Lisa Boland Dances with Jewels

She learned precision as a dancer at Scranton Central High. She leaned to organize as a stage manager at DeSales University. And she learned just a little about sales as an administrative assistant at Berger Epstein Realty and at Arbor Insurance Group in Allentown.

So it was time for Lisa Boland to go out on her own as owner and designer of Lisa Boland Jewelry Designs. Because, through most of her 46 years, jewelry has been closest to her heart.

“I always liked jewelry,” Boland said in a recent interview in her dining room. “I’m a girl.’’

Boland has the background to run her own jewelry business from her Lower Macungie home. She has a website, and she's on Facebook. And she has the skill to make her own products. Hers is a one-woman business.

“I never thought about making jewelry until the one time my friend took me into a bead shop in Washington, D.C., in 1990s,” she said. “I got hooked.

“I saw all the different beads and it was like candy. It still is. There is something delicious about the colors. I took classes and ended up teaching down there. I started selling at home parties.”

But then she moved back to Allentown with husband Jim Post, a business analyst with a software company, and started a family. Her interest in the jewelry business waned. It became a hobby again.

After about 10 years, Boland reentered the jewelry business because “everybody was telling me to go full-time.’’

Despite the increase in the price of silver -- a silver chain that was $8 several years ago now sells for $20 -- she Boland has kept the prices of her pieces capped at $50. Her collection includes mostly earrings, necklaces and bracelets, all of which can be seen on her website.

She currently has about 100 pieces for sale, and plans to continuing making them from the guest room of her  home -- her "queendom," she calls it -- at a more rapid pace now that her son Benjamin, 8, has returned to school. At least until demand increases.

“I still use Swarovski rock crystal because of the way it sparkles,’’ she said. “Nothing else but diamonds sparkle like that.“

She said she’s 95 percent self-taught from using books or seeing something and figuring out how its constructed.

“I’ve seen flowers and made them into a piece of jewelry,” she said.

She recently held Tupperware-style parties with her friends and did so well that she quit her job with the insurance company and decided to work at home starting this summer.

“Selling online is great , but I really like to do home parties, where people see the jewelry first-hand,” she said. “It gets me out of the house and it’s a fun night out for the women who come. They get to see my work close up.’’

She said she’s using Facebook to promote the parties, and she already has three people who want to host them through November.

“You entice them with some free jewelry and they get to have a fun night with their friends,” Boland said. “ Put out some wine and some snacks.  I do all of the display and everything like that.”

Reminiscent of her dancing years, Lisa Boland is again doing what she loves. With precision.