St. Thomas sophomore Erin Rudd began her spring semester by turning a hobby into a jewelry-making business, Rings by Rin.

Rudd creates rings out of antique silverware that she finds and sells the rings through her Instagram page.

“Originally, I was making them around Christmas, and I was just going to make them as presents for my sisters and my friends,” Rudd said. “I had over 100 people say they would buy one so I made an Instagram page and went for it.”

A picture online inspired her to create her own rings.

“Me and my mom went to an antique shop and we found five old spoons and I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to figure this out’,” Rudd said. “It took me eight hours to make one and it turned out fine. I made five of them and I started wearing them and people were like ‘woah those are cool!’”

To create the rings, Rudd uses a crank to bend them into the correct size.

“I don’t use any heat or anything, it’s all by hand. I use a crank with different sizes and then I push it in and it bends it. I measure them out and then cut them, (and) shave the edges so they aren’t stabbing people,” Rudd said. “I’ve gotten it down to making one ring in five minutes. It used to take a couple hours to make one.”

Since launching her business on Instagram, Rudd releases a new collection of spoons that sell out quickly each week.

“I can make all those in two to three days,” she said. “I released probably like 40 spoons on my last launch and they all sold out under 10 minutes, it was crazy.”

Rudd’s friend and St. Thomas sophomore Gracie Anderson has watched Rudd’s business grow from the beginning.

“It’s been really cool to see people from St. Thomas and back home want to buy rings from her. I didn’t know it was going to blow up so fast, so that’s awesome,” Anderson said.

Rudd typically finds the silverware she uses online or in antique shops. One ring is priced at $15 or two for $25. Occasionally, she’ll also get requests to do custom orders.

“I’ve had requests like, ‘I want a sunflower ring,’ so I’ll search on eBay trying to find a spoon with a sunflower end. For those ones I’ll charge a little extra because I had to find it,” Rudd said.

Rudd wants to keep her business small for now, but she is starting to think about how to grow.

“I had someone message me on my account the other day asking if I wanted help setting up a website,” Rudd said.

She isn’t sure about the leap from an Instagram page to a full-fledged website because of time.

“I’m on the swim team here too, it’s a lot. It’s kind of nice to just keep it on my own schedule,” Rudd said.

Rudd’s love to create and share her jewelry has helped her get where she has gotten today.

“I get so excited anytime I see someone wearing one of my rings, I never thought this many people would be wearing something I made,”

Emilie Cleveland can be reached at clev5695@stthomas.edu.