Lisa Welch Designs: Precious Metals for You and Your Precious Pet

By Jane Singelton

Since childhood, Lisa Welch had the desire to run her own business. Growing up in her hometown of Dayton, Ohio, Lisa focused on her art and at eighteen years old landed a job as commercial artist for the most up-scale jewelry store in Dayton. During this time she attended the Gemological Institute of America where she studied the art of jewelry design.

“It was enticing to me to step into the industry and see what I could do,” Lisa said. And although it was not obvious at the time, Lisa had begun traveling a path that would lead to the realization of her childhood desires.

For the next twenty years, Lisa continued designing for high-end jewelry retail stores and freelancing for a world-renowned designer named Charles Krypell, known for his diamond and colored stone pieces.

In the meantime, having inherited her grandfather’s love of hunting dogs, Lisa chose a Weimaraner puppy as her next companion animal. Immediately Lisa began shopping for “a really cool tag” to put on Roman’s collar. She researched the Internet and could find nothing she wanted. “There was nothing out there in the way of fine dog-theme jewelry for the upscale shopper, the more fashion-savvy consumer. And I thought, well this is kind of silly. I’m a jewelry designer—why don’t I make pet jewelry for his collar. And I did.”

Lisa designed and had a jeweler create a tag for Roman’s collar. “My friend and soon-to-be business partner, Elizabeth Bryson, thought the tag was beautiful. That started us thinking about how we might fill this void in the pet market. And, I began to think it would be really neat if we could create a collection that people would want to buy for their pets.”

So in 2004, Lisa and Elizabeth began creating a small business plan. They reached out to professionals who helped them formulate the company. Two years later, Lisa and Elizabeth launched their newly created collection of pet jewelry. They began by displaying their creations at the bigger AKC dog shows and at pet product industry and gift market shows. Lisa said the response to their designs was so overwhelming at these shows that they began to think, “Hey, we really have something here.”

This year, Lisa and Elizabeth are focusing on improving their already spectacular designs. “What we are doing is so unique that we have no leads to follow. I have to rely on my jewelry industry experience. And with the pet emphasis, we continue to learn. Every day we learn something new. The pet industry is growing so much—there is such a desire for it. And I don’t think it’s going anywhere because pets are so important to people’s lives.”

Lisa’s designs blend sophistication and fun with universal themes of paws, bones and fire hydrants, “That’s what makes my collection different from any other you will see. You’ll usually see breed-specific jewelry—poodle pins or schnauzer pendants. And there’s nothing distinctive about the pieces. My goal is to create pieces that are distinctive, very simple, very elegant, but also sophisticated. I think I’ve done that with the simplicity of my designs and the quality.”

“Also, my designs are reasonably priced. My bone ring, for instance, is $60 retail—it’s heavy, it’s made well, and it’s a real cool ring. That’s why we’re so successful—the quality combined with sophisticated style and finished off with a reasonable price.”

Lisa’s interpretation of a paw print is one happy design, especially when it becomes real in a sterling silver pendant that surrounds an 18-karat gold paw print. When using gold as an accent, Lisa told us, 18-karat gold gives a more beautiful contrast than 14-karat gold.

One of Lisa’s newest designs is a pair of hoop earrings with paw, bone, or fire hydrant dangle. The hinged hoop just goes into the pierced ear and snaps shut. It fits close to the ear with the dangle hanging slightly off the ear. These earrings are called ‘Huggies’ and have been a big seller for Lisa Welch Designs. “It’s a simple design but distinctive and very cool,” Lisa said.

Lisa begins a new design at her drawing board where she sketches every detail. She takes the design to her jeweler who creates a model. She and the jeweler critique the new piece and only when it meets Lisa’s standards, is the piece added to the Lisa Welch Designs Collection.

We asked Lisa where she gets inspiration for her designs. “What really inspires me are other designers—designers of furniture, cars, architecture, jewelry—designers of anything that’s well designed. Designs similar to mine inspire me and designs different from mine inspire me to learn and understand them. Here’s where I get the new ideas that keep me moving in the direction I want to go.”

And Lisa is going far—travel takes up ninety-percent of Lisa’s time. Lisa Welch Designs does all the large AKC dog shows—Boston to Long Beach to Houston to Detroit to Florida—they go everywhere in the United States that the larger AKC dog shows go. “The biggest successes with our designs have come from the owners and the handlers of champion dogs in the show world. These people are so much of our clientele. They have made us successful.”

“We haven’t gotten to the Westminster Show yet because there is such a long list of vendors waiting to get in there. But what I see, the dogs that are Best in Show are my customers already. That is very gratifying, because we have reached out to all the professionals in the dog world.”

When Lisa is on the road, Elizabeth takes care of Roman and the business. Travel and hotel rooms are difficult for Roman. And for Lisa, all the travel is physically hard. “But it’s wonderful, because I’ve been behind desks and trapped in jewelry stores for twenty years! It’s what I want to do and it’s my own work. I’m out in different cities, meeting different people, and I’ve found so much growth in it personally.”

The official model for Lisa Welch Designs is Lisa’s niece, Heather Poffenberger, who often travels with Lisa and also helps with sales. Heather is just now starting to look for a puppy, and she wants a chocolate Lab, Lisa said. From being at the shows and meeting Lab owners, Heather decided that the Labrador Retriever is the breed for her. “So I’m sure, that as soon as she gets a puppy, we’ll be having a new photo shoot featuring the two of them! And I’m sure we’ll have that chocolate Lab on the home page of our web site.”

A lot of Lisa’s customers are Lab owners. And at the big shows, the owners and handlers bring their dogs with them when they visit Lisa’s booth. So she gets to enjoy the Labs as customers, and their owners as customers. “I’ve sold a lot of Lisa Welch Designs pendants for Labradors and for their people.”

“I’ve been in the jewelry business for a long, long time, and when I sell a creative piece of jewelry for someone’s pet, it’s an emotional purchase for that person. The experiences I’ve had verify that it is a much more emotional experience to buy a piece of jewelry for one’s pet than it is for a person to buy a custom engagement ring. That says something!”

For custom designs, Lisa works one-on-one with her client, then goes to the drawing board to illustrate her one-of-a-kind design so the piece can be visualized to exact scale and dimension. A sketch of a diamond ring in the Custom Design section of Lisa’s web site www.lisawelchdesigns.com, is part of a fun experience Lisa told us about.

“A lady came to me for a custom design for her engagement ring. She had a big diamond she wanted to reset, since this was her second marriage. The lady had such a strong love for her animals and her dogs, she wanted me to create a canine-themed diamond engagement ring for her—she wanted dog bones on her $30,000 ring. So that’s what we did! The bones are very subtle, very understated, and very beautiful, nestled among many, many small diamonds set pave'. Then the whole creation is crowned with the customer's big and beautiful family diamond."

Other custom designs by Lisa include medallions for the various kennel clubs, each design unique to each club. And, Lisa was the first to design golden Best in Show medallions for the winning dog, to be placed around the dog’s neck at the time the owner receives his/her awards.

“We do plan to expand Lisa Welch Designs,” Lisa said. “Our goal is to reach out to a lot of retailers throughout the country, meaning we will have an even larger volume production. We are still so young and new at what we are doing in the pet industry. But I have a lot of faith and confidence that people will recognize our product—once we are out there more—as being something really desirable and fresh and new. Our goal on down the road includes having our designs in the larger department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, and Harrods.” We are sure we will see them there, but for the near term you can catch Lisa Welch Designs in our All Labs store.