Juli's Story

  I love to be creative, and it is my therapy. I realized at one point that I couldn’t possibly use everything I created, even though I love each piece, and I could only gift so much. I decided to start selling some of my creations so that they could bring joy to someone else and it helps to support my habit. It is essential for me to make a quality product that brings joy and meaning to people. I love it when one of my creations finds a forever home and brings joy to someone. Every product is made with love and a vision of someone that will love and treasure it. I like to visualize that person using and enjoying the item they purchased or received as a gift.
     My mother was a very crafty and creative person. I loved watching her create and yearned to jump in there with her. I didn’t share the same creative talents as her so creating together didn’t work out well. I found my talent in beading because I had a passion for jewelry as a teen. We did find a project we could work together on when I was in my 20’s. I asked her to make me a quilt, and she decided I was going to make it with her help. Not long after we finished it, she was diagnosed with cancer and passed away. I still have that quilt, and it means more to me because we made it together. Her loss threw me into depression, and I used crafting to help pull me out of it and keep me closer to her through the talents of creativity that she passed down to me. I have made it a point to support my children’s creative nature and spend time creating with them. I now craft with my bestie/business partner Dee Dee and often my granddaughter. She started crafting with me at the age of 5, and I believe she will go farther than I ever dreamed I could go.
     My mission is to bring beauty to my customers and their homes or help them find the perfect gift that brings the same to the recipient. I feel that everyone deserves to experience that special feeling of joy that a unique quality purchase or gift can bring. We all want to feel beautiful and have our homes show our personality. I think a handmade item is the most unique way to do this. I feel I was given these creative talents so that I could share and bring joy to someone else’s life.
     I have had many failed ideas and projects over the years, and I just pull them apart and create something new. I have had a couple of failed Etsy shops through the years and learned from them. With each failure something new and better is born. I don’t look at these as failures but as lessons for greatness.

Juli

     

What I Wish I Knew Then

      Our first "logo" for our first run.

     As a crafter we often hear from family and friends that we should sell our creations, so often that's what we decide to do. We do a little research on local craft shows and decide to sign up and set up. We pay the fee, hunt down a table, sometimes buy a cheap tablecloth, and set up. You lay all your creations out on the table, store your boxes and bins under it and hope for the best. Sounds fairly simple huh?

     You spend the whole day at this craft show and while you're there you're looking around and realizing that your setup isn't going to cut it if you want to continue with this avenue. At the end of the day one of two things happen a.) you've made a couple of sales and you're pretty excited or b.) you didn't have the best of luck and you're questioning your sanity. You go home and hit Pinterest for ideas to up your game with your display and booth and you find soooo many ideas that are just too cool.

     You start purchasing a little of this and a little of that along with a 6-foot table or two and miss-matched floor-length tablecloths. Maybe you built a pegboard display for hanging items and edged it with zebra striped tape, and you found this really cool vintage tiered display and a couple of clear acrylic stands. You print out a sign to tape up somewhere in your booth and you do a practice set-up. Wow, this is so much better than that first set-up. Your tables are covered with longer tablecloths that hide your boxes and bins and your products are displayed at varying heights to help attract attention.      So it's off to the next craft show to give it another shot. You do a little better this time around but it's still not what you're expecting or hoping for (you thought those gemstone earrings were going to sell like hotcakes and you made 50 pairs of them and didn't sell a single pair). While gemstone earrings are all the rage, and they should have sold at least some, nobody even looked at yours. You go home wondering why. You start to doubt yourself and your talent. Maybe people were just trying to be nice when they said you should sell your creations.

     Now is when you have to decide if you're going to stick it out or throw in the towel. If you decide to stick it out then it's time to jump on the internet and research, research, research and when you're done, research some more. Or you can save yourself a lot of time and check out Flourish at Artisan Indie they have done all this work for you.

     Your first mistake was not knowing your target market. My partner Dee Dee was constantly telling me if you try to sell to everyone you'll sell to no one. She was on the right track but neither of us had any clue how to fix this. I started researching and implementing different things trying to boost our sales. I started a Facebook page for our business and started posting pictures of our creations. Our pictures were not the greatest ( I started researching photography and learning), our page wasn't getting many likes or followers so I started researching and learning social media management, and we still weren't getting the results we desired. We knew our product was good and appealing, but we weren't catching the attention of the right people.

     When she had to move an hour away she stepped back from the business and I made a go of it on my own. I opened an Etsy shop and listed my items and only made one sale the 2 years I had it open. I thought if I put it on Etsy it would be advertised, and I didn't have to do much. I was dead wrong. This is something I didn't really learn until recently. 

     In 2017 I had an opportunity to partner with my ex-mother-in-law to open a brick and mortar store for handmade only items. I learned a lot from the lady that we rented our space from and I continued to research and learn ( I spent more time doing this than creating at this point). We had a short run as circumstances occurred that had us deciding to close.

This was for our brick and mortar store.

    In 2018 I moved closer to Dee Dee and we partnered up again. We found we were still struggling with sales. I had seen Flourish pop up quite a bit on Facebook and went to check it out. In October I decided to bite the bullet and join. I was overwhelmed at first because I just found the plethora of everything I needed to learn all in one place. I kid you not, I binged Flourish for about two weeks. I watched all the "camp" videos and read all the "camp" learning posts that had been running all summer. I started haphazardly implementing the target market and branding material. I finally reached out to one of the copy experts for some advice on writing descriptions she asked for my shop link and asked me about my target market because she couldn't pinpoint anything from looking at my shop. She asked some very pointed questions that made me realized that I still hadn't nailed it yet. 

     We are still very much a work in progress at this point. We are working on making some changes to our branding now that we finally understand our target audience. You see, you can't effectively brand your business, photograph your product, be effective at social media, or write meaningful copy until you nail the target market question.

     Flourish is by far the best investment I have made for my business. We still have a long way to go but I am already seeing results from the few changes I have made.

This is our current logo that we will be making some changes to.

The Changes Through Time

Northgate Mall November 2012

     Dee Dee and I started out as Hand Made 4 U. We only had jewelry with plans for other items as we both have a multi-talented creative streak. At this time we only did a couple of craft shows and sold to friends. I started a Facebook page but really had no clue what to do with it other than posting our creations (if I only knew then what I know now). We dabbled around at this for a while until she moved to Murfreesboro. The distance made it more difficult for us to craft together and work on planning shows and such so we kind of took a break from it for a while. During this time I opened my first Etsy store. I had one sale the whole 2 years it was open (again if I only knew...).

     One thing we struggled with was photographing our creations. I can't tell you how many times I have photographed the same pieces only to realize they still weren't good enough. As I go through the timeline of that page and look at the photos I cringe. I can see the improvements but it's still cringe-worthy, and I'm sure 5 years from now when I look back on the pictures from now I'll say the same. I should have paid more attention to my Dad's photography sessions.

     In 2016 I teamed up with my ex-mother-in-law and my ex-husband and we opened a craft consignment shop. We had a couple of good runs but ultimately ended up closing in December 2017. My ex-husband had been diagnosed with liver cancer and we knew that Mom needed to focus on him. 

     In 2018 Dee Dee and I teamed up again since I moved closer to her and we are working it the best we can. I joined Flourish at Artisan Indie and have learned so much. I can look back and see all that we have done wrong over the years. We are working hard to learn and implement everything we are learning and expect 2019 to be an awesome year for us with nowhere to go but up!