Rachel Franco is an entrepreneur on Collective-E | Learn more about Rachel Franco

Rachel Franco is not your typical artist. But her love of contradictions turned a unique concept into reality.

Entrepreneurship runs in Rachel's family, so when she was downsized from her corporate career in 2008, this Atlanta-based designer saw it as a blessing. She reflects, "It was truly the best thing that ever happened to me. It gave me the freedom and the space to explore what I really wanted to do in my life professionally."

Inspired by a fabric-wrapped bowl, Rachel launched JaLa Designs, LLC, a unique, handcrafted jewelry line that combines semi-precious stones and metals with beautiful designer silk and tapestry fabrics, many from around the world. Leveraging Rachel's love of contradictions, each JaLa piece is meant to be a fashionable reminder to, as JaLa’s tagline and mantra suggests, “Be yourself and the rest will follow”. Please visit http://www.jala-designs.com to view the collection.

But that's not all. Rachel is also a writer and creative thinker, leading her to form RAF Communications, a marketing and communications firm providing writing and editing services to businesses of all sizes (and located anywhere in the world). More info: http://www.raf-communications.com.