How do you take $0.02 and turn it into $0.50?
You glue earring backs to your shiniest pennies and sell them as Penny Earrings.
That is what Mama and I did 35 years ago.
Back then, Mama was exhausted from her “good government job.” She did the work of three people, trained the folks who got promoted over her, and still showed up every day. Quitting was not an option.
Mama is a U.S. Air Force veteran and a child of the 1950s civil rights era. She learned early how to keep her head high and her faith steady when life was unfair. Giving up was never part of her story.
One day, while window-shopping at Michaels—because, as she always said, “looking is free”—a new material caught her eye. She asked the clerk about it, left with a pack of Friendly Plastic, and came home curious.
Soon she was making earrings, wearing them, and getting stopped everywhere she went. People did not just compliment her. They wanted to buy them.
Jewelry-making became her escape. It took away the stress of the job because she stopped waiting for someone else to promote her. She promoted herself.
And once she stopped chasing the title, she got it anyway.
By then, the spark had caught. The joy of creating something from her own hands, and earning from it, was too alive to ignore.
So we set up a table at the flea market. She bundled me in a blanket at 5 a.m., packed oatmeal packets for breakfast, and drove us to sell jewelry and our shiny Penny Earrings every weekend for several months.
As I woke up, I would shout to the passing crowds, “Earrings! Earrings for sale!” I was her first salesperson. I learned what it meant to have to show up, to sell, and to believe in something you helped create.
That is how Sherika Originals began. One woman reclaiming her peace, one pair of earrings at a time, and one little girl learning what possibility looks like.
Today that little girl runs businesses of her own, helping other women turn what they have in their hands into something greater.
This is Part 1 of our origin story.
Next up: how Sherika Originals got its name and the moment we realized we were not just making jewelry. We were building something much bigger.
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