Judy & Jean Handmade Goods
Vendor
About
Our mission is to create beauty through every hand-crafted product, creator collaboration, and customer experience. Right now, our products are focused on polymer clay earrings, stickers, graphic design and photography prints, scrunchies, and other handmade goods!
Location
Bentonville, AR
Manager
Mariah Christ & Claire Carriere
Hi there, Claire and Mariah! We are the founders of judy&jean handmade goods!
We were both student ministry directors at our alma mater, John Brown University, and have been friends since college (almost 9 years) and business partners since October 10, 2020.
We’re vastly different people, and while that’s great in friendship, it has been interesting starting a business together. While Mariah has dreamed of owning her own shop for most of her life, Claire was just excited about the newness of the opportunity.
Our first collaborative decision came when we decided on a name. Claire wanted to call it Brown Paper Packages, but Mariah wisely noted that the name had nothing to do with the products, and that from a branding perspective, it was more confusing than cute.
Building a brand is hard. Encompassing the vision of two vastly different people is much more difficult. After many debates, we decided it best to accentuate our differences.
The ampersand signifies our crossing points and is our attempt to highlight the beauty of our diversity. Knowing that our vision for this endeavor will ebb and flow as we move forward, we decided to name the company after something that would be constant and always be cherished: Our love for our grandmas’ passion for life and creating beautiful things and beautiful experiences.
Claire’s great-grandmother who passed just before she left for college was named Judy. Mariah’s grandmother who passed a few months before our founding was named Jean.
Both of these women played influential roles in our lives, and this shop is a way to honor their legacy. They were wise women who always believed in us and inspired us to chase our dreams, and so we are thrilled to be able to honor them in this way.
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