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…Building a Business – Find Your Motivation

When starting a creative business you have to start somewhere and frequently one finds oneself starting out of necessity. You may want an unconventional career or some extra money on the side and that is why you start your own business. Maybe you need a few festive scarves so you take up knitting. Maybe you need some wall art so you do some black and white photography. Maybe you found a ratty chair on the side of the road and need it for your new baby’s nursery (this may be a true story) and learn to make a slipcover.

I started Blue Egg Brown Nest when I needed kitchen chairs for my new home. We had no budget for furniture and so I made my DH pick up some old, wheat-back chairs off Craigslist. He was truly skeptical when unloading them at my in-laws house where we were staying while building. To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing either or if I had just wasted a 100 bucks.

Here is one after cleaning, stripping, sanding. sigh. Actually, my sweet DH did all that gross work

I ordered about 5 boxes of milk paint from The Real Milk Paint Store, a bottle of white adhesive a something called tung oil. Oh my!

They make many different colors, but I was after something specific. It took a week to achieve.

These are still the chairs that my kids have breakfast at every morning. I heart them. And when I don’t anymore I will just paint them again!

When you are ready to start your creative business, begin at the beginning – with yourself. You will appreciate the gift you have made yourself with your own hands and you will use it because of it’s personal quality. Then once you have experimented and perfected it you are ready to share it with the rest of us!

Got a creative business that you’d like me to highlight? Email me and I will pick one for the month of February!

xoxo

…Building Series – Buildling a Business

If you are thinking about building a business or have started your own little business, you know it’s taken a good 20/30/40 years to prepare you for what you are embarking on. You have history and practice and observation on your side.

I grew up watching my dad design and hand-make jewelry. My sister and I would watch him put those funny magnifying jewelers glasses on, work with long, skinny tweezers twisting and molding metal wire. He’d sink the soldered piece in the acid that made a “szzzzz” sound, slosh it around in a mason jar of water and then heat the piece again with his jeweler’s torch. He worked with his hands to create amazing pieces and we wear them all the time. You have no idea the jewelry boxes and hat boxes and trunks my sister & mom have filled with his pieces.

(This is my daughter designing with Papa. Funny how it reminds me of me at his side.)

I went to college, majored in English and was going to write books. Unfortunately, that doesn’t pay the rent until you are actually published.

Then I got a job. Marketing. In a design firm and it was a perfect fit for me. Images, photo shoots, writing, graphics. Kinda what I find myself doing 50% of the time at Blue Egg Brown Nest. Who knew how handy my background would come in when I used to ride that metro into work day in and day out. Eating my lunch at Lafeyette Park, staring at the the White House from my park bench.

Then came a waiting period in my life when I started trying to have a baby. God said no for many years. And I said yes to my own pottery studio in my basement, with wheel & kiln & hand-made glazes. It always felt natural to work with my hands and get messy.

(1 month after Reid was born. I just couldn’t help myself!)

I don’t mean to sound self-indulgent. I recount my past to discuss my present. When I look back it really feels like I was building levels and layers to my story and to my current business. There are things that I will try and accomplish now (or at least take the risk of trying) that I would not have if I did not have that framework underneath me. The writing, the marketing, the designing, etc. I didn’t just happen on furniture painting and blogging. I had no budget for pieces and experimented on 8 kitchen chairs off Craigslist. The necessity of needing furniture turned into wanting it all around me! And as a sidebar, I never read a blog in my life before starting my own! (shhhhhhh)

That is my story.

Many of you have asked me how to grow a business or get started or how did I get started. It wasn’t one thing that led me here. It was many things and many more things and right now it works for me. In a few years it may not work. Who knows. If I were able to share any advice I would say reflect on the things you’ve done & built & may be good at or curious about. I don’t really believe the message that you can do anything you set your mind to. I find it misleading. Yes, perhaps you could physically and/or mentally do it. But, would it be right for you? Would it be organic and natural for you? Would you be happy or good at it? Would it be fruitful? Would it end up frustrating you in the end and be unsatisfying. I do believe God has a plan for all of us, but he doesn’t show us the full hand of cards all at once. He reveals it slowly over a lifetime and if we are diligent and listen close enough we will hear & understand…maybe.

xoxo