Beauty and Business: Ivette Kjelsrud's Business Story

For Ivette, the founder of Ive & Co., creating beauty isn’t a business strategy—it’s a way of life. Based in Huson, Montana, just outside Missoula, she describes herself as a lifestyle artist and her work as a blend of artistry, intentional living, and space refinement that’s entirely her own. 

“I create art, refine spaces, and elevate lifestyles,” she explains. But this offering didn’t come from a business plan. It came from within. Since she was little, her interest in spaces has been about how the energy and psychology of a space affects the person living there, looking deeper than simply decorating a space.  

Ivette’s journey has been about more than launching a brand. It’s about trusting her vision—even when others didn’t understand it.

A New Kind of Offering 

Ivette doesn’t call what she does coaching, and she doesn’t call it interior design.  She calls it “fine lifestyle design,” which brings together fine art, intentional spaces, and inner-outer transformation. “It’s a way of being that essentially helps you transform with ease, from the inside out and the outside in,” she says. 

This wasn’t always easy to explain. “There was even one marketing coach that told me, ‘I can help you if you do interior design. I can help you if you do coaching. But you can’t do both.’” That feedback stayed with her, at first. But over time, Ivette came to realize that what she was offering was something new. While it affected her confidence for a while, she soon realized that she didn’t need to make everyone understand her ideas, as long as they could feel it.  

Growth Through Community and Intuition 

While Ivette works alone, community has played an essential role in her business journey. She is active in the Missoula art scene and loves to participate in First Fridays and has art fairs, surrounding herself with other artists and creative people. 

As her business evolved into interiors and lifestyle design, she leaned on online communities and connections with other designers to learn the business side of things. 

One major influence in her work has been human design, a personal development system that helped her better understand herself—and now forms the foundation of the inner transformation she offers to others. “It was life-changing,” she says.  “It’s one of the guiding lenses through which I offer the inner transformation.” 

Doing Life as Art

In many ways, Ivette’s business is a reflection of her art: layered, emotional, and intuitive. “My art is abstract realism. My business is rooted in science and lived experience, but also abstract. I understand how life-changing it is—but when I try to talk to people, and they don’t immediately get it, that used to shake me.” 

With time and inner work, her confidence grew, realizing she is a visionary – and her work is not for everyone. Now, she knows what she is creating and is excited about the opportunity to work in the intersection of creativity and freedom, while supporting herself through her business.