My senior project consists of creating a jewelry business and selling wooden rings I create out of old, recycled skateboard decks. I have a lot of old skateboards that go to waste because when a deck breaks, there isn’t much use for it anymore. People also have the option to give me their skateboard to create a ring for them.
To promote my business, I created a social media page on Instagram where I post updates and photos of the rings. I also created an Etsy shop to sell my rings online to customers that aren’t located in Rexburg, Idaho. Each ring is sold for $10.00 to people local in Rexburg. I also ship for an additional $2.00. On Etsy I charge $15.00 per ring because of all the charges and fees that I am required to pay when I sell a ring using the Etsy website.
I spent around $300 on purchasing equipment to make the rings by buying a drill, drill bit, sand paper, jigsaw cutter, belt sander, and a tool kit. Each week I spend up to 10 hours, working 2-3 hours a day throughout the week.
I spend a lot of time drilling holes into decks using different size drill bits to create the ring size I need for a specific customer. I make ring sizes from 5-12. When I drill the hole, I use a jigsaw cutter to cut a circle around the ring. After I cut it, I use a belt sander to sand down the ring into a perfect circle. I then sand the inside of the ring with sand paper to make the inside of it smooth. I then use a homemade dowel that I made to attach into my drill and attach the ring onto the dowel, so it can smoothen the top and bottom of the ring into a ring shape by applying pressure with the drill being applied to the sand paper. The last step I do is dip the ring using a paper clip into a can of varnish that will give the ring a waterproof resistant seal. I wait a couple hours for the first coat to dry before I add multiple coats on the ring and allow the ring to dry for 24 hours.
I find people through my Instagram page I made called “Brother Bear Skate Rings +”. I post about 5 times a week showing progress of me creating the rings. So far, I have a total of 132 followers on this page. To get more publicity, people tend to post my page on their stories to reach out to more customers. I listed the rings on an Etsy shop and I am also selling the rings on an app called, “Depop”. This business has been successful so far and I have sold a lot of rings already. On July 10th I will be a vendor and sell rings at a music festival that will be held at the Madison County Fair Grounds.