Cape Talk, Wednesday afternoon

Visits about the stories behind the brands. And we've got another fabulous story to share with you right now because with me at our outside broadcast unit at Carmicha Makers is Shelly Taylor, who is a local jewelry designer from Somerset West who creates handmade jewelry featuring semi-precious stones and freshwater pearls. And Shelly, your stall is gorgeous. Thanks for dragging yourself away from it to come and chat to us and welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I love the story of how this business began because you set off with a backpack and big ambitions on a trip to India. You didn't know anything about jewelry making. No.

How did it all start? I've always been a little bit of a magpie. So I've always loved jewellery. And I'll never forget my mom and I was sitting in the office, and a business of mine had just tragically come to a little bit of an end. And I said to my mom, I said, Mom, I'm going to go to India. And so she said, that's lovely, darling. When? I said, on Wednesday. So she says, What are you going to do in India? I said, I'm going to make jewellery. So she says, but you know nothing about jewellery. I said, but I know I like it. And surely that's enough.

And yeah, that was it. I met up with one person over there. He fetched me from my hotel on a motorbike. So I had my little backpack on a motorbike. By the time I got to our final destination, I was traumatized. I was crying hysterically. I was convinced I was going to die. My mother didn't know where I was. So, yeah, but that, yeah, that was the beginning of it. And then that kind of opened all the doors. Amazing. I mean, you came home, you start the business literally making

Jewelry in a bedroom in your mom's house. Yes, that's where it began. What was the tipping point that escalated you from that small start to where you are now with your own stores and with brands that sell into the tourism industry and a much, much bigger business? Well, I had one client when I first started making jewelry, she was a Joeberg-based client, and she was the biggest supplier to Tour Vest at the time. She did a range of photographic prints, and she kept saying to me, Shelly, why don't you?

You make a range for Tourbus, which is obviously they own a lot of stores in the airports, Kruger National Parks. And so I said to her, but like the big five. I was like a little, so I said, well, I can give it a bash. Anyway, so she was kind enough to set up the first appointment and I went and I saw Philippa with this range that I just kind of made up and they loved it. And that was our first order. So from there, she said to me, it was the days of a fax machine. So she said, I'm going to fax through the order to you.

And we'll finalize everything, but just so that you can start planning. So I had this order and I phoned my mom from the car and I said, We've got an order. She was so excited. She says, Well, how much? I said, Well, have you got a calculator? Anyway, so she kept anyway, it was huge. So from there, I drove to the local spa around the corner from our house and I bought a liter of milk and I went to the lady behind the counter. I said, Have you got a mommy at home? A sister, an aunt, anybody? And then the next day, we had seven women arrive at the house, and that's how it started. So those were your original stories?