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A Promise to My Father
Baby Amy with her late father. I was a daddy’s girl. He loved me so much, and I was his everything. But the story didn’t begin that way....

Amy Astaraee
Aug 19, 20252 min read


It Was Never About Money. It Will Never Be.
A young Amy Astaraee, in the early days of Brax, examining a diamond ring. Recently, I was reading The Art of Living by Thích Nhất Hạnh ,...

Amy Astaraee
Aug 19, 20253 min read


The Day I Became Mrs. Brax
How I accidentally started a business, chose a name on the freeway, and got married all in one weekend. It was a Friday around noon in...

Amy Astaraee
Aug 16, 20253 min read


$30,000, No GPS, and a Whole Lot of Faith
My first buying trip in downtown L.A., and how the road appeared when I started walking it. I was driving… and driving… and driving,...

Amy Astaraee
Aug 16, 20253 min read


The First 5-Carat Diamond I Ever Sold
How one woman’s trust gave me the courage to keep going , and how her daughter brought the story full circle 20 years later. “I’m looking...

Amy Astaraee
Aug 15, 20253 min read


Brax Girl Ed 31: Lydea Swit
From College Crush to Coastal Forever Lydea and Roberto’s love story began in 2017, during a college internship in San Francisco. What...

Team Brax
Aug 11, 20253 min read


The Ring That Broke My Heart, and Made Me a Designer
I opened Brax Jewelers in 2005, inside a small jewelry mart. My rent was $1,000. My startup capital? A $30,000 loan from my mom. That’s...

Amy Astaraee
Jul 30, 20252 min read


The Princess I Chose to Be
Becoming Her: The Memories of a Brax Girl Last night, my 12-year-old daughter and I decided to watch a movie together. The new Disney...

Amy Astaraee
Jul 28, 20252 min read


I Found My Way Back Through Words
How reading saved my business, and why I’m writing again now. The Girl Who Wrote I’ve always had a thing for words. As a little girl, I...

Amy Astaraee
Jul 27, 20252 min read
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