Davis High students use their creative skills to earn money
PHOTO: Student business owners Caroline Lu, Lily Watkins and Helena Wei photograph their products to sell on online platforms.
By Rachel Wong,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–
Many Davis High students have turned their hobbies into businesses and have learned valuable lessons because of it.
Junior Caroline Lu recently started a jewelry business through Instagram called “Candescent Cottage”. Starting a jewelry business had been a dream of hers for a long time.
“I’m honestly just doing this for fun, but I also want to see if I have any potential in the social media business world,” Lu said. “I hope to learn more about the Instagram algorithm and if that will affect my sales.”
Being able to create time to maintain a business is hard work on its own. “It definitely takes time to take product pictures, make the pieces and make the packaging,” Lu said. “I usually try to spread out my time throughout the week so I have time to do schoolwork and such.”
“I’ve been getting a small ceramics business up and running, mostly focused on wheel-thrown pieces with organic textures,” junior Lily Watkins said. Watkins is currently working on getting her ceramic business started through Instagram as well.
Watkins’ love for ceramics started out as a hobby and became something more when she participated in the Pence Gallery’s artist market.
“(Everyone’s) response to that (opportunity) made me realize a business was possible,” Watkins said. “I love taking hobbies and seeing how far I can run with them, (so) turning this into something that can financially support itself has been incredible.”
One difficult thing that occurs when starting a business is learning how to reasonably price products.
“I ended up pricing everything absurdly low, and worked my way up as I got feedback,” Watkins said. It was helpful for Watkins to research the prices of other businesses similar to hers so she could get a better idea of prices for each product.
Senior Helena Wei started her handmade glass painting business in July of 2021. She sells all of her paintings on Etsy and donates the money to many Asian Americans and Pacific Islander (AAPI) organizations.
“I wanted to raise money in order to donate to various AAPI organizations fighting for Asian American rights and against AAPI hate crimes,” Wei said. “Over the summer, I was able to donate $100 (…) to the Asian American Advancing Justice organization which fights for Asian American civil rights.”
Wei’s business is currently on a break because of school, but she is looking forward to starting it back up soon.
