Julia Lawrence-Riddell first began collecting sea glass while walking on the beach with her mom as a child. Today, she uses it for her business.

Lawrence-Riddell, a junior pursuing a dual degree in the College of Fine Arts and the College of Arts and Sciences, makes rings by hand and posts them to her nearly 16,000 Instagram followers.

Lawrence-Riddell said she started making rings while at home during the COVID-19 pandemic in her sophomore year of high school.

“I’m an artist, so I like doing a lot of creative things,” Lawrence-Riddell said. “I really like jewelry, so I was like, ‘what if I try making it?’ And then I just made rings and posted a video on TikTok randomly, and it just went viral, which was lucky.”

The online attention inspired her to start selling her rings, which led Lawrence-Riddell to create an Etsy page.

“She took over one of the family rooms in our house and had her space where she would make everything,” said Jane Lawrence-Riddell, Julia’s mom. “She was probably putting in job-type hours on this every week.”

When she first started, Lawrence-Riddell learned from her mom how to manage a small business. She also embraced using the sea glass the two of them had always collected together for her designs.

“I have huge canisters of sea glass in our house that I’ve let her dump out and pick out the ones she wants, and it’s really cool that she’s incorporated that,” Mrs. Lawrence-Ridell said. “Her customers may not realize how meaningful the sea glass is, but Julia and I do.”

When Lawrence-Riddell got to BU, it became much more difficult to put in the long hours she was previously spending on her rings.

“It was too much for me to try and do both simultaneously,” Lawrence-Riddell said. “It was really hard to be active on social media and keep posting.”

After acclimating to the rigor of college and joining Student-Made — a group that collects student business owners and provides a platform for selling their products — Lawrence-Ridell said she felt comfortable enough to start selling again.

“Student-Made helps me manage my business while also being a full-time student,” she said. “It makes it a bit less daunting and overwhelming.”

Since restarting her business at BU, she said she’s sold her rings to students across campus and friends alike. 

“She is super passionate about it and she’s super hardworking,” said Kaitlin Dobkowski, a BU junior and Lawrence-Riddell’s friend. “I actually wear them all the time.”

Lawrence-Riddell currently sells rings on the Student-Made website, which has allowed her to receive orders from customers nationwide.

“I’ve gotten orders from Alaska before, which is so far away from me,” Lawrence-Riddell said. “I think it’s really cool that people on the other side of the country have my rings and like them.”

Even with the recognition, Lawrence-Riddell said she wants to have a separate career, managing her business as a side hustle rather than a full-time job.

“[I] want to focus on continuing to learn how I can successfully manage it on the side, and be able to balance that with the rest of my life without feeling overwhelmed,” she said. “Doing that now while I’m in college, before I graduate … is going to help me after college.”