“I like to call myself a freestyle jeweler because usually I don’t know what I’m going to make when I sit down at the workbench.”

Rachel Pheffer got her big break from a little someone called Beyonce. When the singer posted an Instagram sporting one of Rachel’s honeycomb necklaces, “a customer in the Netherlands tagged me!” she says. But her brush with the Beyhive wouldn’t have happened if Rachel stuck to her original plan. As she explains on her website, “I grew up in my family’s jewelry store in Western Massachusetts and I had no desire to be a jeweler whatsoever.” But once she started designing in her spare time, she couldn’t stop. Now she loves to lose herself in the process. “I like to call myself a freestyle jeweler because usually I don’t know what I’m going to make when I sit down at the workbench,” she says. False starts make it all the more fun: “When I finish something that’s perfect, it’s like a rush of adrenaline.”