Bang-Up Betty: Gifts and Jewelry Coming Soon to Argenta in North Little Rock, Arkansas

A new gift and jewelry shop is coming to the Little Rock area! Opening late summer/early fall of 2021, Bang-Up Betty is bringing tons of thoughtfully handmade jewelry, unique gifts, art and more to Main Street in Downtown North Little Rock, Arkansas.

COMING SOON! Looks like I found a new home for Bang-Up Betty jewelry right here in my hometown of North Little Rock, Arkansas, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it. Stay tuned on Instagram and Facebook for sneak peeks and opening info! P.S. I’m also beyond thrilled that y’all nominated Bang-Up Betty for best Artisan and best Jeweler in the Arkansas Times Best of Arkansas Please take a second to cast your vote in the final round! You can find the Artisan category under “Goods and Services” and the Jeweler category under “Shopping” at vote.arktimes.com. So excited to share this journey with you!

I'm thrilled to bring something fun and beautiful to my hometown of North Little Rock in one of my absolute favorite neighborhoods. I've been watching Argenta grow and get more creative over the last several years, and I'm excited to join the movement. This space is going to channel the snarky, playful, creative energy of Bang-Up Betty jewelry with much more than handmade jewelry. It'll offer unique gifts and art and be a home base for Bang-Up Betty, which has really outgrown my home studio. Look forward to unusual gifts, local art, and of course more snarky, meaningful, well-made jewelry than you can handle in an absolutely gorgeous space. Custom stamping will be offered onsite, too, so you can get custom jewelry handmade the same day if you’re in a rush to find a personalized gift.

Follow along on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for updates.

Look forward to unusual gifts, local art, and of course more snarky, meaningful, well-made jewelry than you can handle in an absolutely gorgeous space and the forthcoming Bang-Up Betty jewelry showroom and gift shop in the Argenta neighborhood of North Little Rock, Arkansas . Custom stamping will be offered onsite, too, so you can get custom jewelry handmade the same day if you’re in a rush to find a personalized gift.

Arkansas Made Mother's Day Jewelry Picks for 2021: Birthstones, Florals, Customizable and More

Mother’s Day feels like it’s coming up faster than ever this year. Don’t let May 9 sneak up on you! Here’s a list of my top picks for handmade jewelry magic that’ll make moms smile, be fun to personalize, and is made in Arkansas so you can feel great about shopping small and local.

Whether mom loves to garden, hike, or just stop and smell the roses, my newest cast bronze jewelry embodies Mother Nature, and most of it can be personalized by adding birthstones. Find the cast bronze sunflower necklace here, the dandelion seed necklace here, the rattlesnake tail necklace here, and the bronze butterfly earrings here.

This necklace pays homage to Arkansas’s staple crop while giving back to the Arkansas Foodbank, the largest hunger relief organization in the state. The Arkansas pendant was made by casting real Arkansas rice flowers (from Cornerstone Farm, near Altheimer, AR) in bronze, and it’s also available in sterling silver. 20% of the sales of these necklaces go directly to the Arkansas Foodbank. Each bronze Arkansas Rice Flower Necklace sold raises enough money to fund 58 meals for hungry Arkansans, and each silver necklace funds 67 meals for Arkansans in need. Get the Arkansas Rice Flower Necklace here.

If your mom is as into cats as my mom is, she’ll appreciate the Leonardo da Vinci-Inspired Cat and Mouse necklace from my Gallery Collection inspired by art history. If you’re surprised to learn that the man who painted the Mona Lisa spent a lot of his time observing and sketching cats, I’m with you. “Even the smallest feline is a masterpiece of nature” is a quote attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, whose sketches of felines and studies for a painting he intended to finish portraying the Madonna and child holding a cat attest to the artist’s reverence for the animals. For my da Vinci-Inspired Cat and Mouse Necklace, I chose to focus on this playful fact and add a layer of my own friskiness. This necklace features a large cast bronze medallion impressed with the likeness of one of da Vinci’s cat drawings, and I added a hand-sculpted cast-bronze mouse connector charm above the cat to appear as if it’s stalking the mouse. Click here to get the Bronze Cat and Mouse Necklace.

If your childhood was filled with empty threats, immortalize them on a custom keychain to create the funniest Mother’s Day gift ever. Get the Don’t Make Me Turn This Car Around keychain here, or click here to customize your own keychain.

The perfect gift for mothers, grandmothers or anyone with several special people close to their heart. Wear the birthstones of each little one in your brood. Each mixed stone birthstone cluster necklace is unique. You select up to seven (7) stones for your necklace. Click here to get the custom birthstone cluster necklace from my Birthstone Cluster Collection of jewelry. Be sure to order this one ASAP! The pendants take a few days to make.

If you love the custom birthstone pendant necklace but think mom would be more into a stackable strand version or you’re looking for a custom birthstone necklace that costs a little less, check out the custom birthstone strand necklace here.

And if you already found a necklace here and you’d just like to add a personal touch to it, it’s affordable and easy to add a birthstone or two or three to your necklace. These birthstones are gemstone chips, and they’re the perfect addition to a vertical bar necklace or charm necklace. Just add the necklace you want to your cart (may we suggest the custom vertical bar necklace?) and then add this listing with your chosen birthstone to your cart. Create your own custom birthstone jewelry! These birthstone chips look great with vertical bar necklaces and charm necklaces, but we don’t recommend them for horizontal bar necklaces. Click here to add a birthstone to your necklace.

These dainty, Art Deco Arkansas state necklaces and earrings are simple and beautiful. These little bronze or sterling silver Arkansas charms are cast with a beautiful Art Deco fan pattern and come as a dainty necklace or a set of hoop earrings. Find the Art Deco Arkansas Jewelry here.

Custom name necklaces are a great gift for Mother’s Day! Keep those you love close to your heart, figuratively and literally with this sweet, classic custom name necklace stamped by hand. Click here to get the Personalized Name Necklace.

Is mom your missing puzzle piece? Get a friendship necklace for you and one for mom with these puzzle piece necklace sets. Handmade bronze puzzle piece charms are about one inch across and hang from gold-filled chains. Please note that the pieces don’t fit PERFECTLY together, as is the nature of hand-cast charms (they’re all unique!). But they are cast from matching puzzle pieces. They are available with a decorative, Art Deco pattern or without a pattern and also available on 18-inch and 20-inch chains. Find the Missing Puzzle Piece Friendship Necklaces here.

Is your mom the queen of Bingo? Get her a trophy she can wear to let the world know she plays for keeps. Find the Bingo Queen Necklace here. It’s cast from a real Bingo chip!

My Rose Window Necklace was inspired by the stained glass windows of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and would make a perfect Mother’s Day gift for moms who love to travel and need to stop and admire all the beautiful churches when they do. Find the Rose Window Necklace here. It’s part of my Gallery Collection of jewelry inspired by Art History.

Is the mom in your life a total goddess? Then I bet she’d love something from my Siren Collection of jewelry inspired by Greek mythology. This necklace is the Hera Peacock Necklace inspired by the queen of the Greek gods. Find the whole Siren Collection here to see which god or goddess fits your mom.

If you’ve found a necklace mom will love, but you think she’d like a little bit longer chain for it, add one of these extenders to your order and I’ll attach it to her necklace so it’s ready to gift when it arrives! Get a necklace chain extender here.

Thank you for shopping small and shopping local this Mother’s Day!

Thanks for Voting Bang-Up Betty Jewelry Best Artisan in Arkansas

Bang-Up Betty jewelry voted best artisan crafter in the Arkansas Times's best of Arkansas

I am so grateful and so humbled that y'all voted Bang-Up Betty jewelry best Arkansas artisan crafter in the Arkansas Times's Best of Arkansas 2018. It's so thrilling and so rewarding to hear from you that this little handmade jewelry business I started five years ago is meaningful to someone other than just me and my mama (who still doesn't approve of my nope middle finger necklace, that's for sure). 

I feel that making jewelry has been a part of my life forever. My sister Amy would take me to the original Argenta Bead Company in North Little Rock (where The House of Art is now), and let me pick out beads and make shiny things, and I felt so loved and encouraged by everyone in that shop, especially Ellie Roy, the owner. I made some TERRIBLE jewelry when I was 12 years old, but they let me try to sell it (no one really bought it), and therefore planted the seeds to Bang-Up Betty a long time ago.

Handmade necklaces by Arkansas artisan jewelry designer Bang-Up Betty. Find the I'll Cut You Necklace, Custom Heart Necklace, Made of Magic Unicorn Necklace, Salty Pretzel Necklace and more in the shop. 

I ended up working at Argenta Bead as one of my first jobs (I've always simultaneously had at least 2 jobs, always, because I'm a workaholic) and learned a lot more about making jewelry. I left for college with an arsenal of beaded necklaces I made myself, and I fit right in at the art studio in school. 

I put jewelry away in college and focused on getting a degree in communications (and minoring in binge drinking). I graduated with a good knowledge of marketing, writing, media, design, Español (my actual minor) and my entrepreneurial spirit intact. I interned at marketing firms, film sets and worked at stationery and invitation companies (hey, Mint Julep Paperie!) out of college, which sparked my first small business, Betty Pearl, hand-drawn greeting cards I printed myself. Like my jewelry, the cards were cute, offensive and salty. That's just what I do. 

Betty Pearl Valentine postcards, the prelude to Bang-Up Betty handmade jewelry 

I sold my stuff on street corners (at craft fairs! got you!!) while simultaneously working as a writer and editor in the Little Rock publishing scene until selling $4 cards ran me ragged and I retired Betty Pearl. Pretty soon after that, I found myself back into beads. Creativity and entrepreneurship needs an outlet. 

I made funny, four-letter-word bracelets for my friends as holiday gifts in 2012, after teaching myself how to stamp and drill copper and brass. When the bracelets were a success, I launched an Etsy site to make some money off my handmade jewelry on the side. It got kind of big kind of fast. 

One of the first Bang-Up Betty jewelry designs, a handmade stamped copper bracelet, called the four-letter-word bracelet. You could order customs! You still can in my brass or silver mantra bracelet. Photo by Arshia Khan. 

In the next couple of years, my handmade jewelry was featured in Bust Magazine, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Bustle, Cosmo UK and more. I created my own website. I expanded the business into wholesale, and now stores across the United States carry Bang-Up Betty jewelry, enamel pins, koozies, shirts and more. Oh yeah, I expanded the products as well. There are now about 100 designs in my repertoire, where I started with about four designs. I did all this while maintaining a thriving career as a nonprofit marketing director.

And when I say "all this," I mean all this. I do 98% of this business by myself. Designing and making the jewelry, marketing retail and wholesale jewelry, maintaining the website, fulfilling orders, photographing products, attending markets and craft shows, planning events, professional development, bookkeeping... that's all me. Shout out to Collin Buchanan and Katie Childs Photo for photography help and Lee Lee Arts + Design for graphic design help. 

Anyway, I've derailed from thanking you for voting Bang-Up Betty jewelry best artisan (for the fourth time!!). I guess I just wanted to share a little bit behind why this makes me feel so special. It's a lot of work (see above paragraph) to start, manage and expand your own business, especially if you yourself MAKE nearly every single thing that you sell. And it can be really scary to put your art out there, especially if it tends to lean one way politically and you live in a state that trends the opposite way. Sometimes my hands hurt, but my heart is always full. Thank you. 

Handmade jewelry artisan Stacey Bowers (AKA Bang-Up Betty) in her studio in North Little Rock, Arkansas, with her popular Smash the Patriarchy hammer. Photo by Katie Childs. I'm talking about myself in the third person. This is weird. But, you know, captions. 

A Weekend in Custom Necklaces II (or Escape to L.A.)

Last week custom requests were a little confused...

These are just a handful of my favorites from last week that I made before heading to L.A. for the holiday weekend to collect bacteria from Nicolas Cage's hand prints at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Fun fact: the first movie my sweetheart Collin and I watched together was "The Wicker Man."

Anyway.... jewelry...

The best thing about that spectacular WWJD necklace is that it stands for "What Would Janet Do?" because Janet Young, duh. (Hey, Janet!) And somebody's smokin' bff got a "pole dancer" necklace to complement her g-string.

And finally, Sydney Brazil made my heart explode when she ordered this "Strong As Hell" necklace. Why? Because she's a Thea Foundation scholarship winner who could tap dance your face off and she is STRONG AS HELL! Sydney, I can't wait to watch you go to college and travel the world so my working ass can live vicariously through you.

I'll end this post with a flashback to 1999 and let you count the WWJD bracelets I wore...