Woman builds jewelry business as she reclaims a creative life

Felicita Woods has always had a passion for fashion.

As a young girl in her native San Juan, Puerto Rico, she focused that flair for fashion on her Barbie doll — making new outfits or adding accessories to make her Barbie the most stylish around.

As a teenager, she designed jewelry for herself and her friends. After high school, she left Puerto Rico to study fashion design at a college in Baltimore.

And then life happened. Marriage. Kids. Divorce. Work. New love.

Now, at “a young 55” and living in Colorado Springs, she has finally focused that fashion sense into a career with Felicita Designs, a growing, one-woman jewelry business.

Her outlets so far are few but mostly prestigious and include shops at The Broadmoor hotel, itself a jewel of the Pikes Peak region.

About two years ago, when The Broadmoor agreed to carry her jewelry, “I say to myself, ‘This is my business now.’ I could not believe it,” Woods said. “Just think about it. I could not contain myself.”

A career on hold

Growing up, Woods dreamed of being a ballerina.

“My father thought that dancing, it was not the right thing for me, because at that time they thought it was lower, that it was not a good profession.”

But the fashion-infused culture of San Juan provided an automatic fallback. In her senior year of high school, Woods entered a work/study program that allowed her to apprentice in the fashion industry. One of her first jobs: modeling for none other than Oscar de la Renta, one of the world’s leading fashion designers.

Woods also found work on TV, acting in several commercials and on a local soap opera, and appearing several times a week in the Vanna White role on a Puerto Rican version of “Wheel of Fortune.”

At 18, she moved to Baltimore. She lived there with a friend from Puerto Rico and studied fashion, but her education was cut short when she fell in love with her friend’s boss, a Swiss man.

They were married for 21 years and raised two children as Woods put her career on hold.
She had been divorced for four years and was working as a translator at the Baltimore airport when she met Dennis Woods, who was the Secret Service liaison agent at the airport.

The two went out for coffee one day, “and it just went from there,” Dennis Woods said. So when he was transferred to the Secret Service office in Colorado Springs, he asked Felicita to come with him.

At first, she wasn’t keen on the idea on living in the West; “I’m more of a cosmopolitan person,” she said. But she quickly fell in love with the beauty of the Pikes Peak region. In fact, Dennis Woods said, “I think actually I was kind of a secondary thought.”

It was in Colorado that Woods’ creative spirit “was reignited,” as she puts it. She used her interior design training to decorate friends’ homes, assisted businesses with window and display designs, and modeled for sales shows and volunteer groups for charity auctions. As in high school, she also began making jewelry for herself and friends.

Then, a few years ago, she formed Felicita Designs. Like her father, who had been a contractor in San Juan, she wanted her own business, she said — “and it’s never too late.”

One-of-a-kind pieces

In addition to creating and selling her own jewelry, Woods sells jewelry that she buys from the Santo Domingo Pueblo in New Mexico, an Indian tribe known for its craftsmanship.

“She’s very, very picky,” said Carmella Tenorio, a tribe member who sells some of her creations to Woods. “She makes sure she gets the right piece.”

When it comes to making her jewelry, Woods works in a basement studio of her home near Garden of the Gods. She works with sterling silver, semi-precious stones, crystals, glass beads and pearls in crafting necklaces, earrings and other pieces; she shies away from gold because it’s too expensive, she said.

Her intent with each piece, she said, is to make it one of a kind; her hope is that it will give the woman wearing it “an inner confidence.”

“I have a lot of ideas,” she said. “I wake up in the morning, bingo, I have another idea. I just have to jot it down.”

To create her pieces, she works with a silversmith and at times also gets a little help from The Bead Corner in Monument.

Elaine Teevens, owner of The Bead Corner and a former special-education teacher, hires a few adults with developmental disabilities to do stringing.

Because of the work that Woods is providing, “we’re now going to be able to hire a few more of these individuals,” Teevens said. “She is very supportive of what we’re doing here.”

And, Teevens added, “she’s one talented woman. Wow.”

That’s an assessment that Rhonda Kenny, The Broadmoor’s director of retail operations, echoes. While Woods’ husband helped open the door to The Broadmoor for Felicita, it was her creative designs that sealed the deal.

Dennis Woods had a friend who worked at The Broadmoor, and that friend called Kenny, asking her to look over Felicita’s wares.

“I get that all the time,” Kenny said. “But when we looked at her jewelry, it was fabulous.”
Felicita Woods is not the only local vendor represented at The Broadmoor’s shops, Kenny said.

“We like local vendors, and our guests do, too, because when they come here they like a little bit something of Colorado.”

Woods’ jewelry is sold at two Broadmoor stores, Villiers and Spirit of the West — and it sells very well, Kenny said.

Her pieces sell from less than $100 to $1,500 or so.

The jewelry is unique, Kenny said. While many of Woods’ designs have a Western flair, “they’re also very trendy and stylish, so you don’t have to be a Western person to enjoy it.”

Woods wants to grow her business — and her dreams are not modest. “I think I’m going to Neiman Marcus and try to carry my line there,” she said. “Or Nordstrom. I’m ready to send a letter, my portfolio and some samples.”

At the same time, she marvels at the success she’s had so far.

Her husband, though, says it’s only the beginning.

“She has a wonderful personality that opens doors for her all the time,” Dennis Woods said.
“I’m not surprised at her success because she’s very focused.”
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Contact the writer at 636-0272.