say, oh, I got it on sale or don't say anything negative.
Start off positive.
Thank you very much.
I got this from Sugar Gay Isber.
She's famous.
Do you know her?
She's an Austin.
I always tell everybody to say that because why not?
I am famous and you have a piece of jewelry for me, then you need to be telling the story
because it's part of the interesting part of what you're wearing.
It might not be raccoon penis bones.
That might be an interesting necklace or an interesting ring or bracelet or this.
But I do want you to be proud if you do have one of my pieces because they are heirloom
quality and I try really hard to make them with the best ingredients with China.
China.
Don't say that very loud.
But I'm not trying to be like discriminatory.
What I'm saying is I use US made sustainable products.
They're from old warehouses.
There was a man in New York City.
I have a little thing on him somewhere.
I don't know where it is right now.
But he had a store.
It was like on 8th Avenue, like right in downtown.
And he was like a jobber.
If you were in the fashion industry in New York City during the 50s, they made a lot
of jewelry because you had to have your hat pin.
You had to have your little clip on earrings.
You had to have a little necklace.
You had to have a little bracelet.
You had to have a little ring.
You had to have a little pin.
What else?
All of those things made an outfit.
And then you wore your gloves and your girdle and your lipstick and the whole thing.
You didn't walk out the door like we do.
I do.
You didn't walk out the door and just like not be dressed.
You were fully dressed.
I don't care where you went.
If you went to the grocery store, you were fully dressed.
You had your little belt on.
Oh, it's so cute.
Anyway, those times are way past and we don't do that anymore.
But those industries that were in that area and Rhode Island were left with a lot of
product when the hippies came in in the 60s and everybody, everything stopped.
So the jewelry industry kind of had like a meltdown along with the closing industry
and things that were all made in New York City.
They eventually got outsourced and closed.
And those warehouses though are still our treasure troves and they hold a lot of product.
So this man in New York City that had the store, he died in the 1980s, but he never
had a sale.
So he had seven tractor traders of old product.
So I probably bought through like one of those tractor trailers, but they're gone now.
Somebody else has bought them and etc.
But there's other people like that I first started using that I now know in Rhode Island.
And then I also have companies that I work with that make brass pressings and then those
go and get plated or maybe they're crystal settings.
There's a lot of different companies in Rhode Island and then they get plated.
They work for the US Mint and then they come to me and then I make them into earrings.
I just got a box I've been waiting for.
So it's all exciting.
And then my tomorrow I'll whip them all in to shape and put them, make them into things
and then they'll be online.
But it's all as much the US made as possible.
So that's exciting.
I want to share with you something today.
I noticed I take a lot of magazines just to support the magazine industry.
They're really recently priced.
You can get all kinds of deals on magazines.
But these are two magazines that came to my house today.
This is Bon Appétit.
It's been around forever, forever, forever.
And then El Decor which is also a staple.
I just want you to see how thin they are.
Like oh my God, the magazine industry is really needs to be supported.
Like why shouldn't we support this?
Their pictures are beautiful.
It's nice to have magazines.
I do take a lot.
I love the Smithsonian and I love being able to just flip through them.
I take them to the ranch and that's my afternoon.
When I'm done working, I can sit down and put my feet up and look at our beautiful ranch
and look through a magazine.
And it just does my heart good.
It just makes me smile.
It's like, oh, I'm the pulse of the world because I have what's the latest and the greatest.
And I do enjoy looking at all this.
I like reading so it's a quick way to absorb some new content.
So I heavily hope that you support magazines if you have the ability to.
I take a lot of online magazines but I like the real ones too.
You know, we're just trying to support each other.
I see that on social media, everything changes so fast.
I used to teach social media before COVID and now, gee, I don't know, I've taken a lot
of online classes from mid or, you know, been, you know, resourcing and, you know, Instagram
sends me a lot of content, I think too, for me to read.
They're constantly like, do this, do that, do that.
Like they're trying to help because it is a world beyond itself.
Meta is a really big presence in our life and sucks up a lot of resources as far as
our time and our money.
It is what it is.
I'm on Instagram as sugar gay is for so make sure you find me there and I have a brand
new website where you can buy my pieces and that's sugar gay is for as well.
So everything is now branding sugar gay is for so wherever you are, you can just put
in sugar gay is for and a lot of content will pop up.
So find me online because it's pretty strange to have, you know, sugar gay is for on LinkedIn,
but it's sugar is my nickname because Facebook when I first signed up in 2007 wouldn't allow
me to use my name gay.
So they are like, so I'm like, okay, no problem.
I'll just go sugar sugar gay, a lot of sugar on the internet.
There's a lot of gay on the internet, but really sugar gay is for it's just one, one
person.
And you can find me on Facebook too, sugar gay is for and then I have another name because
that was my high school name and says gay Robin.
So if you see that, I was a happy bird.
Like what can I say?
And I'm here in Austin, Texas.
I'm actually in a suburb called Heddo, which is a really growing.
Oh my God, it's growing so much.
We are just like 10 minutes away from Austin proper.
So it's, you know, we're just a little suburb town, but growing, growing, growing.
So it's always a bit of a change.
So anyway, I'm excited to share my podcast with you.
Now we're going to have lots of podcasts.
I also have a TV show that you can watch called Jewelry Stars by sugar gay is for.
That's me.
And that's on the made it myself TV app.
So if you have a, your telephone, I mean, your TV open and you see all those little
apps for Netflix and blah, blah, blah, all those different.
They're called apps.
Now this is how they're doing it.
And then you see the made it myself and you go on there and I'm the jewelry instructor
there.
So I think I have like 35 episodes and certainly will be making more because it's really, it's
a really fun thing to do and to share.
So you can also find me on Etsy and you can also find me on Shopify.
So you can find me.
I'm out there.
So those are kind of some things that I wanted to talk about just to kind of like set the
stage for what we're doing.
I just was on a reality TV show for a week where we all lived together in a hotel.
Now we didn't go into each other's rooms, but we were all together from seven in the
morning we'd get up, get our makeup on, do all of our stuff and then run down and go
have breakfast at eight and get going.
And then it really didn't stop until I don't know, like 11 o'clock midnight.
I was going to sleep, but it was late.
And I brought since I drove a blanket and a fan and my pillow and all of my stuff.
I can't, I made it a little cocoon because I knew I was going to be tired.
I knew I knew I needed to sleep really well.
So I made sure I had everything to really make sure I got good sleep.
So I was really refreshed the next day and ready to get going.
It was a week of really hard work and it'll be shown this summer probably in July on Amazon
Prime.
So watch for me on that because I had a lot of fun and the host was Wes Bergman and he
is like the champion of everything that is reality TV show in the US.
So he had a lot of insight and a lot of things to share with us.
And I think what I really came away with beyond the scope of learning everything and I did
get to go on stage one time.
So I don't know if I should tell you that, but it's a big deal.
It's that we learned all about business, being a small business, how to grow your business,
entrepreneurship, things like that.
But it was the community.
It was every time you went to go sit down, you're sitting next to somebody new and you
make sure that you're talking to them and talking to them and talking to them and talking
to them and getting to another name.
And I had a ring that was a QR code ring so I could just like scan it and everybody had
my contact information.
And that's really why we were there too.
It's for the networking aspect of it and it really, oh my God, it like bonded me to so
many people.
It's about a long time as an adult that you get to go.
It's like to reboot camp.
It was like a reality show boot camp.
And we got to really the whole point was to get to know these people.
Oh my God, I have some friends now and they're part of my community.
And so now we can all share and talk to each other.
And that's what I want to happen here.
So I'm kind of like taking that friendship, community, learning, bonding, supporting each
other.
And that's what I want this podcast to be.
I tell all of those people.
And it was something that I actually heard on the radio after I left and I was on my
way home driving from Tulsa where we were back to Austin.
It came on right away.
And it was such a great show.
I don't even know what it was.
It was probably an ampere station that I was listening to.
But it's talking about the conversation was, you know, somebody talking about their what
they were experiencing and how they kind of came into a group.
And what they said in that group was, you never have to cry alone.
And I think that that as somebody that works from home, I'm not crying.
I'm not a sad person.
That never really occurs.
But I know that other people do.
And I know that other people, they expressed to me how hard it is to be at home and being
an entrepreneur and working.
And they really didn't have anybody to rely on to depend on, you know, besides your spouse,
somebody that they could really talk shop with, talk business with.
And so that's another thing that really touched my, touched my heart when I was thinking about
the experience I went through and who I had met and why all these people matter to me
and all the stories that they told.
And they were all kinds of businesses.
There was very few other jewelry people, which was such a relief because I thought it would
be like everybody has jewelry because that's when in my world, everybody has jewelry.
So it was really nice to have all of these other people that had all different kinds
of other interest and we can all share and talk.
I want this to be like that.
I want us to have a safe place where you could come and learn and listen.
And if you're a jewelry maker and you want to be on this show, you just message me and
I will send you the schedule and you can hop on a zoom call and we will make it happen.
That's so easy.
Like it's so much fun.
And then you can share it to your audience and to put it on your social network and your
social, send it to your clients.
That's one thing I learned is that it's all about sharing.
So another fun thing that I did in November, I was one of 50 artists chosen by Air Maze
out of all of Texas to come and spend time with the directors of Air Maze and really
learn about the work of being an artisan.
And that was really a great experience for me.
Not only did I come away with a super appreciation of what I do as an artist, as an artisan,
it really took me to the next level as far as what I love to fly, as what I want to present
myself to the world and to my customers who are really my clients.
So one of the things was changing that verbiage to not having a customer but having a client
because these are long time relationships.
So if I did like somebody's bridal jewelry, then in the next steps would be their whatever
whatever, whatever, it would go on because I've been in business for a long time and
a lot of these customers have just been around forever and I'm so glad to have them as my
clients.
So that was another fun thing I can share with you like I really learned so much.
Now I've written some articles about the experience on being on the blocks that was the name of
the TV show, blocks with an X.
No, B-L-O-X.
Yeah, B-L.
So blocks.
And so those will come out when the show actually air.
So it's in pre-production and now I'm in the 14th season.
So that's what we're I think they're just now online with the 11th season.
So it takes a little bit of time to get all that information out there.
But it'll be fine.
We're going to have fun.
So I really wanted you to get to know me.
I'm really like I'm the real deal jewelry maker.
I make crazy jewelry, crazy jewelry.
I love fossils, minerals and gems.
I work with old horde pieces like all these pearls you see here behind here is all pearls.
I probably have a million pearls and probably a mile of chain or more.
I have a whole room, a finished jewelry, which is right over there.
And then this room is my bead room and it's also my studio where I conduct classes and
zoom calls and do all kinds of other things.
And then I have another space.
Well, the whole house is really mine, but and then I have another space that is my work
bench space.
And it has a lot of product around it's like floor to ceiling product that I can pull from
like it's jammed.
I definitely have a lot of different things that I can do.
I just did a shark's tooth for a guy who's going to be in a movie and he's a gang stuff.
He's a gang stuff.
He wanted a shark's tooth.
Oh my God, I got you.
Oh my God, it's all gold.
It was really cool.
Just got that shipped and shipping off some jewelry to England today.
So that'll be fun.
And I have a new little space that I'm going to be part of a little collective where they're
giving me some space so that I can bring in a bunch of African jewelry that I kind of
specialize the all these kinds of beads and bones and different things that I have that
are really, really interesting pieces.
I have a fly in here because I have the front door open because it's such a nice day.
So the fly decided to join us.
Okay.
So this is jewelry as your side hustle.
This is my little intro video so you can get to know me.
And we're going to have a lot of fun.
Watch some other ones and see what you think.
Please give me a message if you want to be on my podcast.
It goes out to all the feeds.
So name it.
I pretty much can't think of anybody there.
The feed doesn't go to.
So we really spread it out there to the world.
I was working on that today.
It's a lot of different places.
So it really is great for your brand.
If you have an hour to spend with me, I'd be glad to talk to you about your business.
Just everything that you want to talk about.
It's really you talk and I insert myself in the cracks.
That's kind of how we do it so that you feel like you've really got to talk.
It goes by faster than you think.
So I've done a lot of TV, I've done a lot of media, done a lot of magazines, done a lot
of, I don't know, just about everything.
But now I have a podcast and I'm super excited about it.
It's really my jam and I'm so glad to be here.
Okay, enough about that.
You've heard it.
Welcome.
I'm not going to stay.
Time for me to shut up and let you go to the next podcast.
I look forward to getting some reviews for you.
Talk to me about it.
Tell me what you like and definitely tell your friends and spread the word.
Jewelry is your side hustle.
I also teach at Austin Community College and that's the name of one of my classes because
it is a side hustle for a lot of people or maybe they're going to retire and they want
to learn some new skills for when they retire, something they can sit around and make jewelry.
Oh yeah, I love that.
It's so much fun.
I also have two books.
You can buy them anywhere.
Books are sold.
Just look gay as burn.
You'll find my books.
They're about jewelry making, of course.
Okay.
Have a great day.
Don't forget to spread the word where jewelry is your side hustle with sugar gay as burn.
Thanks and have a great day.